Director: Gary King (What’s Up Lovely, New York Lately)
Writer: Bo Buckley
Producers: Bo Buckley, Justin Soponis
Starring: Christina Rose, Jack Abele, William Lee, Michael Blaustein
MPAA Rating: NR
Running time:

(3.5/5)

Midnight madness festivals and screening were made for exactly this type of fare. A feature film not penned by the director himself really tests the waters of ingenuity and creativity in the film maker. New ideas and interesting ways of tackling familiar territory must be employed to give the audience something new. For the most part, King’s first feature film without the benefit of his own personal script manages to do just that. That isn’t to say you might not want to imbibe a stimulant or two before your screening.

Death of the Dead is essentially a farce movie for zombie and martial arts fans and has all the requisites needed for a good midnight romp. Jokes galore, half-naked pudding fights, testicle nun-chuks, explosions, hot chick in leather kicking ass and of course flesh-eating zombies. The film is never really all that scary, but the gore gets amped up quite often and the make-up effects for the creatures is absolutely top notch. Genre fans looking for some popcorn fun should have a really good time howling along with the cast and crew members who are all obviously having a really good time making this film.

The more “enlightened” one is on these type of low budget horror pictures, the more fun one is likely to have at a screening. It isn’t a requisite of course, but the references from Troll 2, Karate Kid, Black Dynamite and the like should keep more knowledgeable film lovers smiling and nodding with the proverbial punches. Not every joke is a laugh out loud riot; many of them are Troma-esque fodder to the most obvious of degree. But throw enough of them at the audience and many stick and stick hard. So even if you’re not rolling in the aisle at every turn, it’s easy to walk away from the movie with lots of great, repeatable quotations from the script. In short, it’s way funnier than I had anticipated or the trailer lets on and the stinger at the end gives the audience that instant shot in the arm for laughter and applause. My late night screening at The Flyway Film Festival left everyone with huge smiles on their faces as they exited the theater.

Of course without some solid characters on screen most of the intent of the film would fall to pieces anyway. Luckily the casting director made some awesome choices; especially for the film’s lead. Christina Rose plays Wanda, a nerdy, bullied, good-for-not-much nobody constantly running from any challenge presented to her. A wanna-be karate expect, Wanda is even put down by her master sensei who has zero faith in her abilities (or lack thereof). When fate decides that Wanda must step up to the plate and save the world from an onslaught of hungry undead, Wanda delivers hard core vengeance one zombie at a time. So for this character, multiple personas must be brought to the table and Rose does an amazing job of “bringing it;” and looking rather fetching at the same time (with both personas). From social outcast to Eliza Dushku style ass-kickery, Rose obviously dove into the role with both feet flying and really made sure there was something likable and cheer worthy for this main character.

High art this is not, but it’s bucket loads of blood, blam and buffoonery. The instant a boom mic is visible in frame or the fourth wall is broken lovingly or sometime sardonically, you know what sort of film you’re in for. If props or plot points seem to just drop into the story magically or events occur that simply don’t make sense, that would normally spell doom for just about any production. But if your characters literally are able to verbally explain it away to the audience, it becomes comedic gold.

More information on the film can be found in some of the links below. If you’re really lucky, you’ll be able to find a screening at some local festival, otherwise wait for the DVD to be released, order it on Amazon along with a 12-pak, invite a couple hundred friends over and enjoy the ride. I can promise it won’t be easily forgotten.

 
LINKS:
IMDb
Official blog
Facebook
Flyway interview with King