Review of Shadow: Dead Riot (2006) by Brian S — 23 Feb 2011

It's at least three by-the-numbers flicks rolled into one. One can almost hear a pitch for this one... "People love zombie flicks, and they love kung fu flicks, and the love women-in-prison flicks, so let's do all three together!" And so they did.

What we get here is Tony Todd (Candyman) in a really, really bad dreadlocks wig as Shadow, a supernaturally-powered murderer who comes back from the grave at a women's prison for a final kung fu showdown with one of his super-powered relatives. She can kick down steel doors, she can leap tall buildings at a single bound, and, most importantly, she can beat up other women prisoners. She spends a good deal of the film doing just that as we wait for Shadow and his undead minions to start munching on things. The fight choreography is one of the best things about this flick. We also get a gigantic muscle-bound woman zombie and a flesh-eating baby zombie, though, courtesy of the prison doctor injecting inmates with some of Shadow's blood, which he's kept around for the last 20 years for just such purposes. The undead baby may be one of the worst attempts at a special effect ever. It never actually moves and it looks as much like a real baby as a rubber chicken looks like a real chicken (in fact, I suspect it may have been a novelty rubber baby toy).

But I've left out the most important part: the shower scenes. This is a women-in-prison film, too, and there must be shower scenes. About a fifth of this movie is set in a shower. There's lots of all-girl nudity. It doesn't add to the intellectual appeal of this mindless, formulaic junk, but at least it's likely to distract straight male viewers from Tony Todd's bad make-up and worse acting.

I suggest an alternative title for this one: Crouching Tiger Hidden Zombie Women Behind Bars . I'm not sure who to recommend it to. If you can't make up your mind between seeing a cheezy supernatural horror flick, a zombie movie, and a grindhouse women-in-prison flick, now you don't have to!