Review of The Dead (2010) by Alicia J — 23 Feb 2012

The Dead is a pleasantly surprising film that feels more like a Romero zombie film than many recent zombie outings. The story is reasonably standard for a zombie film, but I liked that it was set in Africa.

The writing and dialogue is good throughout most of the film, however a couple of places feel a little awkward. The editing feels pretty rough in spots and I have a feeling that the directors ran out of ideas for cut-aways during the numerous driving scenes and there are a lot of driving scenes in the film.

The acting is largely good and the lead actors manage to portray their characters effectively and even illicit some emotion from the audience towards the end of the film. The zombies themselves are a bit hit and miss, some are remarkably convincing and others are, well, not so much.

I will admit though that it was nice to see the slower, shambling zombies again after many years of the 'fast zombie' craze. The makeup and visual effects were quite well done with a nice mix of practical and computer generated effectsand though the cg effects are noticeable, they don't distract from the film.

Some may find this film a little slow and there isn't a whole lot of crowd-pleasing death scenes, but there is still a lot to enjoy here and this is a must see for any fans of the genre. Or even those that prefer a slightly more intelligent horror film than most are delivering.

Not a perfect film, but well worth a look.