DVD Review: THE DEAD (2010)

 
THE DEAD
Written and Directed by:  The Ford Brothers
(Howard J. Ford, Jonathan Ford)

I recently had the privilege of watching the film, THE DEAD.   I could easily make this my shortest review ever.  I could just make this a 4 word review and be done.  It would look like this:



THE PERFECT ZOMBIE FILM



There, that's it.  That is all that needs to be said. But, the film deserves a little more "air time" than that, so I will go into a little more detail, although I dont' really think it is needed.   THE DEAD is a UK production shot primarily in Africa and features some of the greatest looking zombies I have ever seen.  Howard and Jonathan Ford have matched their zombie skills with those of Romero and Fulci, and they might have even surpassed them.  I know that is a bold statement, but I don't need to defend it.  The film will do that for me.    Before I go any further, there is the basic plot of THE DEAD from the film's official website:

An American mercenary, the sole survivor of a plane crash, has to run the gauntlet across Africa, battling with the living dead. Joining forces with a local military man, desperately searching for his son amongst the chaos, they fight together to survive, in the first Zombie Road-Movie set against the stunning backdrop of Africa.

This is a beautiful film in many ways.  The music is superb and the cinematography is outstanding.  The acting is excellent as well and the story is simple and super easy to follow.   I love the fact that we mainly just have 2 main characters throughout the film.   The rest are the undead.   Some zombie films get to involved with a deep plot and multiple characters and sometimes the zombies become a backdrop for the more human drama element that is on the surface.  Not this film.  This film is about the zombies.  Now, don't get me wrong, there is some human drama in the film (including a tear jerking scene with a newly bit mother giving up her baby as more zombies are approaching) but the majority of the film is comprised of our two main survivors traveling across the country fighting off zombies.   This leads to some of the greatest zombie kills I have seen on film in a  long time.

As I stated before, the zombies in this film look amazing.  The zombie plague has happened quite quickly so these are all mostly newly turned zombies, none of the up from the grave half rotted types from some zombie films.  In fact, these zombies reminded me more of the voodoo zombies from early films like WHITE ZOMBIE and others from that decade.    There are some zombies with missing limbs and such, and I guarantee they used actual African citizens that were missing limbs....although, with as good as some of the other make up and effects were in this film, who knows! 

I really don't remember the last time I enjoyed watching a zombie flick this much.   I have watched all of the last few Romero "of the dead" films, and even he can't match now what he did back in the 60's, 70's, and 80's with his classic zombie films like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAY and DAWN OF THE  DEAD.   The Ford Brothers have easily matched, if not surpassed these great films with their film simply titled, THE DEAD.  

THE DEAD is in a  limited theatrical release now, but keep your eye out for this film when it lands on DVD soon.....this is a must have, must see, for any fan of horror, and if you are a zombie fan in particular, get ready to be blown away.   I just can't say enough good things about this film.  This is now one of my new favorite zombie films of all time.  Check it out for sure!


CLICK HERE to visit the film's official website
CLICK HERE to watch the trailer