Dead Again

In a quiet rural English community, a zombie apocalypse is unleashed and the various locals are forced to deal with it.

It's an English zombie comedy. So my initial thought is Shaun of the Dead and this is nothing like that. It's nowhere near that level. The comedy is rather flat. If it's anything, it's more like the Night of the Living Dead but still not as good. It's really an uninspired indie made by a run-of-the-mill film group. It's a good step above student films but it lacks any aspect which could make this good.

Few guys got together and one of them said "Hey I've got an idea. Let's butcher Sean Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and World's End all in one go".

This atrocity is the result.

I'm guessing the film-makers behind 'Dead Again' must be massive fans of the Simon Pegg 'Cornetto Trilogy' as it's effectively a cross between 'Hot Fuzz' and, of course, 'Sean of the Dead.' Sadly, it doesn't even come close to either. It starts off really serious and you think you're going to be in for some world-ending, apocalyptic epic adventure. You get quite the opposite.

A pair of police officers (who are the typical 'funny man' and 'straight man' or discount versions of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg) patrol a quiet little English country town where nothing out of the ordinary ever happens. Naturally, the dead start to rise and cause all kinds of havoc, well, nearly.

Some films don't have a budget that matches their concept, yet can be forgiven because they have other qualities such as a good script which makes up for it. Here, it doesn't have either and when it's not copying lines from 'The Thing' it's adhering to every horror cliche ever. The two policemen are by far the best actors - the others aren't really up to much, but then the script is so clunky the poor actors aren't really given much to work with. There aren't any actors you'll probably recognise (or certainly none that I'd seen in anything else!). Plus the scenes just ramble on and on - whether they're supposed to be 'character building' or 'dramatic' (such as the longest and most boring chase ever through an empty house where the camera simply follows the victim for longer than you could ever wish for).

Also, the direction is weird with strange red filters (with a firework/sparkler at the top) on outside shots and then when they're not using cheap Instagram filters it's like the camera is over-exposed and really bright and overly vibrant. Again, this all adds to the 'cheap factor' and when there are kills, don't expect any good gore. They can't afford that. Just the odd CGI splatter of blood for head shots.

Overall, it feels like a student film - and not a very good one. It is short. That's about the best thing I can say about it.

Ok, so lets get things right: when judging a movie, especially an underground one, please take the budget in consideration. Clearly this one had perhaps a few thousands ready to spend, but I doubt there was any more.

Thus the final product is weird and divided: a first half consisting in nothing more but dialogue with some humor every now and then, and a second one that transformed into a shooter for some reason. Sure zombie movies are cheap and easy to do, they also threw the abandoned building in the mix, so that saved a lot for location, some cheap blood special effects and that was about all.

Anyway, hard to watch, impossible to recommend, it is a movie that tried to take itself serious and perhaps that was its biggest flaw. It just didn't work out, sorry.

Cheers!

Right, well I might as well just be honest and say that this movie, given it's very "Shaun of the Dead" look-alike movie cover and the fact that it is a zombie movie made me sit down to watch the 2021 movie "Dead Again".

And the title actually gives away how you would feel once you watch this movie. Yeah, this movie was a massive swing and a miss.

First of all, the storyline was just not overly well-written. Sure, it was watchable, but it didn't really feel like much effort was put into the writing of the script and storyline. So it felt very much like some kind of home video project.

And then there were the zombies. No. Just no. That didn't work out one bit. Zombies that were sort of half-lurching, half-running? No, it didn't work in favor of the movie. Nor did the fact that there was literally no proper zombie special effects or gory make-up. So the zombies in the movie felt like little more than just extras milling about with some theater paint brushed on their faces.

The characters in the movie definitely had potential. But given the inadequate script and the whole down-the-drain atmosphere permeating from the movie, then it was just near impossible to actually take much of a liking to the characters. I wanted to, sure, but I just couldn't find the angle.

Sure there were some nice enough references to other movies throughout the course of "Dead Again", but given the acting performances and the interaction between the characters, it felt like these attempts were tossed up in the air only to be left falling flat on to the ground. The dialogue in the movie was not something that will leave you wanting for more.

"Dead Again" from writer and director Steven M. Smith was a swing and a miss. I watch a lot of zombie movies, and "Dead Again" was by no means remarkable or noteworthy. It came without as much as making any noise, and it will fade into oblivion just as quietly. This is not a good zombie movie.

My rating of "Dead Again" lands on a generous two out of ten stars, mostly based on the effort the people working on this project had put into it.