Deadheads

Deadheads is both a zombie movie and a love story about two zombies who go on a cross-country road trip to reconnect with a girlfriend from their waking life. It is far better than one might expect from the premise.

I am not particularly interested in zombie movies so I was pleased to find that Deadheads had characters with very human motivations; several times during the film I found myself caring for Michael McKiddy's character, despite his zombie appearance.

One great thing about the film is its self-awareness. The directors, and actors know they are making a zombie love story, and they embrace the ridiculousness of that fact completely. The movie is all about fun--there are many pop-culture references, references to other movies, and a lot of extremely vulgar humor and absurd situations that could only happen in an independent film. There is however, just enough sentimentality to keep it human and down to earth. In other words, if you make your girlfriend watch only one zombie movie this year, make this the one--it has enough echoes of romantic comedy to appeal to a larger audience. With that said, I am confident I am the target demographic: a male who grew up loving 80's movies.

There are several scenes that seem a little too long but overall the pacing is good, the action is exciting, and the length felt right. Deadheads is not going to change the world. But if you have an interest in humor, gore, and want to be entertained for an hour and a half it is worth your time.

The plot: two zombies go on a road-trip and try to find one's ex-girlfriend to profess his love.

This is a pretty stupid ripoff of Shaun of the Dead, but, unfortunately for me, I've seen much worse. As far as low budget, independent zombie movies go, this is actually one of the more tolerable entries. That's not saying much when your competition is The Dead Hate The Living and Dance of the Dead. Still, there were appealing aspects to it, and it had some degree of charm, I guess. I'm a bit tired of self-aware hipster nerds in zombie comedies, though. Especially when there's a romantic subplot.

If you like movies that are basically just a couple of goofy nerds spouting off pop culture references and movie quotes, then I'm sure you'll find this amusing. Otherwise, I'd advise that you skip it. Instead, just watch Shaun of the Dead again.

Hilarious and original take on zombie movies, albeit from the point of view of two cognizant zombies. Nerdy Mike "awakens" from being murdered three years earlier to find himself re-animated amidst a zombie feeding frenzy, and runs into another self-aware zombie in "never take anything seriously" Brent and a trainable hulking zombie named Cheese. Together with Vietnam vet Cliff they escape quarantine and embark on a road trip to find Mike's old flame in Michigan, all the while being chased by nefarious secret ops hellbent on their recapture. This is one wild ride from start to finish and everyone involved does a great job of bringing such a fresh idea to the screen and making us hope for a sequel.

I was initially put off by the relatively low score this movie has on here, but I quickly discovered the fallacy of the current 5.0/10 rating.

"Deadheads" is smart, touching and revolting in the right places, without ever losing sight of what it is: a really good zombie comedy.

While the romantic interest that propels the story would be a risky device in the hands of lesser directors, the Pierce brothers add just the right amount of deflating humor to the mix to ensure "Deadheads" doesn't head off into romcom territory.

The two leads, Michael McKiddy and Ross Kidder (brother of Margot!), make a great "smart zombie" team, but the film truly distinguishes itself through the other cast members: Markus Taylor as "stupid zombie" Cheese, Harry Burkey as old man Cliff and Benjamin Webster and Greg Dow as the zombies' pursuers all give strong performances.

Some hardcore "gorehound" horror fans will likely be of the opinion that there's not enough blood and guts flying around, but if that's your kind of thing, just go get a job in a slaughterhouse and leave the rest of us in peace.

With "Deadheads", the brothers Pierce (their dad worked on "Evil Dead", btw) have delivered a solid horror film which has everything in it to become a modern cult classic.

I can't wait to see what they'll do next...

I can understand that people really liked this zombedy. But it is just a few weeks ago that I saw two other US comedies namely, Vampires Su*k and Tucker and Dale vs Evil. It was very simple, Vampire Su*k was indeed a big su*k but Tucker was hilarious. Why, because it had stupid situations and misunderstandings. People who knew me know that I'm not into Us comedies except a few like Tucker. Sadly Deadheads failed for me.

I had a few laughs, for example the gym with the zombie they called Cheese. that was funny, but ripping off an arm and putting it back on place to move further isn't funny anymore. On the other hand there are a few good things too, I was looking forward for McDinkle (Benjamin Webster). He's the kind of guy you all know, I had a few laughs with him but the main characters weren't convincing. It isn't all comedy, in fact, it's a love story between a guy being killed and turned into a zombie going to find his love. But they never got into stupid situations. On the gory part there is more to see, there are a few good things to see like the decapitation.

My mouth moved a few times but not enough to call it great. With Tucker for example I was laughing out loud. I'm sure that it will have his fans but this time I didn't dig it, sorry.

Gore 2/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 2/5