Dead 7

disclaimer: gave up about 15 minutes in

What I watched of this movie was just bad movie-making.

Maybe it's supposed to be a caricature of spaghetti westerns and/or zombie movies.

The director apparently never heard of "show, don't tell" as a storytelling technique. The opening sequence is just awful - over acted, over-explained, over-graded.

The next 2 sequences look like they were shot on a handycam and not graded at all ... there's no cinematic feel to any of the shots

I gave up at that point. Maybe if I'd waited a few more minuted I'd have found someone in the story to become invested in... but I wasn't prepared to waste anymore time on it...

Your Mileage May Vary

Successfully pop-writers do not always make the best comedy-horror writers, and "Dead 7" proves that. Written by and starring Backstreet Boy's member Nick Carter this film found its way to audiences thanks to the Asylum and KaOtic Production companies - you know, the same Asylum that brought audiences the "Sharknado" films. With that in mind, before sitting down to watch this I had low expectations - but they were not quite low enough.

The zombie apocalypse occurred. Humanity reverted to a simpler way of living, which in this case is like the Wild West crossed with Mad Max. A woman called Apocalypta (Debra Wilson) trains zombies as her army and then starts to send them out to destroy the town of Harper's Junction. Some residents flee while others create a fighting resistance. The resistance fighters, which includes Billy (Jeff Timmons), his girlfriend Daisy (Carrie Keagan), his brother Jack (Nick Carter), and Whiskey Joe (Joey Fatone), try to save the town but will ultimately have to take the fight to the Apocalypta.

This low-budget film is a bit of a mess. The tone of the film feels wrong, it can't decide if it's a western or something more modern. Rather than picking one style it tries to jump between them and it gets more annoying than it is confusing. Occasionally over exposed shots, occasionally tinted yellow, occasional clear shot, all contribute the tone being mixed up and confused.

The plot is really basic and didn't do much to keep me entertained - while Nick Carter wanted to have a bash at starring and writing a film, maybe he should have stuck to writing music. The writing that does not help the plot also makes the characters and dialogue poor too - to be fair it cannot be blamed entirely on Nick Carter because Sawyer Perry was employed as a screenwriter too - it takes two to tango. I did not care for any of the characters, they came across as wooden and 2 dimensional. It felt like failed amateur dramatics, at times very cheesy, and other times completely stale.

In some films, a badly written character can be saved by a great acting performance. I can assure you that this is something that the film is missing too. The ensemble of actors in the film do have plenty of experience in pop-music and being in music videos, but when it comes to proper acting it is obvious that it was a struggle for them. The performances did not carry much emotional weight and annoyingly from one scene to the next accents would change for no reason - as if the actors forgot which accent, they started the film with. This film brings you not just one Backstreet Boy, but three of them. They are not alone and pop fans of the late 1990's and early 2000's may also recognise members of 98 Degrees, N*Sync, O-Town, Everclear, Crazy Town, No Authority, Atlas Genius, and All-4-One.

Do not expect Earth-shattering SFX of CGI in this film. Id' be lying if I said that the zombies looked convincing, and the action was made to look visually stunning. Likewise, the set and staging is pretty bad too. All in all, this is a bad film - admittedly it is not the worst film I have ever seen, but it's a bad film that I won't be in a rush to watch again or recommend. This is not one of the better films that Asylum and KaOtic have produced, and this SyFy channel original might as well crawl back to the shadows where it belongs. 89 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

OK guys....I really wanted to like this, cause I like zombie movies and boy bands were my jam (and still occasionally are-especially backstreet boys and even spoke to AJ on the phone once (thanks to my sister and her ex husband-her ex went to school with AJ). I got most of the way through before turning it off. I have never written a movie review on IMDb before. I get the comedy aspect, for it to not be taken seriously, some of the acting was decent, but some other times....I felt like a bad porno from the 70s-80s was about to break out. There was no story line really, it was a mishmosh of different story lines and one of the scenes with AJ, why did he have to act like bad imitation Captain Jack Sparrow? That kinda ruined it for me in the beginning. And the lighting is all off balance and too washed out a lot. I'll probably watch it again and give it another shot when I don't have anything else to watch.

Btw, I used to love the SyFy channel, that channel used to be awesome and started going downhill, so I hoped this movie would be somewhat decent and bring the channel back to a little bit of it's former glory.

But seriously guys, please stick with singing, if you guys are going to act again, please don't act like one of those awful movies on the Max Movie Channels after 11-12. I can't take it and makes me either want to laugh or vomit. I know Joey is good-I love him Greek Wedding 1 and 2. Howie and Nick were semi decent.

I would never want to put anyone down and if you want to continue making movies, we'll be there for you to help cheer you on for your dreams.

If you think that a bunch of 1990's boy-band singers getting together to make a zombie/western movie in 2016 was a bad idea, you'd be right. It looks and sounds exactly like what you'd imagine; just awful.

Looking at the disparity in the votes between male and female on this one makes me think a large number of women, who were about 14 in 1995, checked in to scope out their old crushes, and they still have a thing for them (it would explain all the "10" votes for this). Nothing wrong with old infatuations, but I think their fond memories of these guys had them overlooking some very big flaws in Dead 7.

A good screenplay is the basis for any good film, and good actors are needed to get those words effectively on screen. This movie has neither of those things. In fact, this is just tough to watch all the way through. There is nothing here to draw your interest. No sympathetic characters, no witty banter, not even any fancy CGI. I'm not a big fan of desaturated color in films either, and Dead 7 really overdoes it. If you want to take that much color out of a film, just make a black and white movie.

The point is, unless you were a huge fan of the Backstreet Boys, 'NSync, O-Town or 98 Degrees, you're just wasting your time watching this.

"Dead 7" pretty much goes as the vast majority of SyFy and The Asylum produced movies go; downhill.

I was initially lured in by the concept of a zombie movie, and I must admit that anything just even remotely zombie has my interest. So I sat down to watch "Dead 7".

Well, after having seen Debra Wilson in "Z Nation", where she put on a good performance, I must admit that I sort of had my hopes up for "Dead 7". But then again, I saw that "Dead 7" also had Nick Carter and Joey Fatone on the cast list. What is this? Return of the Living Dead Boyband? Right, well back on track... Debra Wilson, however, failed to impress me with her performance in "Dead 7", as it was just over the top and the character was laughable. And needless to go into detail about the performances of the former two boyband members - enough said!

The story in "Dead 7" was pointless and turned out to be anything but entertaining. And I was tempted to get up to watch something else a couple of times throughout the course of this movie.

And what was up with the fact that they used human teeth as a currency in this movie? It just didn't make any logical sense whatsoever.

The effects were adequate. But for a zombie movie, don't get your hopes up, because it is not groundbreaking special effects, nor is it among the top of the line.

I have watch "Dead 7", so I can check it off my zombie list. However, I can in all honesty say that I will not be making a second trip back to watching this movie, because it just offered nothing worthwhile.