Dead & Deader

A bunch of soldiers get blown up by a hand grenade. When the bodies are shipped home, one of the victims reanimates while his autopsy is being performed. How? A scorpion is living in his arm. Then his buddies do the same and they transform into zombies.

It's all just an excuse for the usual zombie formula: a few humans are getting picked off one by one by an ever-increasing mob of low-paid extras with some Halloween war paint yelling and screaming in deep-gurgle language. The humans always have dozens of guns and rifles that never seem to run out of ammunition, blasting the ghouls in the forehead or chest where they always seem to explode into red dye. Although this film takes a slight turn: a few of the infected have black blood; I guess the evil scientist and his scorpion minions had a hand in that. The dumb sidekick who won't shut his mouth and spews out lousy cultural reference jokes is just annoying; I kept hoping he'd get it.

Plenty of spraying blood and carcasses on the ground. It's got a lot of all the zombie necessities. The only thing it lacked apparently was a budget.

After dying in Cambodia, a team of soldiers wake up back in America to discover... they're not quite dead. But also, they're not quite alive. Bobby Quint (Dean Cain), the most human of the team, decides to stop the rest of the soldiers before they infect the whole world with their zombie illness.

There should be some discussion about what this film is, and what it isn't. While the film is funny to a point (or at least it doesn't take itself seriously), Fangoria's assertion it's a "zom-edy" like "48 Hours" is overstating this more than just a little. I enjoyed this film, but certainly didn't think it was really laugh-out-loud funny (for that, rent "Shaun of the Dead").

What this isn't is a high budget film with professional quality. It's a made-for-TV film from the Sci Fi channel. However, keeping in mind it's in this category, it's quite good. Unlike "Abominable", this film is decent... and considering it is made by a first time director, I was quite impressed with what they accomplished (calling in an all-star cast and Greg Nicotero for makeup was a good idea).

Also, this probably isn't a film for the general public. They might enjoy it, but I will say this: my number one reason for liking this film (besides the sexy Susan Ward) was the constant barrage of references to other films ("Dawn of the Dead", various James Bond films, "Bullet", etc.). If you're not a film geek, much of the humor will go over your head. The rip on Michael Bay was the bait for me, and the hook came with the lengthy analysis of "Dawn of the Dead" versus the remake (which correctly, in my opinion, pointed out the key differences including the consumerism aspect and Ken Foree's role in both films).

Much of the plot doesn't really make sense if you think about it and plot holes are more common here than one might like (and we are left with questions such as the sexual ability of zombies). But this film isn't here for the plot... it's here for showcasing makeup and was clearly made just to have fun. The makeup, by the way, is great... although some of the props -- such as a fake arm -- were sort of cheesy and filmed from poor angles.

If you're skeptical about this one, don't rent it. But for the right audience I think this film has something to offer. I certainly enjoyed what it was trying to do, even if some things seemed really thrown together hodge-podge (the witty black sidekick, the gratuitous shower scene). And if Sci Fi is showing this, keep your remote control on the coffee table, because this is the best thing you'll get out of them for a while.

This movie was about average for the Sci-Fi channel. Dean Cain added some humor.Not wanting to give away the plot let's just say this is the standard comedy with zombiesque "movie of the week" qualities.Mad scientist, Army men(Douglas Tait,) hot babes(Susan Ward,) One black Eddie Murphy type character(Guy Torry,)etc. Even though the formula was stale "Dead and Deader" is better than some of SF-C's movies. The female breast on the one corpse shocked me because it slipped past the sensors. So guys slow the Tivo when you see the metal examination tables. The effects were better than usual also because they didn't over use the CGI. Better stories are needed for us hard core fans.

A bunch of special forces soldiers in Cambodia get blown up and one of them wakes up on the autopsy table apparently fine, except he's got a scorpion inside his arm. He shows no life signs but is otherwise perfectly normal. His friends seem to have come off worse, waking up as more traditional people chomping zombies.

At first the situation seems quite interesting and you go along with it but the crappy Pulp Fiction style popular culture chats about movies and suchlike between the main character and the black sidekick quickly get very tedious.

I've got to give it a four out of fairness because it's watchable, but I didn't find it funny or really that interesting after the first half hour. Most people seem to have liked this one but I think that says more about the ever decreasing expectations of the audience than the quality of this movie. It's got some OK zombie moments and reasonable acting but they could have put all that military hardware and zombie makeup to far more entertaining use.

This movie was much much better than what I was expecting. The action was exciting, the acting decent, and the writing very funny. It had a ton of "in jokes" for horror movie fans, and movie buffs in general. Although it was mostly a comedy, it wasn't light on horror, action or gore. The main villain was very creepy in a soft-spoken way. Susan Ward's character was awesome! Tough and sexy, yet a movie geek at heart. Where can I find a woman like that? haha The zombies in the film were great! They had the zombie-walk down, but were a bit quicker than the average Romero ghoul. My only complaint is the bitten victims became zombies a little too quickly. The whole scorpion thing was an interesting twist also. All in all, an excellent movie. I can't wait to own it when it comes out on DVD.