The Demented

4 friends get together at another friend's house to have fun. Along with his girl, this makes 3 couples. At some point during the course of their get together, they receive news of a terrorist attack via a telephone call from their friend's father who owns the house they're partying in. They are freaked out, naturally, and wonder if they should leave or stay put. They decide to stay (Hmmm...this can't be good).

They later become besieged by zombies of the fast-moving kind who for some reason at one point in the movie can't figure out what to do about a gate that is only a few inches taller than them. Reminds me here of the zombie movie with Dolph Lungren. Steep stairs are a breeze, but apparently this ability is not transferable to going over a gate 2 or 3 inches taller than you. Ah, well, can't have everything.

Let's see now... In this movie there's a lot of running, panicking, screaming, yelling as the zombies try to thin out the herd (the weak, the infirmed, the stupid...you know how it is). And what would a zombie movie be without some occasional "laying low". Or to put it in less cool terms: "Waiting until the dead stinking things leave". It becomes kind of like a video game. The group (whats left of them), learn that choppers are picking up survivors at strategic locations. Can they get to a rescue point without being the main course at a zombie banquet? If they can they get to fly away and give everything below them the middle finger.

The ending of the movie might be somewhat puzzling. There are 2 possible endings depending on WHEN the woman was dreaming or imagining things. You have to decide for yourself. Oh yeah, before I close, I must tell you that this movie strain of zombies are often in some kind of trance or suspended animation; dormant and "statue-like" until their food unwittingly wakes them by making too much noise. Then they become Olympic material. In a way it's kind of flattering though. You know, that something thinks you're so delicious that they break all kinds of records to get to you. Now that's love. Boloxxxi.

I wanted to like this one, I really did. But when they make characters so stupid, or annoying that you want them to die, I don't think the writers did a good job. A good movie will make you feel bad when people die, not cheer that the annoying girl has died. This is one of those movies that really annoys you when they make bad decisions. I get maybe they didn't realize they were going to be in a zombie movie, but screaming and making as much noise as possible all the time is never a good choice. Walking down the middle of the road isn't smart. When in a town of zombies, you don't walk into new buildings screaming hello for example. The girls have to scream and cry at every possible instance. Half their lines are screaming the second half of the movie on.

I don't know what to think of that ending, I'll give it credit for some out of box thinking.

In the end, this wasn't a total waste, but it felt like it could have been more. It has most of the generic characters and generic scenarios you would expect, except for the ending.

This was a film I was willing to give a chance, but like most low budget films in this genre it fails beyond belief. Think a low budget '28 days later' with splatters of 'World war z', but on a much smaller scale, a waaaaaaaay smaller scale. The intensity and ferocity was there, but it was obvious the budget didn't allow for much. The 'infected' appeared to be dressed by some wannabe costume designer, who for whatever reason decided to dress all the infected in the same tattered clothing. The film featured a pretty good young cast which included Sarah Butler from the 'I spit on your grave' remake. The saving grace to the film if any was the performance by Kayla Ewell, who seemed to be the only one who took her role serious. Again on the subject of budget, it was obvious the producers couldn't afford karo syrup and red dye number five because it was a near bloodless film. So don't be fooled by the DVD cover, you'll be greatly disappointed if you're expecting a gorefest. Lastly, the ending, believe me when I say this film has one of the most dumb and confusing endings in the history of horror films. I don't know what else I could say about this film without reviewing it with spoilers, but since I'm never the one to divulge spoilers, I'll leave up to you to decide if you wished you De-rented the Demented.

"The Demented" is sort of a reminiscent of a lower-budget version of "28 Days Later". So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well that depends on what kind of zombies - or infected - you enjoy in movies.

Story-wise, then "The Demented" is a very standard movie as movies go in the zombie genre. A group of young people find themselves trapped in a rural setting when a biological outbreak takes place - turning people into crazed killers. And I would use the term zombie loosely here, as they aren't exactly zombies, if you measure them up by the standard of many movies in the genre.

The infected in the movie, like in "28 Days Later", are agile and fast running. And for some reason they have to make sounds like prowling animals. And also, once you become infected, your clothes become shredded and ripped. Try looking at all the infected, their clothes is all torn and ripped, and they are smeared in blood, yet they don't have any visible cuts, wounds, bite marks and the like. It was a little bit too ridiculous.

The way the movie ended was actually a nice twist to an otherwise generic zombie movie. I will not spoil anything by mentioning it here, but I didn't see that ending coming, not by a long shot.

As for the title of the movie, well, they could have found something more appropriate, as "The Demented" doesn't really do a zombie movie any kind of justice in any possible way.

For a zombie movie, then "The Demented" didn't really bring anything new or innovative to the genre. Everything in the movie has been done or seen before. But still, the movie was enjoyable and actually fared well for a movie of this production value.

I don't know why this got such a low rating on IMDb. The acting wasn't top-notch, but it was good enough, certainly better than the 3.8 stars that it currently has.

It's a low budget take-off of 28 Days Later, but they do a fair enough job on it. Sarah Butler's the reason I watched this, but she wasn't used to her full potential. Kayla Ewell is the protagonist. Her acting's never been that great, even in The Vampire Diaries. And she kept yelling at very inappropriate times, such as when they needed to be silent. Gosh, that was annoying.

They had a subplot between Charlie and Naomi. I thought they'd have Charlie somehow tell the others she let Naomi die, but that never happened. I don't know why they bothered putting that in the movie unless they just wanted the audience to dislike Charlie.

Overall, I was entertained. Again, the acting wasn't top-notch, but the movie was fun. I gave this movie a 5-star rating. If you like virus movies that make people turn into drooling, blood-thirsty cannibals, you'll enjoy this. If you're expecting The Walking Dead or Dawn of the Dead, forget it.