Knight of the Dead

Some blurays in my collection I am not proud of. Occasionally you have to make three for a quid at the charity shop, so you add one that otherwise you'd never have gone for. "Knight of the Dead" is one such film, a woefully cheap British historical horror that is unbelievably dull.

A group of crusading Knights, led by a monk, attempt to return home with the Holy Grail, though are tracked and hunted by those formally in its possession. As they attempt to cross a fenland area, they are attacked by Zombies taken by the Black Death, or something - I dunno. It was incredibly boring.

Look. I'm going to show a reasonable level of restraint here because, whilst the film is not good, I also don't imagine there was much budget to utilise. So, whilst the actors are generally quite poor, they are mostly stunt performers, or bit part actors, who were able to be in Snowdonia on the day in question. Should I really be attacking the film for that? There's a haphazard regard for continuity, cinematography or sound design - but again, those things cost time and money so it's understandable that they were sacrificed.

I'm less willing to be forgiving of some of the writing issues though, as decent characterisation doesn't necessarily cost more, nor does a compelling story and this has neither of those either. There are occasionally half decent CGI moments, but most of the fighting is terrible and the practical effects are again hampered by those budgetary issues.

Maybe it's that the practicalities couldn't match the ambition, maybe it's that they were making it up as they went along with whatever was available to them. Either way, I can't begin to argue that it's not rubbish - but it's real crime is how dull it makes it what should be schlocky fun.

With the exception of some lovely Snowdonia locations and a couple of decent costumes, while not the worst zombie movie out there(Vampegeddon, Zombie Night and Dead Men Walking for examples are far worse) Knight of the Dead is a disaster. The special effects are wisely sparsely used but that wasn't an excuse for them to be as cheap as they were- yes even for the budget the movie had, they looked hastily slapped together and made-at-last-minute quality. The gore and decapitations looked silly and felt excessive at times, and there is no better news about the photography and lighting, which takes bleak to extremes to the extent some of the action is not easy to see and there is the very odd effect of the zombies' heads looking like they were floating like balloons. Aside from a couple of the costumes(not all, others did look fancy-dress remains), there was very little sense of the medieval atmosphere or atmosphere in general. The script certainly sounds like a rough draft and has so much cheese it makes the eyes roll. Again it doesn't very little like how medieval speak, a lot of it is very bad modern talk that fails to make sense. The characters are basically archetypes lacking in any kind of personality and development, plus they annoy with how nonsensical a lot of their actions are, and the acting is very going-through-the-motions and mannequin-like from the whole cast with no spontaneity or enthusiasm whatsoever. The worst thing to me was the story, which is so thin it's barely there and it's made worse by a pace that begs for a steroid shot of a very large dosage, some slower-paced scenes barely even move. The scenes with the zombies are very under-populated, the horror is cheaply done and predictable that they are no scares, the movie is far too dull to be fun and it is difficult to be excited when everything just seems so half-hearted. To me as well, the medieval vibe and the use of zombies had a very two different movies feel which was really jarring. To conclude, not the worst zombie movie out there but apart from two halfway-decent things is a disaster. 2/10 Bethany Cox

There are many bad movies out there, but most have a disappointing, cliché setup to start with. This movie actually had the concept going for it. So cautious though I am with any title -of the dead, I did decide to give it a shot. Knights, the plague, zombies... works for computer games so why not a movie right?

Wrong... I should have known better, I really should have. The acting is bad and cliché at best, special effects are absent so basically zombies are recognizable by either white faces or bandages. The whole movie is shown in a nearly colorless scheme, which though it works for some movies here just added to the overall feel of "low budget". The plot plays out exactly as you expect including all possible obligatory story progression.

I write this 'review' just because I would have wanted a warning before I pressed play this morning, so there you are.

This was just so ridiculously dull. I couldn't even pay attention. The characters were boring, the plot was boring & the effects were awful. Even by low budget standards. I wouldn't recommend this.

I can't even think of anything to fill in the 10 line minimum. Thoroughly disappointing movie. Don't waste your time. The sex scene was even disappointing & that's a difficult feat to achieve.

Still not 10 lines. Well I can talk for England usually so the fact that I can't write a 10 line review says it all.

Boring, dull, time wasting crap.

1/10

I rarely write movie reviews, but I mostly do when I feel that a movie is either unnecessarily praised, or excessively denigrated. "Knight of the dead" is the latest. Seriously, this movie was rated worse than "Sharktopus" on IMDb?!?

This is your typical B-movie way of making movies. Low-budget, actors you never heard of, cheesy and cheap FX... But this movie is really positively surprising. Low-budget, that's for sure, but there is still a guaranteed minimum of gore (with mutilations, guts, blood, you know the drill). Also, the landscape is absolutely stunning. You never get bored watching this 1h18min movie, mostly filled with bandit raids or zombie attacks. And the zombie makeup is pretty well-made: not at all times, but it does the job.

Of course, there is some bad CGI from time to time (creating full hordes of zombies, or adding blood), but it's far from being REALLY annoying, and believe me, I HATE CGI. That is still a bit of a shame.

All in all, what can be said about KOFD? Cheap b-movie. Crazy concept. But still fast-paced, gory and fun. Recommended for anyone into zombie movies.