Dead Air

I watched this film mistakenly thinking that it was that other radio station zombie flick. The shonky production values and low-rent cast soon gave away that this was another one of the those cheap sci-fi channel style knock offs.

The central performance from Bill Moseley is initially quite engaging as the dubious radio shock jock but as the film goes on becomes less and less convincing as he is actually required to act. The rest of the cast have little to do other than look concerned and have no depth whatsoever.

The cinematography is dull, flat and completely uninspired, like so many of these kind of films. It doesn't even manage a decent bit of convincing gore, the zombie make up is literally pathetic apart from one notable exception towards the end of the film.

The film tries to inject originality and a message into it's concoction of half baked and ripped off ideas by somehow equating this outbreak with intolerance towards Islam and the war on terror. This is woefully handled with all the intellectual clout of a 6 year old. As the characters and seemingly the writers are unable to distinguish the difference between race and religion - describing all people of a certain skin colour as "muslims." Most notably one character is revealed to be Muslim by skin colour alone. At the same time the "muslim" terrorists who cause the outbreak are the usual psychopathic stereotype.

Presumably the far far superior Pontypool had a similar budget as Dead Air yet shines everywhere where this film fails miserably.

After reading a brief description of this film I thought someone had remade PONTYPOOL already. Well it is not a remake...but it really, really, borrows heavily from it. It also borrows quite a bit from 28 DAYS LATER.

Terrorist simultaneously detonate chemical bombs at major sporting events across the United States. The chemicals turn people into highly contagious, rabid, homicidal maniacs. A radio talk show host (Bill Mosely) and his crew are broadcasting live while the events unfold.

Most of the events take place at the radio station ala PONTYPOOL. Luckily the virus is man-made and not verbal (a plot point of PONTYPOOL that, while original, just didn't work for me). The infected have bleeding eyes, run fast and can infect you with just a scratch ala 28 DAYS LATER. So basically this movies takes the best parts of both films and mixes them together for its own purposes.

Over all I thought this was a great, entertaining movie. It moves along quickly and has some truly disturbing and horrific moments. Unfortunately the similarities to the other films was a bit of a let down and will probably turn some people off.

Well, if you are in this movie for zombies, don't get your hopes as, as there aren't actually any 'stereotypical' zombies as in shambling, ravenous flesh-eating ghouls. However, the movie does have a strange infection that causes people to become feral and rapid, doing bodily harm and injury to others, much alike zombie behavior, yes. But not zombies as in the usual type that we are used to.

That being said, then I am not saying that "Dead Air" is a boring or not worth watching, because it is actually rather enjoyable. The storyline is good, fluid and fast paced, although the ending to the movie was rather cliché and predictable.

What makes the movie work so nice is the dialog, because there is a lot of clever banter throughout the movie, and Bill Moseley really nailed the role of a radio host quite well, and I was pleasantly impressed. I enjoy most of his movies, but he really pulled off this role quite amazingly well. And it was also great to have Bill Moseley and Patricia Tallman together again on the screen, although in very different roles from their last collaboration.

As much of a zombie aficionado that I am, then I enjoyed this movie for what it was, a sort of early-stage infection movie that could have lead to the zombie outbreaks that we are accustomed to seeing in the movies. The story was well executed, and it did bring up some rather interesting points about how mankind create things often used for destruction, as well as the destructive nature of mankind. Whether or not you pick up on these viewpoints (or even care about them), then "Dead Air" is good entertainment from start to end.

And amongst the callers who call Logan's show, there are some nice treats; they had some fairly great names adding their voices to the show, which was a subtle, but rather nice touch.

"Dead Air" is definitely worth watching for fans of Bill Moseley and for fans of a proper good suspense movie in overall.

The idea behind Dead Silence is great: zombie outbreak takes place during an edgy paranoia radio talk show. There was so much going for this film. Unfortunately, as soon as the zombies made their appearance, all was lost.

The film is ridiculous and only those with a passion for cheesy, b-flick horror will enjoy it. The zombies were soooo stupid! They ran around flailing their arms. They looked like a bunch of people putting on a haunted house for elementary students.

I know this is a brief review, but I just don't see the need to invest much into this. It's a dumb movie. You've been warned.

During a crowded basketball game four terrorists break into the ventilation room of the gymnasium and contaminate the air supply with a deadly new virus. Unfortunately for them, they accidentally infect themselves in the process as well. However, having accomplished their main objective they then head to a nearby radio station to announce their hate-filled message to the world. Meanwhile, at the radio station a talk show host named "Logan Burnhardt" (Bill Moseley) and his partner, "Gil" (David Moscow) are on the air discussing the topic of the day when reports begin to come in by local listeners describing the zombie epidemic which is rapidly spreading out of control. Anyway, this film has several good things going for it. Bill Mosely, David Moscow, Joshua Feinman (as "Burt") and the red-haired vixen, Patricia Tallman (as "Lucy") all put in outstanding performances. The action was brisk and the plot was quite interesting as well. In short, this is definitely worth viewing for those who enjoy a good zombie film. As a side note, if one has some time on their hands this might also go well as a double-feature with a similar film of this type called, "Pontypool". I found both to be quite enjoyable.