Os Mortos

Or "Zombies - The road movie". And having seen it at a Festival where the director was tipping his hat off to Romero and acknowledging what the grand master has done and the influences he draw from those movies, made this one a clear winner for me. So maybe I have given it an extra point because of that, I wouldn't really know to tell you that for sure (though it is very likely).

The movie itself is very slow moving (like the zombies themselves thankfully) and therefor there is not a fast paced action kind of scare. Or a scare that comes suddenly that you might not have expected. But it builds on the mood and the tension. It's the overall feeling that counts and the movie does a really good job with it. The actors are decent enough (though some parts might have benefited by a more experienced actor) and if you like Romero's zombie movies, you might wanna give this a try too.

I love me a good zombie flick, and I try to support independent cinema whenever I can. But I'll be the first to admit that the words "independent low-budget horror" can send me running for the hills. But after hearing some of the good buzz around this one, I thought I'd give it a shot at a midnight screening last night. I'm really glad I checked it out. The co-director was in attendance for last night's screening, where he spoke of his adoration of the early Romero films, and that influence shows. It's an endless stream of slow-walking, omnipresent zombies. It's the opposite of the hyper-stylized, fast-cut, fast walking zombie movies of recent years. Most of the action takes place during daylight hours in wide open spaces. Africa can be a harsh and brutal place without zombies, so you can imagine the difficulties that the survivors must endure. I thought the pacing was decent, and the acting was very solid. There are some really nice stylized shots in places. I'll remember that striking final scene years from now. I thought the sound design and the minimal score were very effective. Because the survivors are mostly out in the wild, there's this constant chatter of insects throughout. It's like a buzzing fluorescent bulb that always keeps you a little off- kilter. A refreshingly stark entry into the sometimes crowded zombie genre. Highly recommended.

This is a zombie movie in Africa which contains old school, slow walking zombies. The lead characters are people with families who are just trying to get home or find their loved ones. They are not trying to solve the mystery of the outbreak, which makes it a simple, but very entertaining piece of film.

There is a huge difference in picture quality; Sometimes you are looking at dark images with too much artificial grain, at other times you are seeing beautiful African scenery with some nifty shots. Meanwhile, the undead are never far away. This resulted in the best feature of the whole movie; you never felt safe EVER. The threat of slow zombies always shambling towards the main characters gave me that freaky feeling only Romero delivered. It worked.

This movie doesn't really excel at anything, but it is still very enjoyable. It has some minor continuity flaws (like cleaning a blood smeared face with just a dry cloth) but it doesn't get in the way. It doesn't deliver perfect acting, but it isn't terrible to watch either. It lacks a film score but there's still enough tension without it. Even with these minor flaws, I feel The Dead was a welcome change in the zombie genre and I would recommend it to any zombie fan.

I didn't expect that much from this movie. My first thoughts were: it is not even B-movie, rather C. But from the first minutes I realized that it leaves an impression of..."28 Days Later" and "The Walking Dead". It's kind of long shot, but that's what came to mind. While it is not as detailed and well played as those two, it has it's own new look on the old theme. Decent make-up, good camera work, the interesting contrast between gore images and beautiful "vues d'Afrique" savannah - all together with natural actor's work exceeds the initial shallow (to say the least) expectations. I don't think I will watch it again (well, not any time soon), but certainly I would not mind to see the next chapter. It looks like there is some space left for the Part II. PS: there is no cheap synthetic music (you all know it;)), that usually fills in the "wordless" episodes in some really boring movies. On my opinion, this sort of mindless soundtrack always serves as indicator. Sometimes I wonder if they use that sort of "music" as a warning: "it is going to be boring..." It's absence is a huge plus.

"I'm just trying to survive." Lt. Brian Murphy (Freeman) is part of the last evacuation plane out of Africa. The country is in a war where the dead come back as zombies. When the plane crashes he is the lone survivor and now he needs to make it to the airport on his own. When he meets a local sergeant they decide to work together to make it to safety. I will start by saying that I have never really liked zombie movies (except for "Shaun of the Dead"). The "Dawn Of The Dead" and "28 Days" movies never were my thing. This movie however was great. Much like the movie "Let Me In", which I thought was what the world would be like if vampires actually existed, this movie is the most "realistic" zombie movie I have ever seen. If zombies did exist I think it would be like this movie and not the glorified gore that other movies show. For someone who doesn't like movies like this I was very impressed. Overall, one of, if not the, best zombie movie I have ever seen. I recommend this. I give it a B+.