Dead 7

Successfully pop-writers do not always make the best comedy-horror writers, and "Dead 7" proves that. Written by and starring Backstreet Boy's member Nick Carter this film found its way to audiences thanks to the Asylum and KaOtic Production companies - you know, the same Asylum that brought audiences the "Sharknado" films. With that in mind, before sitting down to watch this I had low expectations - but they were not quite low enough.

The zombie apocalypse occurred. Humanity reverted to a simpler way of living, which in this case is like the Wild West crossed with Mad Max. A woman called Apocalypta (Debra Wilson) trains zombies as her army and then starts to send them out to destroy the town of Harper's Junction. Some residents flee while others create a fighting resistance. The resistance fighters, which includes Billy (Jeff Timmons), his girlfriend Daisy (Carrie Keagan), his brother Jack (Nick Carter), and Whiskey Joe (Joey Fatone), try to save the town but will ultimately have to take the fight to the Apocalypta.

This low-budget film is a bit of a mess. The tone of the film feels wrong, it can't decide if it's a western or something more modern. Rather than picking one style it tries to jump between them and it gets more annoying than it is confusing. Occasionally over exposed shots, occasionally tinted yellow, occasional clear shot, all contribute the tone being mixed up and confused.

The plot is really basic and didn't do much to keep me entertained - while Nick Carter wanted to have a bash at starring and writing a film, maybe he should have stuck to writing music. The writing that does not help the plot also makes the characters and dialogue poor too - to be fair it cannot be blamed entirely on Nick Carter because Sawyer Perry was employed as a screenwriter too - it takes two to tango. I did not care for any of the characters, they came across as wooden and 2 dimensional. It felt like failed amateur dramatics, at times very cheesy, and other times completely stale.

In some films, a badly written character can be saved by a great acting performance. I can assure you that this is something that the film is missing too. The ensemble of actors in the film do have plenty of experience in pop-music and being in music videos, but when it comes to proper acting it is obvious that it was a struggle for them. The performances did not carry much emotional weight and annoyingly from one scene to the next accents would change for no reason - as if the actors forgot which accent, they started the film with. This film brings you not just one Backstreet Boy, but three of them. They are not alone and pop fans of the late 1990's and early 2000's may also recognise members of 98 Degrees, N*Sync, O-Town, Everclear, Crazy Town, No Authority, Atlas Genius, and All-4-One.

Do not expect Earth-shattering SFX of CGI in this film. Id' be lying if I said that the zombies looked convincing, and the action was made to look visually stunning. Likewise, the set and staging is pretty bad too. All in all, this is a bad film - admittedly it is not the worst film I have ever seen, but it's a bad film that I won't be in a rush to watch again or recommend. This is not one of the better films that Asylum and KaOtic have produced, and this SyFy channel original might as well crawl back to the shadows where it belongs. 89 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

The title of this movie matches perfectly. Everything from the dialogue, script, plot, acting, and even the tone of the film is dead. From the very start, the tone and vibe of this movie feels off. What should feel like a Western movie, somehow comes off as a mixture of the modern and past, but failing as if it doesn't know which one it's trying to be. In the end, it's really neither, and just a movie with low budget sets that don't fit the feel of the movie whatsoever. Not only do the sets feel out of place, the entire feel of the movie does too. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world, and yet they still have vehicles and a few other modern devices. Why is this set up like a Western then? It's all over the place.

Aside from the tone and feel of the movie being off, the writing is atrocious. Nick Carter should stick to writing songs, because the only thing about this movie that was good was the song they all sang together for the credits. The plot is so weak, that you're not even sure what it is. There is a villain, but there is so little back story on every character in this film, that it's nonexistent. It seems like some cheap story a five year old tried to write up for a class assignment, and even a five year old could probably write better.

Beyond that, the acting is darn right awful. Aside from small notes like AJ McLean, whose Johnny Vermillion character probably brought the most to the table, the other actors are just horrible. Even then, the only amusement he offers is his funny laugh throughout that sounds like Batman's Joker has asthma. Otherwise, everyone in this movie is horrific. Facial expressions are absent, while dialogue is off and completely weak. Nothing in this movie fits the way it should.

Everything felt forced and some of the plots seemed to be Nick Carter's idea of wish fulfillment. Maybe he would have fulfilled his deepest desires if he could actually play a decent lead, but instead his one-liners are something left to be desired, and you WANT him to die in this movie, just like every other character. Of course, that's within the first five minutes of the film, and sadly not everyone is introduced within the first five minutes, but you want them dead anyways. They're THAT bad once they come onto the screen.

All in all, this movie isn't even a decent B movie. It's just idiotic and a waste of time. Seriously, these boy band members should have just teamed up for the song, or went on tour together and made a band called Dead 7, because their only talent is singing.

Being an old fan of Nick Carter, I decided to check out the zombie film, Dead 7. And well, let's put it this way, he needs to stick to singing.

The acting was terrible! One thing I noticed about this movie is that there were different types of accents that the actors were trying to pull off. Yet they would seem to forget they were in character. One minute one of the male actors, if you can call him an actor, sounded like he was in the old west (where this movie is supposed to take place) and then the next he didn't have an accent at all. And I'm not talking about one actor in particular. There were a few laughs. Joey Fatone (*NSYNC) with his lover, the Rum bottle, and AJ McLain (Backstreet Boys) as a Joker type villain. The only thing good about Carter's performance was his looks. He didn't do well in his other films so making another was a huge mistake. Other stars of this failure include Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Erik- Michael Estrada of O-Town and one of the 90's decade's most talented singers (at least in my opinion) Jon Secada. With TV host Carrie Keegan playing the female lead.

The plot doesn't start off well, and it doesn't develop at all. It's easy to root for the "boring" zombies. I'll say it again, Nick Carter needs to stick to singing. Maybe he had a good idea when starting this script and it didn't turn out well. Or maybe he just wanted to help himself and his fellow former heartthrobs get some extra dough.

I hate to be another viewer giving this film a bad review but let's face it, this one should have stayed back in the Old West where it came from. One should be used to bad Syfy channel movies by now! But this is one of the worst. I give Dead 7 1 out of 10 Washed Up Boybanders.

It's not state of the art, or Oscar-winning material, but........ The movie is quite entertaining... it's everything that we should expect from the same studios that brought us Z-Nation. If you like mindless action, with lots of blood and gore, and you are just looking for something to entertain you for some time, you can't go wrong with Dead 7.

OK, the acting is not good (but I've seen worst), the plot is weird, and it's a TV-movie, without top-notch FX... but still, if you're not expecting Zombieland, Dead Rising, Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead, you will have a very nice time.

Try it out.

disclaimer: gave up about 15 minutes in

What I watched of this movie was just bad movie-making.

Maybe it's supposed to be a caricature of spaghetti westerns and/or zombie movies.

The director apparently never heard of "show, don't tell" as a storytelling technique. The opening sequence is just awful - over acted, over-explained, over-graded.

The next 2 sequences look like they were shot on a handycam and not graded at all ... there's no cinematic feel to any of the shots

I gave up at that point. Maybe if I'd waited a few more minuted I'd have found someone in the story to become invested in... but I wasn't prepared to waste anymore time on it...

Your Mileage May Vary