Last Rites

Hi there. This is going to be one of my shortest reviews ever. Normally, I like to go into the plot, acting, direction of even the worst movies. However in this ones case I'll make an exception. You see, this film while being known as Last Rites in the USA is called 48 Weeks Later in the UK. There are lots of great quotes on the packaging like "DAWN OF THE DEAD EAT YOUR HEART OUT" and "THE BUMS ARE EATING THE COPS" (??) but these have little or nothing to do with what is contained within. Yes folks, if you buy this trash then you have been well and truly stitched up, as the only way it resembles Danny Boyle's original and its sequel is the final two words of the title. That's it. Thankfully I only borrowed it from a friend, I didn't make the mistake of wasting money on this rip-off.

There are hardly any zombies, no decent head explosions and most definitely no flesh eating viruses. No, what this you see is a modern blaxploitation film, and a pretty rubbish one at that. So, if you want to spend 90 minutes watching black actors running around a badly lit warehouse, shooting blanks at each other while talking like illegitimate sons of Shaft, be my guest. You'll also be giving the film company licence to mislabel any product in the future in the hope that they'll make an easy buck out of gullible saps like you. What next... Predator as a romantic comedy? Titanic as a ship navigational guide? Gigli as an Oscar winning masterpiece? Remember, it may be your money you're wasting, but it could have devastating implications for all of us. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

In the meantime, this waste of a perfectly good disc gets a 1/10 and a one way ticket to ebay. Starting bid: 1p. Hope my mate can find a gullible sap to take it off his hands. Oh, aren't I a hypocrite...

Why in the world would anyone want to watch a remake of Dawn of the Dead, when you can watch the original? Not only is this a bad remake with Black and Latino gang members in Los Angeles locked in a warehouse to escape the zombies, it is racist to boot.

It has been a while since I have see Mantan Moreland yelling "Feets don't fail me now," but I certainly expected it to come out of the mouth of Dayana Jamine, who played the sister of one of the Black gang members like Moreland.

Noel Gugliemi played Caesar, the leader of the Latin gang in a obnoxious stereotype of all ultra macho Hispanic. It was pure racism.

The zombie action was good when you saw it, but that was sparse as most of the action took place in the warehouse.

Janine Foster was the best character in the movie, and I look for more of her in the future.

Neat ending, though.

In a nut shell, Latino and black gangsters hole-up in a warehouse while homeless Zombies rage outside.

Too many gangster clichés, not enough Zombie action. Long, loud and repetitive periods of testosterone posturing coulda been spiced up by a few unique characters. I won't spoil it, but there was one potentially cool twist that came too late and fell flat when it was finally revealed.

This movie could have said something about Los Angeles, said something about about racism, or at least delivered some scares. It missed on all 3 counts. It's too bad, because a few of the performers brought more to their characters than the script gave them to work with.

In Los Angeles, a meteor bringing some sort of disease falls on a group of homeless and turns them into flesh eater zombies. Meanwhile, two rival gangs are dealing drugs with an intermediary in an old warehouse without knowing that there is a stakeout of the LAPD of the whole operation. When the policemen are ready to arrest the criminals, they are attacked by the hunger zombies in the beginning of a nightmarish night.

"Last Rites" is an awfully bad zombie movie. There is no originality in the story that is violent and never funny. In addition, no character is likable or charismatic; actually most of them are despicable. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Cidade dos Mortos" ("City of the Dead")

From the opening scene its clear that LAST RITES (a.k.a GANGS OF THE DEAD) is a really low budget film but it has its upsides, the acting is decent the storyline is competently done and the direction is better than average for a film of this standard.

The downside is this film is nothing groundbreaking and obviously won't sell a record breaking number of DVD's and because many people prefer bigger budget films, this one here might put people off, it doesn't have major production values and the sound is sometimes very poor, but despite all that the film is overall competently executed.

If you're a zombie fan give it shot, I recommend though that you set your expectations low, like I said its a competent film but the films low budget certainly shows.