Dead Air

If you watch one movie with a radio station and an infection make it "Pontypool". If you want to watch more than one, this one is decent enough for you to watch it once. It's certainly refreshing to watch Bill Mosley in a different sort of role/character. While he's doing a good job, McHattie was just terrific and could not be matched (which of course is also a sign, that Pontypool has the better script and therefor also the better story).

The effects are good enough for a small budget and the movie does do a decent job in getting the movie along. You have to excuse the movie for some stupid character behaviour of course (something that quite a few horror movies seem to be infected with). If you can do that, you will be able to enjoy it (or if you cut the movie quite some slack, you will even rate it higher than I did)

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.

"Dead Air" is a zombie film with a few different elements of surprise thrown in for good measure. An overtly, competent talk radio host (Bill Moseley) speaks his mind to a late night audience, while an outbreak of toxic zombie-juice (brought on by Muslim terrorists) engulfs an unsuspecting city. Not a bad premise, but really nothing new. It was a bit preachy for a horror flick, and spent a lot of time using underlining character relationships to tug at the viewer's heart-strings (sorry, didn't quite work here) and this slowed the pacing down for much of the film. Moseley, along with the (always sexy) Patricia Tallman do a decent job as the film's protagonists, while the zombies themselves (with blood dripping from their eyes) tear apart their victims. I'm guessing the film's Armageddon theme was a lesson in hatred, and the writer's views on the world today. I didn't realize until the end credits that "Corbin Bernsen" was the director... I guess I didn't even realize that he was a "director" for that fact, but "Dead Air" is a pleasantly fun zombie movie if zombie movies are your thing. Breaks no new ground, but none the less "entertains" the way it's supposed to.

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.

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.