Dead Rising

In East Mission, Oregon, the Hit Point reporter Chase Carter (Jesse Metcalfe) and the camerawoman Jordan (Keegan Connor Tracy) are covering stories from the people in quarantine of a zombie outbreak. The FEZA is using the vaccine Zombrex to inoculate the victims and Chase tries to interview Crystal LaRourke (Meghan Ory) that is on the location. Out of the blue, the patients turn into zombies and Jordan flees with the Hit Point car, leaving Chase behind. He follows Crystal chased by zombies and she stumbles upon Maggie (Virginia Madsen), a woman in shock that has just lost her daughter. They seek shelter in a loan store while Jordan arrives in the border but is sent to quarantine. While the military under the command of General Lyons (Dennis Haysbert) want to bomb the city since Zombrex is ineffective, Chase, Crystal and Maggie fight to reach the border. Chase discovers a secret about Crystal while Jordan discloses the real intention of General Lyons.

"Dead Rising: Watchtower" is a funny and entertaining zombie adventure based on a video game. Unfortunately there is no conclusion of the story and it seems that a sequel will be made. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available on Blu-Ray or DVD

Dead Rising games don't exactly have the most serious adventure or horror story. After all, this is the franchise that has the idea of strapping battery into wheelchair to make an electric battering ram. It operates in this often ludicrous logic, although it also tries to shoehorn a cumbersome amount of narrative and plods the pace in result.

The story follows Chase, an ambitious reporter who is taping in the medical center aid. Zombrex, a medicine to stop zombification, is introduced and administered in this downtown site. Unfortunately, accident occurs and Chase finds himself scrambling to survive and get the word out. It does resemble the set-up of the games as one person is trapped in large setting.

There are multitudes of problem in writing. It may mimic the appearance, but the script is tumbling between comically ridiculous and over-the-top misplaced drama. At one point, it adds military propaganda which contradicts the supposed quirky style. The game itself doesn't venture too much into thriller and this is a movie where it opens with clown zombie, so the drama feels very detached.

Acting is a miss most of the time. There's barely any character worth rooting for as they are either firmly one dimensional or simply annoying. The original hero Frank West is relegated to a crude talk show, but then the movie introduces Dennis Haysbert, a veteran actor to build conspiracy subplot. It's as though the movie takes the combining gimmick from the game too literal and throws tons of ideas to what sticks.

Thankfully, the action is pleasantly done. Cinematography is good, definitely better than most game inspired movie. It often creates fine spectacle, especially in one particular continuous shot. Practical effect and CGI work better than expected as well, delivering dismemberment and bloody scenes with fine commitment. There's more effort invested on the violence than anything, which is fan pleasing, at the very least.

With a stuttering pace and two hours runtime, the movie does feel bloated. However, for fans of horror or the game, there is plenty of gleeful and numbing carnage here.

So many attempts have been made by Hollywood to create a movie from a video game (Doom, Super Mario Brothers, Max Payne) and vice versa (Alien, Indiana Jones, The Evil Dead, Jaws) that have been so so bad, that my expectations were pretty low going into this newest fare.

Dead Rising: Watchtower is the live action adaptation of the hugely popular video game series Dead Rising, by game giant Capcom. And I have to say, right from the get go– I was pleasantly surprised! Not only did it not suck, it was actually very entertaining.

Don't get me wrong. There was plenty in this two hour film that will ensure it will never be hoisted up into the realm of Romero or even The Walking Dead any time soon. But as average zombie fare goes, it was actually above average.

The story follows online reporter Chase Carter (Jesse Metcalfe) and his camerawoman Jordon (Keegan Connor Tracy) as they cover the stories of the people inside of the walled-in quarantined area in Oregon, as the government (FEZA – Federal Emergency Zombie Authority) attempts to contain a viral outbreak that turns people into ravenous zombies. An anti-viral drug called Zombrex, that keeps the virus at bay, is being administered to those infected. When it becomes clear that the drug is no longer effective, Chase, Jordon, grieving mother Maggie (Virginia Madsen), and survivor, Crystal (Meghan Ory) battle their way to a pawn shop, and temporary safety. But Crystal has a dark secret, and the army has a hidden agenda.

This the perfect set up that turns the movie back into the video game. All manner of weapons can be fashioned from things in the pawn shop of course… and well, they are. A garbage can lid gets protruding blades, anything with a long handle gets a pike, a sledge hammer head, or a tree-limb rotary saw attached to each end, making for plenty of weapon-point-of-view camera shots later on. Case in point: a continuous tracking shot with no cut-aways that follows Chase through a horde, into a bus, out of the bus, onto a car, on top of the bus, all the while battling the undead with his tree-limb rotary saw and baseball bat. Marvelous! While the main characters do a decent job as beleaguered protagonists, some of the best performances are by the supporting cast. These include Aleks Paunovic as a Mad Max-style biker gang leader who wants to rule the world with his minions, and the always entertaining Rob Riggle as hotshot Frank West, who has already survived one outbreak, being interviewed (and being a jack-ass) on the UBN news broadcasts, interspersed throughout the movie.

I would like to have seen more visceral carnage (there's plenty of zombie-killing, but mostly CGI blood, and not nearly enough amputations). Through the use of the many improvised weapons, there are quite a number of inventive kills, but one stands out for me. It's a shot of a wandering zombie-dad chowing down on the remains of his child who is strapped to his chest in a baby front-pack– kind of like a feed bag.

The lack of true gore was obviously a budgetary constraint, but this was definitely not a low-budget affair. A few more practical "Walking Dead-style" effects would have upped the ante for me. That might be my only real complaint.

I read a couple of pretty scathing reviews, but I think they just didn't get it. Dead Rising, Watchtower stays pretty true to the video game, which was its obvious intent. There are plenty of shout-outs to the game itself, like Chase donning a servbot helmet t-shirt, and one zombie getting "traffic-coned." There is probably too much plot for its own good (I can't believe I'm saying that) making it feel like a hodgepodge of ideas that could have played out over the run of a television series (which is in the works, by the way).

Is it worth watching? For fans of the game, absolutely! It's entertaining and free on Crackle right now. Will you find it entertaining? It depends on the mindset you go into it with.

When a government vaccine fails to stop another zombie infection a man teams up with an infected woman to escape the quarantined area before a crazy man wanting to be king of the zombies expands the territory.

Sony's Crackle, all streaming online, on-demand in conjunction with Legendary pictures offer an adaptation of Dead Rising Capcom's best selling video game. What's clear from director Zach Lipovsky's offering is that it's no cheap cash-in. Opening with a cute cartoon explanation of the zombie anti virus Zombrex, we're the introduced to hordes of the dead, a creepy clown and policeman zombie within the first few minutes.

With sweeping city scales and tight close ups there's a sense of scale, urgency and panic especially with the impending military action. Jesse Metcalfe's Chase Carter is reminiscent of a mix of D.J, Cotrona and George Clooney's Seth Gecko nonchalant delivery. It's good to see one of the biggest 80s stars Virginia Madsen on the screen in the role of a troubled mother. With plenty of screen presence Meghan Ory is notable as Crystal O'Rourke and Bate's Motel's Keegan Connor Tracy is weighty in a small role as Joran.

Sadly Dead Rising is broken up by satirical Robocop-like news reports and interviews featuring Rob Riggle and TV-like fade outs don't help the pacing. It has a C.S.I crisp look, while not filmatic it doesn't feel like DTV and has some great special effects. With slicing spinning blades, bats used as weapons and gun-play there's plenty of zombie blood and guts on display. The second half during the night time scenes gets a little darker, no pun intended, with eerie dead girl characters, chainsaws, rough raping nomads, shotguns, nose biting, motorbikes and more explosions.

Even though I've never played Dead Rising its surprising how it captures the feel of at least the posters, clips and game adverts I'd seen and subconsciously locked away with Metcalfe striking poses of Carter in framed angles synonymous with the game series (think Prince of Persia).

Dead Rising a.k.a. Dead Rising: Watchtower is a solid addition to the saturated zombie film market with well executed effects and action stunt set ups. It's main issue by default and through no fault of its it own nor Lipovsky's or writer/producer Tim Carter it's all been done before. The game also apparently had a liable suit brought against it in 2008 for its similarities to Dawn of the Dead '78 and 2004. Nevertheless, if Dead Rising had been released in 2006 the same year of the game release it may have faired a little better as while it is a good production it feels like it's covering old ground, zombies in general are not as fresh as they used to be, say in 1985.

Hopefully it fulfils Dead Rising fans dreams but for the average viewer with nostalgic inducing cult films like Wrymwood and Bloodbath Bombshell injecting new life into the tired genre and big budget outings like The Dawn of the Dead remake and WWZ, Dead Rising feels a little too Resident Evil Apocalypse or TV pilot-like with its expensive C.S.I feel and odd set up for sequel ending. If a TV spin off is to come, Rising's well executed focus on violence would put it above Z Nation and debatably below The Walking Dead.

This latest zombie outbreak movie has a couple run from a quarantined zone after a government vaccine fails to stop the spread of the undead. Survivors try desperately to find a cure, while typical mayhem surrounds them.

This was seemingly based on a video-game. It contains most of the usual zombie action you will have come to expect and really doesn't have too much to differentiate itself from the pack. Tonally it plays things for laughs some of the time but mostly goes for a relatively straight treatment. I suppose one of the most distinctive elements of this one is the running commentary from a newsroom. From here, a survivor from a previous outbreak who wrote a book about it offers his pearls of wisdom to the nation. On the whole, while this was quite a good idea, I never felt it was as funny as it should be. Aside from this, it's business as usual with hordes of zombies rampaging through an infected city, with a small group of survivors, government troops and criminals making up the numbers. There is a reasonable amount of variety to proceedings to keep things interesting enough and there are even some impressive technical moments like the attack around the bus, where a long unbroken camera shot follows the action up, down and over the action. But the film does start to outstay its welcome after some time, not helped by it clocking in at nearly two hours which seemed way in excess of what was needed. Overall, passable stuff but nothing too great either.