Now here's a film i've been meaning to see for a while, this played 2 years ago at Fright-Fest in London and gathered some really positive reviews. It's set in my favourite sub-genre of horror, The Zombie Movie and having owned this on Blu-ray for a just over two months decided that instead of letting it gather dust by just sitting on my shelf, I'd finally get around to watching it. It kinda blew me away and reminded me of why I love zombie movies so much.
Zombie movies are a strange breed of sub genre, they seem to have a renaissance every twenty years or so. Within the last 12 years or so we've seen an increase in zombie films stemming from the release of 28 Days Later (technically not Zombies) and films like Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn Of the Dead and Edgar Wright's Shaun Of The Dead. These films were big box office draws and paved the way for all manner of zombified action to come our way through the Big Screen or DVD and Blu-Ray. Some of these films have been god awful when others, Dance Of The Dead, The Dead Outside, Zombies Of Mass Destruction and Mutants to name but a few, have been good. But the problem they all suffer is that they're just doing what has already been done. There's nothing new here. This is what sets the Ford Brothers' film, The Dead, apart from the rest of the bunch. The Dead follows a stranded Air Force mechanic who joins forces with a lone Afican soldier in the zombie infested plains of Africa. The Soldier searching for his son and the mechanic searching for a way home. It's a simple plot but it's done very effectively. Essentially a zombie road movie set against the back drop of an arid almost inhospitable place. The Ford Brothers utilize the locations brilliantly to keep the plot moving from using African villages, an abandoned airfield and the isolation of the desert and it's dunes.
For anyone who has ever read Max Brooks' brilliant World War Z, you will get the feeling that this would be right at home in the pages of that book. As if it was being told by the main character to Brooks' journalist. It has that way of seeming like an adaptation and not an original script. There actually is a section in that book focusing on the outbreak in Africa and i found that bit to be the most interesting section. Maybe that's why i thought this reminded me of that.
The characters themselves are well rounded. Lt. Brian Murphy, the only survivor of a downed evacuation flight, is the mechanic, a man who can fix anything from cars and trucks to shattered radios, we know he has a family back home, a wife and young daughter and will do whatever he has to to get beck to them. Sgt. Daniel Dembele is a soldier who fled is patrol to return to his village to find his son. He knows where he will be but is many many miles away. The two men from two very different cultures realise that they need each other if they're going to survive. The film is light on action and heavy on emotion as the two men go from strangers to friends over the course of their journey.
The two leads, Rob Freeman and Prince David Oseia work very well together with The Ford Brother's almost dialogue free script.
When I say that The Dead is different to the modern crop of living dead movies, I mean it in a stylistic way. Sure the plot can be used in any location but what the directors do here is more old school than new school, channelling the styles of Romero and Lucio Fulci in how the zombies look and move. Much like the original Dawn Of The Dead, the make up FX are more subtle using white make up to show the effects of the 'virus' and using white contact lenses for the eyes of the dead. They also move very very slowly and dress in tattered, neutral coloured clothes which brings to mind the style that Lucio Fulci used in his film Zombi. Also the setting is reminiscent of that film, using jungles and deserts. There are a lot of styles used which make this more than just your average low budget indie zombie flick.
The film also looks stunning thanks to some beautiful camera work by co-writer and director Jonathan Ford who captures the haunting desolate vistas so beautifully. He uses everything form tracking shots, Crane shots and still cameras and the outcome makes The Dead possibly the most beautiful zombie movie ever filmed. It never once has that gritty, dirty and dull look opting more to make everything light and viewable contrasting the bright blue colourful sky with the dusty sun scorched desert roads and surroundings.
Overall The Dead is a good film, If you're expecting full on zombie action, i'd say you might be slightly disappointed by this film, but if you're open minded and want to watch a film that has had a lot of care and attention put into it with two great central performances, then i'd say what are you waiting for. The Dead is an original film set within an unoriginal sub-genre and I reckon The Ford Brother are two film makers to keep an eye on.
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