One thing I love more
than zombies is Nazi zombies, there's just something about the undead
S.S that strikes a cord with me. It could be my love of both WW2
films and my love of zombies in general, I just don't know, well
there's a new film out at the moment on dvd called War Of The Dead
that combines both those elements and film i've been following the
production of for a few years. Check after the jump for me review..
I first heard about the
film when its was under the title Stone's War, at the time it had
Dawson's Creek star James Van Der Beek attached to star, there was
some test footage uploaded online that I thought looked pretty
interesting, well that was about two years ago and much like that
other curio of WW2 and zombies, that we've still been waiting for,
Worst Case Scenario, War Of The Dead dropped off my radar. Well it's
out now and I finally go to see it. James Van Der Beek no longer
stars and has been replaced with English actor Andrew Tiernan in the
role of Captain Stone but we'll get to that character in a bit. The
plot follows an elite unit of Finnish commando's sent behind enemy
lines to locate and destroy a Russian bunker. They're aided by a
photographer and a small band of American soldiers led by Stone. They
come across a house where an old man has been making these strange
mechanical box thingys. One of the soldiers steals one and cuts his
finger on it. He starts to get sick. Suddenly they're ambushed by
some Russian soldiers and seek shelter inside the bunker after
fending the enemy off, then all hell breaks loose as the Russian
soldiers return as running, jumping, human eating zombies. The find
they're way out of the bunker and seek shelter in an old farm house.
During they're stay in the Stalin Inn, they find them selves under
siege from the ravenous zombies and manage to escape via a car found
in a barn. Escaping the attackers the three remaining soldiers,
Stone, the American, A Finnish soldier and a Russian soldier escape
to another underground bunker where they discover some terrible
secret of Nazi experiments. The three must battle they're way through
the corridors of the bunker to escape the zombie hordes and meet with
Stone's extraction, before a battalion of Russian reinforcements
arrive at the bunker.
Ok, here's the thing,
the script is fucking terrible, it was apparently written in four
days and my god does it show. The plot is old and clichéd as it
follows the same formula almost every WW2 horror film follows and the
dialogue at times is cringe worthy like the final line of the film,
'on your feet soldier, it's not over yet', now how many times has
that line been said in a ww2 film? It makes me wonder how the film
got financed on a script written in 4 days. It's clichéd, derivative
and we've seen it all before, if the film had an ounce of originality
behind the plot I would probably hav enjoyed it a lot more. The fact
that I didn't find more entertainment from the film could be due to
this kind of film having already been done before and done better
with films like Outpost and Dead Snow being the stand outs in this
sub-genre.
However, even though
the actual plot and dialogue are awful, this film looks superb, it's
very well shot and edited using some inspired camera set ups and some
great tracking shots. The period detail is great and the production
design is good to look at especially the graveyard and the bunker
which at times reminded me of Aliens, when the soldiers are making
their way around various corridors, like they would on a space craft,
which adds a lot of atmosphere in the second half of the film. One
thing that really pissed me off though was the how the write never
explained the mechanical key, why did it cause the soldier to get
sick, did it contain a virus and why was the old man making them in
that house, this for me was a major plot hole as it didn't really
serve any purpose and was never fully explored.
Andrew Tiernan is
woefully miss cast as Captain Stone, Tiernan is great British
character actor normally seen playing scum bags but here just seems
out of place, the character is a bit of a cunt at times and doesn't
exactly inspire any sort of sympathy from me, i'm not sure if that's
how the character was written, but that's how it came across.
Tiernan's accent is also terrible, his American accent is totally off
sounding like a man trying to do an impression of an American and
failing. This adds an unfortunate comic tone to the film because I
just couldn't take his character seriously. I think I a countdown of
worst accents, his would come second only because Don Cheadle's
cockney geezer impression in the Oceans 11-13 movies is the pinnacle
of bad movie accents.
Apart from the good
cinematography and direction, the film sports some very well
choreographed action scenes from the opening ambush that is
reminiscent of Band Of Brother and Saving Private Ryan to the final
confrontation between Stone and the zombiefied leader of the Finnish
commandos but the stand out action sequence is the siege on the
farmhouse, which comes across as a mixture of Night Of The Living
dead mixed with the tavern shoot out in Inglourious Basterds, it's
tense, well shot and doesn't outstay it's welcome, but a few well
choreographed actions scenes don't make up for a poor script and miss
casting. However, it's a popcorn film of the highest order and even
if it has some major flaws it's not with out it's entertainment.
Would I watch it again? Probably not in the foreseeable future but as
a beer and movie film it just about suffices. This film aspires to A
movie status but unfortunately languishes in B movie hell. I'm
awarding this 3 out of 5 because it looks good, sounds good and it's
a pure popcorn movie, just don't expect anything other than a limp
live action variation on Call Of Duty Zombies.
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