Not doing much for the tourism industry in Cambodia, Dead & Deader is an appropriately titled zombie romp that starts off in that wonderful country. Turns out someone has been dealing with some radiation, mutating scorpions into critters that have the ability to turn a human into a member of the walking dead (or food-choice challenged to stay politically correct).
While not a great movie by any stretch, Deader's hilarious one-liners, nerdy pop culture references and even more enjoyable zombie mutilation make this part of an increasing better half of the Sci-Fi Channel originals. The body and gore count remains high. Zombie fans can now add the following to their lists of favorite undead slaughters:
Meat grinder
Ceiling fan decapitation
Electric knife to the throat
Antlers to the chest
Fire axe beheading
Unfortunately, aside from those fun scenes, the film ends up with countless off-screen headshots. When shown, the small blood blast from the heads looks the same each time around. It's definitely a film that looks its budget.
Still, Deader turns into a buddy picture, with Dean Cain playing a solider who is part zombie, part human after the scorpions effects fail to work on him completely. Guy Torry camps it up as the solider stuck with Cain as a partner and the two deliver some great lines written by one of the guys responsible for the much-maligned movie adaptation of House of the Dead.
Regardless of the writers, you'd need to try really hard to screw up a movie with a midget zombie that eats humans at his eye level (think about it). The target audience can get their fill from countless references ranging from Halo, Star Wars, James Bond and Black Sabbath. It can get tiring, especially if you're unaware of the items being discussed, but the little stabs at geek culture will have great effect on the intended.
Patrick Dinhut, his first outing as a director, uses some funny little camera move homage's too. Picking them out is part of the fun. In fact, it's not hard to see the entire crew having a blast hamming it up on the set as they're being relentlessly chased down by an ever-growing zombie horde.
Unless you can't find yourself enjoying a movie without the extended budget of a typical major studio production, any zombie fan should make this required viewing. Generic in spots, this does seem like familiar territory, yet there's enough camp and stupid people (they might want to watch some of the movies they keep referencing) to make it out happy. For a cheap Saturday night, they rarely come better than Dead & Deader.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
1 - Chris Beaumont
You nailed it.
I am still in the process of watching it, but I have to admit to enjoying the hell out of this little movie.
Glad I decided to spend some time with it, I have had a tendency to skip over most Sci Fi originals lately.
2 - jflo
I enjoyed this little movie too...I thought it was very funny. I was planning on watching it again...it was scheduled to play again this Thursday night but has strangely been removed from the schedule...can you tell me what gives???