THE DEAD (2010)

Studio:       Anchor Bay Films
Director:    Howard J. Ford, Jon Ford
Writer:       Howard J. Ford, Jon Ford
Producer:  Howard J. Ford
Stars:     Rob Freeman, Prince David Osei, David Dontoh, Ben Crowe, Glenn Salvage, Dan Morgan, Julia Scott-Russell, Laura Jane Stephens, John Dunton-Downer, Nelson E. Ward, Mark Chapman

Review Score:

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Summary:

A stranded U.S. Air Force engineer and a local soldier make their way through Africa during a devastating zombie outbreak.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Lieutenant Brian Murphy, a flight engineer in the United States Air Force, is the only survivor when the last evacuation flight out of the country crash-lands in West Africa during a zombie outbreak. Brian grabs what supplies he can from the wreckage and battles through zombie mobs on foot until he finds and fixes a broken down truck.

Having gone AWOL from the local military, African soldier Sergeant Daniel Dembele returns home in search of his son. He discovers from a dying villager that soldiers took his son and other survivors to a military base in the north. Daniel shoots the woman out of mercy before setting out in search of his boy.

Brian is mobbed by a zombie horde when his truck becomes stuck in the road. Just as Brian is about to be overwhelmed, Daniel arrives on scene and shoots the attacking zombies. Looking for passage out of Africa, Brian asks if Daniel knows how to find the airport. Daniel agrees to show him the way if Brian agrees to give him the truck upon arrival.

The two men arrive at the airport only to find it deserted. They decide to remain together for survival and continue traveling north in the truck.

Brian and Daniel are stopped in the road by a group of soldiers safeguarding villagers at a makeshift camp. With Brian having contracted a fever, the two men rest at the camp for the night before leaving the following morning.

After hitting a zombie in the road during the dark of night, Brian drives into a tree and cracks the truck’s axle. Their vehicle disabled, Brian and Daniel make camp and use a tin can and twine as a crude alarm system to warn them of approaching zombies while they sleep.

The “alarm” fails and Daniel is bitten. In his dying moments, Daniel tells Brian about the family necklace he wears that symbolizes hope. Daniel passes and Brian begrudgingly puts a bullet in his head before walking away.

Continuing on alone, Brian comes across a dying woman who gives him her baby to care for. When a truck of refugees passes by later, Brian is able to give the baby over to their care.

Brian makes it to the military base in the north where survivors have taken shelter. Brian successfully radios the U.S. airbase in Henderson, but is told by Lieutenant Frank Greaves that rescue is impossible, as they too have been overrun. Brian asks about his family and is told that they are gone. Zombies then overtake the grounds outside. Resigned to his fate, Brian spots a young African boy who recognizes Daniel’s necklace. Brian realizes that he has found Daniel’s son. He and the boy look on passively as the zombies attack the camp.

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Review:

No matter how closely someone’s personal tastes might fall in line with the generally accepted consensus, every dyed-in-the-wool film fan nonetheless has that one film or handful of films where his/her opinion swims against the collective tide.  While not universally hailed as an all-time great in modern zombie cinema, “The Dead” has earned enough staunch support that my feeling of indifference seemingly counts me among the minority of those not swayed by its perceived charms.  Its fans have deemed it exhilarating, original, and one of the best.  But “The Dead” leaves me feeling like one of its reanimated corpses gnawing at a bone: hungry for something meatier to feast upon.

USAF engineer Brian Murphy finds himself the sole survivor of a failed evacuation flight out of Africa after a global epidemic has resurrected the dead.  Local soldier Daniel Dembele has gone AWOL since the outbreak in an effort to locate his missing son.  Together, the two military men team up for a zombie-killing trek across desolate African landscapes in search of safe passage and family reunions.

Thinking of “The Battery” (review here), another zombie film depicting the personal struggle of two men to outlast an apocalypse, what makes that movie intriguing are the personalities powering its plot.  Time spent in their company digs into their backgrounds, explores their relationship, and creates emotional tethers to an audience invested in the outcome of their shared story.  Here, Brian and Daniel are as flat as the deserts they traverse, and their motivations are nearly as barren.

Lead actor Rob Freeman physically looks the part of the American lieutenant, but his hollow performance casts Brian as a cardboard stiff.  His primary objective is merely to escape, which is a goal any rational mind would have during an undead crisis.  It doesn’t reveal anything unique about who Brian is as a person, and the lack of visible urgency assigned to his task equates its importance to remembering milk at the grocery store.

Prince David Osei puts in better work as Daniel, although his character is solely defined by the yearning to find his son, a fact he verbally reminds everyone of at regular intervals.  Surely the script could have come up with something more interesting for Daniel to say other than “I must find my son” at every scene change.  Neither he nor Brian are developed well enough to come across as truly intriguing.

Filmmaking duo the Ford Brothers do know their way around a camera, though.  Some shots are pushed in too close and move too fast in the dark to read more than the gist of frenetic action, but the overall production value is very strong.  “The Dead” lessens the redundancy of witnessing yet another shambling corpse for the umpteenth time in horror history by setting itself against the less-seen locations of African countryside.  On the whole, it makes “The Dead” a visually compelling film to look at, even if what is taking place is something that has been shown countless times before.

Visual effects are also impressive.  An opening scene featuring a zombie walking on a broken leg is particularly memorable.  And white eyes contrasting against the dark skin of African zombies gives them a look that is distinct from the typical rotting flesh visage made familiar by American and UK-set films.

Much less impressive is the meat of the story.  15 minutes short of two hours is an overlong time for two men to sit, drive, and sleep around campfires during beefy stretches of silence punctuated by one more smashed zombie head.

Things take a potentially interesting turn when Brian is reluctantly forced to care for a swaddled infant given to him by a dying woman.  Before the imagination can wonder how this will change his survival tactics, a refugee bus suddenly passes by and eager hands conveniently relieve Brian of his too brief responsibility.  Elsewhere in the story, a poignant monologue from a survivors’ camp leader is practically pulled verbatim from Terry Alexander’s similar speech in “Day of the Dead.”  “The Dead” seems to flirt with injecting meaningful commentary here and there before returning immediately to its straight-line path of Brian and Daniel’s journey from point A to point Z.

A striking visual style makes “The Dead” a little more than “just another zombie movie,” while its threadbare story and wooden characters keep it out of any category that includes the work of Romero, Fulci, Boyle, et al.  I understand that its faithful fans disagree, although I do not see any quantifiable appeal that warrants repeated viewings of “The Dead” the way that those previously referenced films do.

Review Score:  50

Click here for the review of the sequel, "The Dead 2: India."

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