Dead Bored
As devastation sweeps across Africa due to a virus outbreak leads to people becoming the living dead, Lieutenant Brian Murphy (Rob Freeman) finds himself the sole survivor of a plane crash. Forced to try and make it across Africa with the meagre supplies he manages to haul from the wreckage he ends up joining forces with Sergeant Daniel Dembele (Prince David Oseia) who like him is making it across the country but he is in search of his son. Together they fight what ever comes their way in the hope of finding a plane which will work.
I feel bad for saying this but I was dead bored as I watched "The Dead" and I feel bad because this horror movie tries to bringing us something new with it being set in Africa. It is the movie's USP, this whole battle to survive across the African desert in the unrelenting heat where there are no sprawling malls to stock up on a range of weapons to defend yourself with. And as such the Ford brothers don't go for fast paced action or zombies with superhuman powers, they try to use the limitations of life add to the horror.
The trouble is that "The Dead" ends up deadly slow and when it isn't doing deadly slow it is doing text book zombie. For example at a small airport Brian enters a dark room, his torch fails and it doesn't take a movie know it all to guess that when his torch flashes in to life he will be faced with a salivating zombie whose lips are red with blood. That by no means is the only cliche in there and unfortunately the African USP does nothing to lift the cliches in to becoming something new, in fact the frequent silence and slowness of it works against it.
What this all boils down to is that "The Dead" for the most is on par with many a zombie movie when it comes to the horror and the makeup jobs. But unfortunately in trying to be different by using Africa as the setting the whole movie seems to slow down to the point it is frequently boring.
Tags: Zombie Movies
