REVIEW: Denizens of the Dead

Imagine, if you will, that a documentary crew followed Tallahassee from Zombieland around to document how he gets by a normal day in world overrun with zombies. It would be nice to see this character that we know and love work and to see him do what he does best before he even met up with the gang. There is no doubt that it would be pretty awesome, is there? Denizens of the Dead takes this concept and turns it into something a little different. A documentary crew follows around a self-glorified zombie killer as he “struggles” to get by each day while zombies are all over the world. The problem is, though the concept it good, the film falls flat on it’s head and ends up being un-entertaining.

The film’s main problem is the lack of story and the lack of good characterization and that’s something that Zombieland had. It took about 50 minutes for there to be a story that I was somewhat interested in and even then I began to get weary of the boring dialogue and the stale action scenes. The first 2 halves of the film is listening to the lead character talk about how zombies came to be, watching him have chess with a mute, then listening to him and other zombie killers bullshit about stuff during a card game, ect. It didn’t really capture my attention and there was barely any zombie action and when there was… well, I’ll get to that. When it comes to zombie movies, there needs to be a lot of imagination in story because there are plenty of stories to be told. I can respect that maybe they didn’t have the budget to explore other story lines or they had time restraints but this is something that needed to be worked out in pre-production.

I never felt for any of the characters in this film. When you’re making a mockumentary, you want to tap into the character that you’re following, you want to know what makes him tick and why he is doing the things he’s doing. Especially since it’s a character that had the potential of being a lovable person. Denizens of the Dead had very stiff, wooden, cardboard cut outs of zombie killers but there was no drive, no loss (except one) that made me feel for any of them. The way I see it is that they are all a bunch of sociopaths that never functioned in real life until they got their rocks off killing dead people. It’s rather tragic. I cannot say anything on the acting because I’m sure they used their friends and probably family and I understand that not everybody is an actor but I will say that the performances weren’t that bad. They tried to convince me that they’re real people so I give them credit for that.

Personally, I think one of my biggest problems were the zombies, as I mentioned before. Now, I really liked how they stated that at first the zombies were fast until the winter came, froze them, then thawed and turned into slow moving zombies. I feel as though it was a compromise for the timeless debate on fast vs. slow zombies. However, in this film the zombies don’t even put up a fight with the zombie killers. I grew up seeing these brainless monsters defend and attack people to try to eat their brains and for me to see them just drone around open and welcoming the slaughter… it kind of turned me off. Sure, the battle scenes weren’t really convincing but it just made me a little angry to see these zombies get hit in the head, fall down and then wait for another fatal blow to the head. It was sort of insulting and then, at the end, they decide to fight back. It was way too random.

Though, not everything about it was bad. I found some of the dialogue quite funny, especially the C.U.N.T. anagram. I even liked the little montage of zombie killings in the beginning of the film because it was a tribute to the beginning of Zombieland. Only difference is that it had classical music instead of Metallica. Overall, this was a pretty weak zombie flick that has some problems that need to iron out. The director wanted to make a zombie film, possibly quick, and he succeeded but I think he needs to look over the script before he starts to film. It’s a lesson for beginning directors and I’m sure if he makes another zombie movie… it might be better than this.

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