Directed by Gary King, and written by Bo Buckley, Death of the Dead is a comedy zombie film from 2011 that was released on EST/VOD/SVOD Digital platforms in November of last year by BayView Entertainment. Comedy can be something hard to get right, and while there are certainly some funny moments to be found here, on the whole a lot of this didn't appeal.
Wanda (Christina Rose - Rage 2, Fallout 76 video game voice work) is an awkward high school nerd who isn't able to do anything right in life. The sole student of perverted karate master, Master Sensei (Jack Abele), she dreams of one day being as strong and skilled as he is. After a rival karate school (led by Evil Sensei - William Lee) gets in a bus crash involving toxic waste, the students are transformed into evil karate zombies. With the town becoming overrun with undead, Wanda is forced to take up the challenge of stopping the outbreak and saving the day.
I wouldn't say this comedy horror is of its time as it was only after I went to write the review that I saw it was made over a decade ago. In that respect at least this was a success, as I had assumed it was a recent movie. Looking back, the pre-#MeToo comedy is more apparent, with females often used as titillation, seen most with Wanda's skimpy outfit she wears during the final third. The humour on the whole wasn't for me, there are a lot of jokes included throughout the eighty minute run time, but only a handful worked for me. Countless jokes around sex, and some jokes around gross out humour and bodily functions didn't appeal at all. What worked better were the fourth wall breaking moments revolving around humour of signs this is a movie rather than an actual story occurring. Things such as Master Sensei being very obviously replaced by a stunt double during fight scenes, bad dubbing, film crew appearing on camera, and purposely wooden acting, these moments were all fun. I've seen some of them used before, but Death of the Dead doubles down on them, including many moments I hadn't seen before. Maybe my favourite was when Wanda is trying to tell Master Sensei something, with him replying he can't hear her due to the film's soundtrack being too loud. Talking of the soundtrack, towards the end there was a nice homage to that classic 28 Days Later theme tune.
The special effects were not fantastic, but being a comedy horror this worked in the film's favour. There are plenty of deaths, with zombies decapitated, people torn in half, heads crushed and more, with a suitable amount of blood. Then there are a couple of fight scenes that were impressive with how many people are participating in them, even if there was a reliance on close-up shaky camera footage that got a bit stale. Zombies are a mixed bag, but as they are zombies, make-up effects don't need to be perfect, so this wasn't an issue. The undead here may be of the flesh eating variety, but they talk and are able to fight, rather than lurch around.
Characters were all terrible unfortunately, Master Sensei had some good parts to him underneath all the perversion, I did enjoy how he is never shown to really like Wanda that much, and how this is never really that well hidden. Wanda 's early painfully awkward scenes were not much fun to sit through, rather than make you feel pity for the character, it repelled me, with some feel-bad scenes around how poorly she is treated.
While Death of the Dead did have some funny moments, these were surrounded by humour that was terrible, frequently I got the impression it was felt it was being far more funny than it actually was, with joke after joke missing. Most of the fourth wall breaking moments were decent, I wish this was the direction that had been more focussed on. If you're after a surprisingly un-dated zombie comedy horror then this may be worth a watch, there are some good parts here, but on the whole Death of the Dead was a bit abrasive to my tastes.
SCORE:
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