Gangs of the Dead Review
I stumbled across a movie poster online for a movie called 48 Weeks Later. After searching a bit more online a found that this was just the retitling of Gangs of the Dead for English distribution. Nothing made me want to see it more. I had seen it on the new release wall at the video store for sometime and was fully prepared for this to be a complete piece of shit. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t.
A meteorite crashing down in the middle of LA turns a group of street bums into zombies. Meanwhile, three gang members show up at a warehouse to make a drug deal minutes before a rival gang shows up for the same reason, raising the tension. Moments later, just as the cops are about to bust the whole deal, an army of dead hobos thwart their plans and seal off the area. Only two cops escape and their only safe haven is the warehouse where the rival gangs are already on edge. Tensions soar as this mismatched group tries to survive each other and the zombie hordes.
This is a fair movie. Good as far as zombie movies go. Unfortunately, it’s another familiar case where the whole movie was shot in pretty much one place, although they do make the best of it. The acting was pretty good for the most part. The pacing was good, the editing was good and the photography was creative.
The zombies left something to be desired. For the most part they were marked with a yellowish/green pallor and blood. There wasn’t a whole lot of gore either, so gore fans may be disappointed by it. Luckily the rest of the movie was on the up and up.
All in all, Gangs of the Dead was a pretty good watch. While searching the Internet I found that the general consensus on this film was that it was surprisingly not bad. If you’re into zombie movie (and why would you be at this site if you weren’t) you’d probably have a good time watching this movie.
oh, i was worried this was a sequel to hood of the living dead. that movie was awful!
I haven’t seen this one or the above mentioned abomination (yet), but now my expectations might be a tad high. I mean, how often do you get to see a good zombie movie (that you haven’t already seen)? I read about the movie when it originally came out, but then I read something somewhere that put me off a bit. The cover is butt-awful, non the less. (If I’m not mistaken the original cover was waay better. So was the title: “Last Rites”.)
Good review, by the way. Short but sweet, made me interested.
Well, don’t get your hopes up too high, but it is watchable and enjoyable. Better than most indy zombie flicks that I’ve seen.
Yeah, that’s always the risk with expectations. But I’m sure I’ll find a silver lining in this one too, even if it turns out not to be my cup of tea. I’m feeling pretty confident I’ll be able to second your assessment.
[...] written by a disappointed viewer, this entry makes me wary, the way I felt when I saw that Gangs of the Dead was released abroad as 48 Weeks Later, even though that caution was fueled by seeing movies like [...]