Dead Men Walking Review
This starts out somewhat promising. Travis, armed with a shotgun is trapped in a house, shooting zombies as they attack him. Tons of gore ensue. Then as Travis has finally killed the last zombie, another jumps out at him. He shoots it and in the process gets a mouth full of it’s blood. As this happens, the cops bust in and arrest him, skip the trial and send him directly to prison. During this, a CDC worker (she mangles all of her lines) shows up at his house (how the CDC knew of this event already, your guess is as good as mine) and is instructed to head to the prison to see Travis, now dubbed “the Shotgun Killer”. By this point, the movie has already sank to crap level. About five minutes of great, gory zombie action, then nothing for what seems like an eternity.
Back to prison: Travis is getting sick, really sick, vomiting blood and going pale, but they just put him in a cell, even though he looks like he is dying. Of course, when they finally take him to the infirmary, he starts throwing up blood on other inmates and everyone starts getting infected. For the next hour or so, people get infected, eat each other and the story goes nowhere. The acting in this film is horrible and the dialog rarely makes sense. The one good thing about this movie is the gore, which goes completely over the top at times, but is this movies only saving grace. A scene in the mess hall, with the infected inmates throwing up blood all over everybody, infecting them and then eating them was at least a little action and gore to hold you over throughout the long, meandering scenes of useless back story and choppy dialog. In the end, this movie was kind of a stinker.
If you happen to see it, just fast-forward until you see bloody vomit or limb eating, stop, watch those scenes, and then hit fast-forward again.
i DVR’d this movie off sci-fi channel (strike one!) so i knew it was going to be bad, so i watched right up until e was named the shotgun killer,actually i thought this movie was so awful i didn’t even pay attentin to the character’s name… the fact that you knew his name was Travis, well, kudos to you my fiends.
this is anoher awful addition to the Cheap zombie movie genre.
this is a waste of time, if faced with the option of a labotomy or watching this waste of time…. thechoice should be an easy one. go wh the labotomy.
You guys sure do seem to have an issue with bad movies, for zombie movie buffs… If you can’t take them for what they are (freaking zombie movies, that is), why bother at all? Just put on Romero’s masterpieces on a continuos loop and skip the rest, that’s my advice.
It’s time to realize facts: Most zombie movies aren’t what you can call “good” movies, but hey, they have zombies in them. That doesn’t make them good, but it sure makes them zombie movies. Mostly bad zombie movies. Other zombie movie fans, like you and me make most zombie movies. What satisfaction do you get from trashing another fans work? It just seems like a waste of time and efforts to whine and complain about not all zombie movies are made by Romero, or another competent filmmaker. Because they’re not.
And so on and so forth…
Pork-Eater: You guys sure do seem to have an issue with bad movies I sure do. Just because a film has zombies in it, doesn’t mean it gets a free pass for being a piece of shit. A zombie film is still a film. They can be well written and well made. Fido was an amazing film, with zombies, and wasn’t made by Romero. It was intelligent, well shot, had a great score and added something new to the zombie genre. Or films like Dellamorte Dellamore and 28 Days Later. I also get shit for liking certain zombie films that other people seem to trash a lot. Like The Video Dead and Wild Zero. That one gets shit on all the time, but I personally love this film. The music, the way the zombies look and the general attitude of it. Sure it looks a little cheap at times, but the passion of the filmmaker shows through. This is why I am so hard on zombie films, because I fucking love them. They don’t have to be trite, run of the mill crap. I have seen a lot of zombie films and there are only a small portion of that I think are horrible and unwatchable. Some are cheap, with bad scripts, but the passion of the cast and crew show through and make it enjoyable. I want zombie films to be taken seriously. Now I’m not saying that they should all be serious, Night of the Living Dorks, Shaun of the Dead and Black Sheep are all great. I want them to not be looked down upon as trivial. I guess in the end, these are only our opinions on these films. Nothing more. And lastly, to answer your other question: What satisfaction do you get from trashing another fans work? None. I wish I loved every single zombie film ever made, but that will never happen. So, when I see shit, I tell other people so they don’t step in it. You said you think that Day of the Dead looks like it could be one of the better zombie films of 2008, I don’t. So, just like you shared your opinion, I share mine.
i can accept bad zombie movies as that, i take their finances into account and ignore things like bad makeup and bad acting. but plot holes BAD PLOT annoy the hell out of me.
I’m sorry for the rant, it wasn’t directed to anybody in particular, but mostly towards the general atmosphere on this site (and on others like it). Zombie movie fans should lighten up a bit in general, I think. A zombie movie is a good movie, if you like, because it has zombies in it. There can’t be too many zombie movies, or something.
no i completely understand what you meant about the tone. i have done reviews for the midnight podcast and i know that the tone towards zombie movies in general is that most of them are bad, you have to enjoy them for what they are. get past everything that is bad about them and enjoy the zombies. leave the zombie survivalism at the door, i just can’t deal with running zombies EVER. this movie was really just bad in my opinion because it was shown on the sci-fi network (99.8% of movies shown on sci-fi are awful!) and it is a good movie to watch on fast forward because none of the dialog or plot really matters at all.
oh yeah, the new day of the dead looks just about as good as a blender full of dead babies. now you can take that for what you will, but i thinkit looks fucking terrible, there i said it, i think the new day of the dead is going to be a bigger abomination than dead men walking and that the more recent dawn of the dead never happened. if it’s on tv i turn it right the fuck off, you know why? zombies don’t run. and good zombie movies don’t need to be remade into shit. the one and only exception would be night of the living dead as remade by savini, because romero was still involved and it still held true to the original.
how are they going to remake bub without bub looking like a guy with bub prostethics on? they’re not. the new day of the dead is going to suck ass like a pool filter on a kids bunghole. the new day of the dead is going to be so bad they shit it straight to dvd (no, not “shot” because the film company shit this movie out) so they could cut down on the in theater suicide rate (”i want my [X amount of dollars] back!!” *bang* self inflicted headshot.). the new day of the dead is going to be even worse than that piece of shit dawn of the dead with the running zombies taht i never pay attention to. when faced with the question of the new day of the dead or the new dawn of the dead, i may watch the new day of the dead because i might want to make myself suffer through it… or i may claw my way oout of the rooom that i am held in so that i don’t have to watch either. fuck.
i’m sorry, this is totally off topic.
dead men walking: bad, but more acceptable than the new dawn of the dead and or the new day of the dead.
So, all the real-life zombies you’ve encountered were slow and non-running, you say. But how do you, logically, prove that they couldn’t run? Maybe they just choose not to? Maybe they didn’t feel like running?
…and that’s about how stupid I think the entire controversy on the fast zombie is. People are just so narrow-minded.
By the way, badhammer, you really have a way with words, you are truly funny when you put down bad zombie movies (no sarcasm). But that doesn’t excuse you being so narrow-minded about the subject matter. It’s really hard to take you seriously, because you’re not.
Generally speaking, I think zombie movies get a pretty bad rap, right off the bat (sorry Nate). When most people think of zombie movies, I think they think of trite, special effects laden, plot-less crap. I know for a fact that that’s a misconception…in some cases. There are good zombie movies out there, not just the ones Romero did and not just the major studio jobs. I feel that it is my job to weed out the crap, so people can enjoy a good movie from a great genre that brings new ideas and exciting stories for their entertainment.
When I see movies that change their name to include the word ‘zombie” to attract me and my zombie loving friends, but have nothing to do with zombies, it pisses me off and I want to warn people. When I see a movie that lures you in with the promise of a sequel to a great movie, but delivers obnoxiously tedious crap, bait-and-switch style, I want to warn people. When I see a zombie movie that looks like it’s gonna be total crap based on what I’ve seen that looks just like it, yet it turns out to be a worthwhile watch, I want to tell people about it.
I refuse to sit back and watch a crappy movie just because it has zombies in it…unless I get to vent my frustrations about said movie via my reviews. That’s ridiculous. A shit movie is still a shit movie, no matter what the subject matter.
I’ve written several good reviews for zombie movies on this site. I find it ironic that you have passed over those reviews to bitch so negatively about any of the negative reviews on this site. You seem to be actually guilty of what you accuse us of. How ironic.
I’ve seen your reviews, Pork-Eater, and it’s deplorable that you call your fence-sitting synopsis of each film a review. A review is not an account of the facts of the story line, it’s an opinion. If your opinion of any given zombie movie is simply that it is a zombie movie and that you like zombie movies, then all you need is this one default review: “This movie had zombies in it. Therefore it was good.” How’s that for an exciting read?
The only reason I found Dead Men Walking to be even a bit enjoyable, was because I watched it right after subjecting myself to Day of the Dead 2: Contagium and ANY movie is better than that bullshit heap of an excuse for a zombie movie. If you don’t like Nate’s opinion of the movie, then reply with what you thought was good about the movie. Rebut with an actual opinion of the movie, not your opinion of Nate’s opinion. Tell us what you think was good about it. I think Nate will agree when I say that we will both refuse to say a movie is good simply because it involves zombies. To make an interesting review, we’d have to back that opinion with facts about the movie. If we can’t think of any facts in the movie that support our claim that the movie is good, then the movie isn’t good in our opinion. If we can think of a whole heap of facts about the movie that support our opinion that the movie is bad, the movie is bad in our opinion. Having zombies in it does not constitute a good movie, that’s just childish and absurd.
thanks pork-eater… i do enjoy wording things nicely.
as for the running zombie arguement, i would love to get into it with you. join me at zombiefriends.com formore discussion. i ort of think that the way our muscles work throgh damaging them to exert them would make zombies slow after one good run.
Jef & Nate: I’m sorry for bringing a negative wibe to your site. Apologies. I haven’t gone back to the archives to see what you guys have written before, so it was wrong of me to assume that you only rip movies to pieces.
I’ve never said that a movie is good because it has zombies in it, only that I like to watch movies with zombies in them, regardless if they are “good” or “bad”. (Most are the latter, unfortunately.) One would think others do too. That’s all I’m saying. And that when reviewing zombie movies to your zombie movie loving peers, one should try to find out what’s good about the movie, not only the bad. For example: I thought that Zombie Lake had good under water footage and that Contagium (aka DotD 2) was kinda original. The movies are still bad, which I make sure to point out, but I’m glad I saw both.
As for my own reviews, it’s only fair that you criticize me. But I have never ever written a walkthrough of the events in a movie. And I never will. Therefore I have no clue where Jef got that idea…
What I try to do, though, is to make my own mind up about the movie I’m reviewing before I check out what other people are saying about it. It’s really not that interesting to know what the “consensus” online is about a movie. But now I’m probably assuming stuff again…
the consensus would be a 100% agreement, i must say that there will never be total agreement on the quality or lack there of on a certain movie or as towards why zombies can’t run (indefinately), there is bound to be debate no matter where you go and no matter what the subject, that is what makes talking about things like zombies so much fun.
i mean hey, i get on zombie survival forums and pose the question, “what if we got it all wrong, and we have nothing to worry about with zombies. it’s really robots we need to worry about!” suddenly i am more of an asshole than if i were to say zombies can’t run because the dead body does not regenerate and the action of running floods the muscle tissue with lactic acid which breaks it dwn and running would become impossible, so all the movies with running zombies are more fictional than the ones without running zombies; and in fact the creation of running zombies is as american as super-sizing a big mac meal, it’s more! bigger! faster! louder! all the buzz words that sucker in 14 year old “horror” fans everywhere, all busy watching movies like “i know who killed me” that running zombies are their bread and butter.
i am more okay with zombie lake than i am Contagium.
On the subject of my own reviews, here’s one that you guys might not have noticed before:
http://www.zombiereportingcenter.com/2008/01/02/day-of-the-dead-2-contagium-review/#comments
I’m pretty pleased with that one, especially since English isn’t my native language. I aim to be fair and balanced (if FOX News hasn’t copyrighted that) even with the not-so good zombie movies. Do reply (to the appropriate post, link above) if you feel that I’m off the mark here.
I only looked into what was said about Zombie Lake and Day of the Dead 2: Contagium because I was surprised they were so bad, I was so pissed off at these movies that I wanted to see if the proverbial torch toting mob was with me. They were.
As for negativity, I’m definitely a negative person. When I see a zombie movie that I like, I have a hard time reviewing it, unless it’s over the top awesome. I guess if I feel passionately about something, I’m able to express myself better. When zombie movies aren’t bad, I kinda don’t know what to say. But when they’re really bad, they piss me off and I go off, maybe a little too far.
Maybe it was a bit unfair of me to rip on you so far in about your reviews, but it mostly because I believe I am being fair to these movies in that I don’t only do negative reviews, yet I DO negative reviews, especially when I feel negatively about a movie. I don’t believe I should “give a movie a chance” when I’ve already given them the chance by sitting through the entire movie. I don’t judge it by the cover, I don’t walk out on them halfway through and I don’t water down my reviews. I go into watching these movies wanting to like them, even if I think that they’re probably gonna be bad, I take that into consideration. Check out my review of Night of the Living Dead 3D. I thought it would be another Day of the Dead 2: Contagium. It was a bad movie, but thoroughly enjoyable. I put that in my review and mentioned what was good AND bad about it. Look at ALL my reviews (there’s more to come) and tell me if you think I’m fair and balanced. Honestly, i have a bunch done. Now I’m just staggering their release and trying to go every other one being positive or negative.
Yeah, now that I’ve actually taken a closer look at some of the previous reviews (like Night 3D, which you actually made me wanna see, dispite what others have said about it) I stand corrected. You are of course fully capable of both liking the “bad” movies too, and you do write fair and balanced reviews. For the most part. As for Contagium and Zombie Lake, I still think that “passion” might blind you for any forgiving (how small they may be) aspects of a real stinker. Maybe something to consider as you move forwards? (Attempt at constructive critizism.)
Also, now that I’m getting to know my reviewer (you, that is), I feel like I can trust your good judgement. Based only on the five or six latest entries. I feel like I know what ýou’re about and how my own taste in zombie movies relates to yours. That said I’m looking forward to many more reviews from you. Keep up the good work!