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Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: February 14, 2011.
Director: Howard J. Ford, Jon Ford
Cast: Rob Freeman, Prince David Osei
Year: 2010
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The Movie:
Written and directed by English born brothers Howard J. Ford and Jonathan Ford and shot on location in Africa, The Dead begins by introducing us to an American engineer named Brian Murphy (Rob Freeman) who is the sole survivor of a plane crash. As zombies have more or less started running rampant in Africa, Murphy was hoping to catch the last plane back to America - but that didn't work out so well. Now stranded on the coast, he manages to find a working truck he confiscates to make his way inland where he meets up with a local military man named Sergeant. Daniel Dembele (Prince David Osei). Daniel has recently more or less deserted his post, a decision he did not take lightly, so that he could score the area to try and find his young son.
The two wisely decide to team up to try and make it to a military compound on the other side of the desert where rumor has it there is safe haven for humans from their undead counterparts. As the two make their journey, they quickly realize they're not only going to need more food and water than they have but they're going to need more ammunition too.
The Dead does a few things differently than you'd probably expect, given how frequently zombie movies tell the same story over and over again and how frequently they rely more on clichés and formulaic scripting than creativity. The most obvious twist is the African locations. The story does a good job of working the aboriginal people of the area into the film in a realistic way (the vast majority of them, according to the commentary, were not actors) and in using the various small villages and what not to nice effect. The other more obvious twist is that the film takes place almost entirely in daylight. Not just daylight, but under the hot, harsh desert sun and right out in the open at that. This gives the film some interesting visuals and lets the filmmakers do great things by showing off the different landscapes of the area. All of this gives the film some important authenticity that makes the sometimes rather obvious social commentary more effective than it would be otherwise.
Just, if not more, importantly than that, however, is the character development. While it won't surprise us to see white American Brian team up with black African Daniel in typical buddy movie fashion, it's refreshing to see them act like intelligent human beings. They use their heads to solve their problems, rather than run head first into danger without thinking as so many typical horror movie characters are likely to do. An example of this? At one point when the sun does go down, a character decides to sleep in a tree so that zombies won't get him at night. It might sound like a small thing, but there are a lot of little moments like this in the film where you think to yourself, hey, these guys are using their heads.
As far as the effects go, more often than not they work very well. There are moments where we see through them but the majority of the gore set pieces (and there are a lot of them) are done very well and usually with traditional effects work which was nice to see. The zombies aren't overly made up to the point where they're the shambling and decayed corpses of a Fulci movie, instead they very much pay homage to Romero's early zombie films (a strong point of reference here and very obviously a big influence on this film in general). Gory, eerie, smart and well made The Dead turned out to be a very welcome surprise which proves that no matter how tired and overused the zombie film can get, it's still possible to make a great movie in the genre.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Dead looks about as good as can probably be expected in the AVC encoded 1.78.1 widescreen transfer, a 1080p high definition offerings from Anchor Bay that presents the film in its original aspect ratio. Shot on high end DV, detail varies from shot to shot but is generally good as is color reproduction. Some softness is forgivable given the film's modest budget but overall things look decent here, better than what standard definition can provide, even if it's not demo material. There are no problems with print damage, dirt or debris and only what appears to be mild edge enhancement visible in a few scenes.
Likewise, the English language Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track is also quite good. The score sounds nice and strong and there are no problems with hiss or distortion. Surround activity isn't always a constant and the mix is a bit front heavy at times but dialogue is clean, clear and easy to understand. Optional subtitles are provided in Spanish with an English closed captioning option provided as well.
The extras on the disc consist of a commentary with the Ford brothers and a single featurette (5:12).The featurette is mostly just fly on the wall behind the scenes footage presented without much context. There are no formal interviews here but periodically people will talk to the camera from the set and offer some thoughts. There's also some decent footage of the makeup team at work here. The commentary (which you won't find on the extras menu but rather on the set up menu or through toggling the audio options with your remote) is more informative, as it lets the writer/directing team talk about making the film on location, the casting, the effects work and more. There's also a single deleted scene here (1:41) presented with time code overtop. It doesn't add much to the movie but it's worth checking out for curiosity value. Menus and chapter stops are also included on the disc as is a single deleted scene worth checking out. All of the extras on the disc are presented in standard definition.
The Final Word:
While there are spots where the lower budget shows, this is otherwise one of the more interesting zombie movies made in the last few years. Credit is due to the writing/directing duo of Howard and Jon Ford for creating a zombie film with some well crafted and interesting characters that use logic and common sense rather than play to clichés. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray looks about as good as it probably can and sounds decent too, throwing in a couple of decent supplements as well. All in all, a pretty good release for a very good movie.
