 Movie: The Dead And The DamnedYear: 2011 Studio: iDiC Entertainment Director: Rene Perez Stars: David A. Lockhart, Camille Montgomery, Rick Mora Language: English Length: 82 Minutes Sub-Genre: Zombies |
Plot: In this indie Western-horror hybrid, a meteorite strikes California gold country and turns a town full of prospectors, prostitutes and gunslingers into flesh-eating zombies who develop a craving for a bounty hunter and his Apache warrior prisoner.
Review: Set in the Western times, The Dead And The Damned also known as Cowboys & Zombies, begins with an old fashion shoot-out around a saloon. The acting was stale but the fighting scenes were satisfactory. What you come to find out after a good 10 minutes, is this bounty hunter is out to serve justice and make money for his family back home. His next “job” is to capture alive an Indian who apparently is a rapist and killer. Around 40 minutes in there is a little snafu.
The story slightly shifts to these townspeople who find a glowing green rock in the desert. In amazement they take a pick-axe to the object when a mysterious smoky gas protrudes and turns everyone into zombie-like beings, some slow and some fast. They are out for flesh when they come across the bounty hunter, mistaken killer and a young girl that the bounty hunter purchased to help him in the capture of his next prisoner.
The zombies in The Dead And The Damned were done fairly well. Some of them scary and ravaging. For the most part the make-up was good. But here in lye’s the problem, all of the gun shots, wounds and the like were a CGI catastrophe. I presume the director hasn’t heard of squibs, or either didn’t think it through. It is a low budget film coming in at $30 thousand, but a few bloody squib packs would of went a long way in this film, as 99% of the killing was with gun shots.
There was a particular scene I was impressed with; the young blonde gets trapped in a room with a fierce, older woman zombie. The look of this zombie was scary and the scene had a lot of tension. We also got the only non-gun wound kill here with an axe to the head. Props on that part there.
The sound and score was lame, nothing chilling or frightening, kind of bland and dull. A few nice tracks thrown in would of helped big time on The Dead And The Damned. I am not a fan of old westerns, if you are, this might be an easier watch to you than it was for me, but horror fans desiring decent sound will want to skip this one.
In closing, The Dead And The Damned is a predictable and un-engaging horror film. Will you care for these characters? I think not, because the acting was quite poor. It was hard to buy anybody’s motivation, and the Apache Indian character should of stayed mute, because when he talked it hurt the film more. Overall, this is an easy avoid. I don’t feel like I wasted 80 minutes of my life, but there are far better independent horror movies that deserve your hard earned money over The Dead And The Damned.
If you would like to see The Dead And The Damed, you will not have to waste any money because you can see it for FREE on Amazon Instant Video.
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 Reviewer: BillCheteDate: 06/12/2012 Rating: 3/10 Recommendation: Avoid |