War of the Dead

I read the reviews after I'd picked this up and held little hope for it, Apart from the Dead Snow films I find Nazi Zombie flicks usually leave a lot to be desired (Still get suckered in by them tho').

There have been lots of 'Not historically Accurate' on here...But it's a Zombie film....erm...Last time I checked Zombies are fictional...

It held my attention (not always easy) and on as a pure 'Popcorn' film It's rather fun. If you want an hour and a half of undemanding entertainment it's worth a shot.

The audio (Dialogue) was low...I put subtitles on to make sure I didn't miss anything (Not that the Dialogue told you anything!) The film looks great colour wise too.

The plot: American and Finnish troops run up against Nazi zombies during World War II.

This was not an absolutely terrible movie, but it was still pretty annoyingly bad. The characters were basically interchangeable, and it was even worse during the action sequences, because they were shot so poorly that I couldn't even tell who was fighting whom. Unfortunately, the movie feels like a meth addict did all the camera work and editing. The plot and dialogue are about as bad as you're expecting, but the SFX are far more disappointing. Nobody really expects good plot or dialogue from their direct-to-video, low budget zombie movies -- especially when they're rated this low -- but they do tend to expect a certain minimum level of gore. However, thanks to the horrible camera work and editing, you can't really see much of the SFX or make-up anyway. There just wasn't enough story to stretch this out to feature length, necessitating lots of terrible action scenes. This really should have been edited down to the best few scenes, with a little bit of setup, and uploaded to YouTube.

Recommended only to people who like mindless action movies.

A platoon of British, American and Finnish soldiers come head to head with unstoppable zombie-like soldiers. Aided by a Russian grunt they must fight for survival.

Despite some over used slow-motion and unfitting sound effects War of the Dead director Marko Mäkilaakso delivers a wonderfully atmospheric World War II action 'zombie' film.

The film has pace, moving from one location to the next through bunkers, trenches, air shafts, forests and there's plenty of gun-play and fights. The effects are modest and well executed and the sets are perfectly dressed, the location shoot gives it an edge. Writers Mäkilaakso and Barr B. Potter include some zombie hallmarks an empty house under siege, a graveyard, shots to the head but the antagonists share more with 28 Day/Weeks Later's infected and Outpost's theme. War of the Dead expands the Nazi super soldiers angel further including some fast moving, stealthy, post experimental and 'infected' soldiers.

Reminiscent of The Bunker, Death Watch, Dog Soldiers and the aforementioned to name a few this latest addition includes some great worn looking actors including Antti Reini, the reliable and talented Andrew Tiernan (who also starred in the The Bunker) as Capitan Martin Stone. UK viewers may recognise ITV's Bill - Mark Wingett. Supporting leads Samuel Vauramo as the emotional Kolya and Mikko Leppilampi as Lieutenant Laakso are effective enough. Notable is the only female Magdalena Górska and Jouko Ahola who is perfectly cast as the super soldier Captain Niemi.

It lacks that slow foreboding feel synonymous with zombie films in a bid to be original. In addition, the mix of genres doesn't work as well for this WW2 predominately action, chiller as it should due to the thin script. Nevertheless, it's a solid piece of entertainment packed with action and an obligatory nihilistic ending with a twist.

the best way to describe this movie is that it's a B movie coated with A movie presentation. the special effects and the acting are the only things really holding it back from its true potential. the acting or dialogue is at times so bad and the accents so inconsistent that you wonder why the director didn't just choose to re-shoot some of the scenes and put a little more pressure on his actors. the special effects are sometimes good, but sometimes bad. this is made clear at the start of the movie when some men are gunned down in a hallway yet there is no sign of any bullet penetration or even sound effects here and there. some men just fall to the ground, we'r shown close ups of some weird nazi character grinning as he walks out of a lit-up doorway like a freaking angel or something.

the best thing about this movie is its presentation. the cinematography and camera-work is pretty 'up there'. like one of the quotes on the DVD cover states, it is 'like an episode of band of brothers with zombies'. and yeah, it is; just with much less impressive actors.

the story is unoriginal yet interesting enough to warrant your time and it looks like a lot of effort went into this little B movie. the characters all look fantastic (just like any soldier out of saving private ryan or band or brothers) and at times gunfights and explosions are convincing. its just a shame the acting and occasional iffy effects let it down.

so in summary:

presentation - 8 special makeup effects & sound - 6 acting - 5 script - 6

overall - 6/10

Yet again another staggeringly bad entry under the zombie banner. The movie has zero character development which leaves the viewer with nothing to care about. The writers should have watched predator or at least the first 15 minutes, it's a master class in how to set up the protagonists. Add to this the thinnest plot imaginable and you really are left with something you purely just stare at for 90 minutes.

This means all that is left are the action sequences. I was often left wondering what the hell was going on and who was killing who. Action scenes were messily shot and in between you were given little more motive than let's drive this car over there to the next scene. The director clearly had been brushing up on his band of brothers and private Ryan as the film does mimic their look but only to a degree. The scene from Ryan where the Jewish soldier and German soldier wrestle over the knife was practically lifted wholesale and chucked in, laughable.

These were not zombies, Nazi or otherwise. More like mutants.

To address the "if you love zombie movies, you'll love this" or genre lovers (zombie or horror). I ask you this, why would you like or love this? It's terrible. I love zombies and horror, so much that this film irritated me. You may love zombies too but if you rate this at all you also simply like awful films too. That's fine but this particular film is a disservice to an already struggling genre. Avoid this watch Dead Snow.