Awaken the Dead

This is probably one of the best low-budget zombie movies I have seen in quite a long time. Although the special effects were uneven the acting was very good. Essentially, "Father Christopher Gideon" (Gary Kohn) is a troubled priest who is sent to a residence for reasons unknown to him. When he gets there he encounters a woman named "Mary Payne" (Lindsey Morris) who also has a note telling her to be there too. While they are inside the house, a zombie epidemic develops practically on their doorstep. They are joined by several people at different times with the first being a Jehovah's Witness named "Stanley" (Nate Witty). At any rate, rather than divulge any mysteries and spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't see it, I will just say that this film is "different" from any zombie movie I have ever seen. I suppose a person could call it an "alternative zombie movie" because of the plot and background music used. Anyway, I thought Gary Kohn performed in an outstanding manner. Lindsey Morris also performed very well too. However, my favorite performance was by Nate Witty who was simply hilarious. Be that as it may, I thought this picture had suspense, comedy and intrigue which is rare for a film produced with such a low budget. And while it definitely had its faults (like the covert agent standing around observing the carnage) I think people who give it a fair chance might be pleasantly surprised. The director (Jeff Brookshire) has every reason to be proud of his work.

I love zombie movies and especially no budget ones. So this should have been ideal for me. Unfortunately it was not.

Awaken the dead is about two strangers that meet up in a safe house. One is an ex-assassin haunted by horrific events in his past. The other is a woman who, we find out later, is a prostitute and the daughter of the priests ex-colleague. They are in the safe house protecting themselves from a horde of zombies. The story is their plight to find the girls father and the people that they meet on the way.

I found this a struggle to sit through, as there are long stretches of times when nothing really happens. The way that it was shot did not add to the enjoyment value as it was very grainy with washed out colours. In fact most of the film looks like it was filmed in black and white. The acting was (as expected) of the amateur variety. On their travels they meet a lady who follows them round for about 15 minutes, adds nothing to the story, says about two lines. Is she there for fodder for the zombies, well of course she is !!! There is not that much gore and the zombies looked OK (some better than others). I really just lost interest quite quickly and nothing really kick started me back to attention.

There are some positives. I liked the music kinda like a haunting rock soundtrack. A couple of the zombies look quite cool. The director tries to shoot the scenes in a different way, with some of the camera set up's. Eg in one scene there is a spider that crawls down the lens and then stops and frames a zombie coming toward the camera.

I just felt that it needed something more and came away disappointed.

Gary Kohn as a man of the cloth forced to deal with a sudden zombie outbreak is one of the only things I can actually recommend about this film. His acting chops make him seem to be destined for bigger and better things. The rest of the cast is acceptable for a film of this ilk I guess. But save for Kohn, no real standouts. Also there was absolutely no chemistry between the two leads rendering a few scenes meaningless at best and grating at worst. As far as extremely low-budget zombie films go, I've seen worse (hell thanks to the Catacomb box-set, I've seen worst in the last month) But its not anything special.

I tend to be undemanding with micro-budgeted horrors, especially when they are made by inexperienced filmmakers. I'm predisposed to look on the bright side, to excuse technical limitations, clunky scripts, plot holes, incompetent direction, bad acting, etc. Instead, I'll focus on the positives: the odd witty line of dialogue, a gripping plot, interesting characters, an unexpected exceptional performance, isolated pieces of directorial flair, surprisingly imaginative and effective special effects and stunt work, or even a well-chosen soundtrack. Things that show promise of future growth, of better movies down the line.

This movie contains none of these things. In fact, it may well be the worst movie I've ever managed to sit through from beginning to end. The barely competent direction and cinematography tries for style, but ends up pretentious and annoying. The grainy and colourless (almost monochrome) visuals don't seem to be the fault of technical limitations, but rather an aesthetic choice that simply doesn't work. The plot is senseless, the characters worthless clichés; the dialogue tries to be witty, but fails. The effects are unconvincing even when the budget is taken into account. There are no shocks, no scares, no laughs, no thrills of any kind. There are a lot of tracks on the soundtrack (in fact, much of the movie plays like a series of music videos), but they are uniformly lame. The acting never gets above adequate, and is often far below that level. You can tell that the three lead actors are better than their material, but there is nothing here for them to work with.

As bad as this movie is, I recognise that completing any kind of movie is very difficult, and I have to give the filmmakers credit for their effort. I wish them all the best for their careers. From here, the only way is up.

Good music and interesting variation on the old zombie outbreak theme. I think it could have been a good movie if it were a higher quality production and had more money backing it. It's not quite refined enough for me to recommend if you're looking for a movie to watch, unless you are really into examining zombie movies.