The Dead 2: India

The first The Dead movie back in 2010 was an impressive looking film, the unique cinematography made it stand out from the hundreds of zombie movies out there but sadly that was all it had going for it.

The Dead 2 is a separate tale set in India and once again British made. It tells the story of a man fighting across rural India to get to his pregnant girlfriend and the perils and challenges he faces along the way.

The Dead 2 looks outstanding and even better than the first movie. It is a visual feast and touches upon areas that other zombie films never have before and that at least makes it memorable.

Sadly the film itself is generic, its weak in its writing and simply fails to entertain.

Don't get me wrong I respect the hell out of what they've accomplished here but it's like a video game with stunning graphics but very little actual content.

Worth it for the sights but little else.

The Good:

Some great visuals

Fantastically shot

The Bad:

Poorly paced

Weak writing

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Despite both movies getting a combined 6 points out of a potential 20 I'd still like to see one more film in this franchise

The dead are returning to life and attacking the living. An American wind turbine engineer with the help of a local boy attempt a 300 mile journey to reunite with his pregnant Indian girlfriend.

Brothers Howard and Jonathan Ford add an usually unexplored religious angle with the obligatory social commentary subtext making The Dead 2: India as relevant as it's predecessor. While not as eerie as the first and briefly lacking some logic in both dialogue and decision making, with Nicholas Burton's (played fittingly by Joseph Milson) seemingly six sense knowledge of what's going on there's still plenty to enjoy.

The India setting and on location shoot gives part two a realistic gritty, dusty and atmospheric feel. The traditional shambling dead are creepy enough and retain an air of menace with their biting and tearing of flesh, although their white eyes, now an over used effect do feel slightly dated. That said, there's plenty to enjoy - more gun-play, more blood and more zombies. With gripping stand out scenes, the crashed car execution, convoy executions, parachute escape and a car going over a cliff to name a few. The directors also deliver some excellent visual moments, a motor cycle blazing across the Indian wastelands, forgotten temples, grand cities, hovering helicopters, jets and burning slums to name a few.

This Ford Brother offering is probably the most grounded undead film since their first outing and Romero's original trilogy. The director/writers again manage to give their zombie outing scope with a fantastic naturalistic visual style as the engineer and boy go from one village to the next complemented by Imran Ahmad's music score.

Overall, while not as tension filled and ominous as The Dead, The Dead 2 doesn't try to reinvent the wheel giving the viewer a much needed solid and serious piece of zombie entertainment. Recommend.

An infectious epidemic spreads through India as an American turbine engineer (Joseph Millson) learns that his pregnant girlfriend is trapped near the slums of Mumbai. Now he must battle his way across a 300-mile wasteland of the ravenous undead.

The biggest complaint this film seems to receive from people is that it is a repeat, or rehash, of the first film. An outside in a foreign land who has to travel across great distances while fighting off zombies. And that is a fair complaint.

But the Ford brothers do it well, with an amazing cinematography, and beautiful color palette, that showcases the beauty of India. Not to mention better than average zombie effects. For what is probably a relatively low budget film, it looks like a Hollywood-caliber production.

"Nicholas Burton" (Joseph Millson) is an electrical engineer who is currently in India working on wind farms. His girlfriend, "Ishani Sharma" (Meenu Mishra) has just told him she is pregnant and he is determined to go to Mumbai to see her as soon as possible. Unfortunately, a zombie epidemic has suddenly erupted which seriously jeopardizes everything. Now, rather than reveal any more of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this film greatly resembles its predecessor in a number of ways. Although there is only a slight connection to the original film I actually think this sequel is slightly better because it adds more of a human element. However, just the like the first film it is a dry zombie picture with absolutely no humor or anything else which deviates from the horror at hand. And while I have no doubt that true zombie fanatics will appreciate this movie, I also think that it might appeal to other viewers as well because it isn't one of those cheap-looking zombie films by any means. Accordingly, I rate it as slightly above average.

I was thrilled to find "The Dead 2: India" by sheer luck, as I enjoyed watching the first "The Dead" movie and had no idea that there was a sequel available. It was picked up and watched immediately.

It is a good movie, but it wasn't fully up to par with the previous movie. There was just something missing in "The Dead 2: India" to make it that much more special. Or perhaps it was because of some really stupid mistakes and goofs in the movie that were bringing it down a notch.

Let's start with the story. The movie starts out with letting us know an Indian man named Rajiv having returned to India from Somalia, where he was bitten by a mad woman. Right, so here we have the source of the zombie outbreak. Good enough. Then we follow Nicholas, a foreign contractor working on wind mills in India when society collapses and he finds himself in the midst of a zombie outbreak and he has to return to Mumbai to get to his pregnant wife.

The storyline is good and it does follow up on events immediately after "The Dead", which was good. But, yes there is a but here, we learn that Nicholas is 300 miles away from Mumbai in the movie. Then I wonder how did the zombie infection spread from Mumbai to where he was (300 miles distance) in such a short time? And from just a single bitten man. It just didn't make any kind of logistic sense.

And the other thing that worked against the movie was the fact that about 90% of all infected zombies were walking around with their heads tilted and craned to one side. It just looked too staged and too orchestrated, as if some 'zombie instructor' went "alright, you have to walk like zombies" and gave an example with his head tilted, and the majority of zombie actors just copied that pose. It brought the whole zombiesque atmosphere down a lot.

The zombies in the movie were good, just as in the first "The Dead" movie. However, while there is a good amount of blood and wounds here, then don't expect to see macabre stuff such as missing limbs, shredded bodies and the like. But still, the effects worked to the extend that they were supposed to.

And it was nice to see a zombie movie take place in India and actually manage this well, and not be a classic, major Hollywood production. If you enjoyed the first "The Dead" movie, then you most definitely should watch "The Dead 2: India" as well. And while on the topic of Indian zombie movies, then you should watch "Go Goa Gone" as well.

"The Dead 2: India" is entertaining, but has some flaws that were just too stupid and should have been caught in pre-production already. While I rated the first "The Dead" 7 out of 10 stars, then I will have to settle for 6 out of 10 stars for "The Dead 2: India".