An eclectic group of high-school teens in detention—cheerleader Janet (Christa B. Allen) and her boyfriend Brad (Jayson Blair), geek Eddie (Jacob Zachar), pretty goth Willow (Alexa Nikolas), jock Jimmy (Max Adler), and stoner Ash (Justin Chon)—find themselves trapped in the school library after a zombie outbreak turns all of their classmates into ravenous gutmunchers.
Detention of the Dead is harmless enough fun, but in a world where a new zombie film seems to claw its way to the surface on a daily basis, it simply doesn't do enough to distinguish itself from the competition. The characters are all stereotypes—although that's forgivable given that the film is clearly inspired in part by The Breakfast Club—but for Detention of the Dead to have been really successful, it would have needed far better gags, a few genuine scares, and much more creative zombie mayhem. I'd liked to have seen director Alex Craig Mann really go to town with the splatter, but then again, maybe the budget for such carnage just wasn't available.
I rate Detention of the Dead a passable 5 out of 10, although I was tempted to deduct a point for the obvious in-jokes, most notably the characters named after classics of the genre, something that has been done to death in comedy horror films over the years (the library is named after make-up legend Tom Savini; Brad, Janet and Eddie are all characters from The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Willow is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Ash is, of course, from The Evil Dead; admittedly, I haven't the foggiest who Jimmy is named after).
