Shadows of the Dead

I rented this movie. I take full responsibility for this. I will not forget this. Ever. What in the Holy Moses hell was going on in the head of the person who conceived this .....thing. Movie? No way. Bad teleplay more like it. The dialogue was dreadful enough only to be made more repugnant by Beverly Hynds delivery. She is the only actress I have ever seen who was acting trying to act. Five minutes into the movie and I was repulsed. I mistook her dramatic pauses for a series of gas attacks. I was more worried that the two main characters would live. I needed them to go. Quickly. But they didn't. And it went on...and on.....and on. Blockbuster should be ashamed of itself for renting this to me. I'm trying to defer the blame. Alas, I can't.

This movie is certainly not as bad as some people try make you believe it is. It's by no means a great movie but it's still one I have to respect for what it's trying and also simply for what it is.

It's a low budget movie, made without many resources but for what it is, it's simply being a good film. The directing and overall story-telling is simply good, even though the story itself is actually being one of the weaker points of the movie.

The story, to be frank, can get quite ridicules at times. The whole way the two main characters are handling their situation are just beyond believe silly and highly unlikely. Without giving too much away about this movie, no way normal thinking humans would ever respond to a situation like this the way the characters in this movie do. It's still obvious what they tried to achieve with its story and attempted to make it more of a personal characters movie, rather than just an ordinary horror-flick. They tried to be original and till some extend they still succeeded in this. Even though the story wasn't that good throughout, it still makes this movie an original and good watch.

One of the things that the movie failed at was delivering some good horror. Especially in its beginning this movie was obviously meant to be horror-like but to be honest, some of it's moments were unintentionally bad and made me laugh at how clumsy it got all done. Every time the movie tries to get tense or scary the movie its shortcomings start to become more and more obvious.

Despite some really bad dialog, I still have to give credit to the movie its actors, who simply did a great job with their roles. It's a mostly character driven movie, so it's of course very important to have some decent characters and actors portraying them, which luckily is the case with this movie.

Just give this movie a shot and changes are you might end up liking it, despite of all of its very obvious flaws.

6/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I learned a long time ago, that you can't trust any cover of a movie. You can get a positive review anywhere. With that being said, I go into any movie with a open mind. I never trust the box art. If I rented this movie based on the artwork, I would be disappointed. But again, I don't go into any movie with any expectations one way or another. This was a character driven film, about what it's like to be a zombie. People just don't understand this film, cause all they want is sex, blood, and guts in their horror movies. I'm tired of that manufactured dumbed down crap for mass human consumption by teenage boys. If you want to see naked titters, go rent a porn. If you want a horror movie with some deep characters, then check the film out.

I watched this movie, and many brain cells died. I felt like the lead characters. The story concerns a guy who gets attacked while taking a woodland stroll with his girlfriend. For reasons unknown, the attack causes our hero's heart to stop. He's apparently dead, but he doesn't seem to know it. So, he hangs out in his apartment and his girlfriend brings him hot soup and tries to nurse him back to health. Of course, it's only a matter of time before our guy decides to infect his girlfriend with this lovely gift. So, now she's kinda undead too. They hang out in their bedroom and bemoan their fate. Lots of caked on white makeup ensues. She hates him for doing this to her. The End.

I understand that when you have five dollars to make a horror movie, one of the first things you decide to do is find a way to contain the story. Movies like "Saw", 'Cabin Fever", "Evil Dead" and "Misery" show that you can have a very effective horror film with a minimum of locations. But setting your entire movie in a bedroom with two undead characters who don't really do anything but bicker is just plain lazy. It's about as scary as watching paint dry. Maybe that's the sequel to this one.

Shadows of the Dead is a rather longwinded lesson in appreciating your life, because it can be taken away so quickly. I do appreciate the moral, just not the execution.

A valuable lesson, but the movie lacked enough to make it interesting. The movie is very slow, and every scene seems to be leading to a inevitable conclusion, one we know from very near the beginning, so perhaps the film could have had a little more meat on the bone, while still getting across a solid message.

Overall I give the movie a 4 because although the atmosphere and intention was good, it wasn't a joy to watch in any respect.