Zone of the Dead

This movie is a fun, popcorn flick. It's not the best zombie movie ever made, not by a long shot, but I had a great time watching it.

Ken Foree (from the original Romero's Dawn of the Dead) is one of my favorite horror actors. I will watch anything starring Foree, and he does not disappoint here. This is his movie - all the way. And I liked Kristina Klebe very much as well - she's very good with the shotgun.

The other actors are in the movie for the body-count, but this is a zombie movie after all - we need to have some victims, don't we? The death of Yovana (Iskra Brajovic) was the best kill in the movie, Miroslav Lakobrija's special effects are top notch considering the budget.

A must see for all zombie fans out there.

3/5

OK, I get it: zombie movies don't need great acting, or a good story or decent camera work to be watchable or entertaining. But what we have here is some of the worst examples of all of the above. Really terrible doesn't even describe it, because it still leaves open the possibility of this movie being truly bad, yet somehow fun. However, "Zone of the Dead" is as much fun as a visit to the dentist. A drunken dentist, that is.

I wish it had one redeemable quality worth mentioning. Even Foree is awful in this one, not to mention the rest of the wooden protagonists. Don't waste your time.

I'm not sure if this even counts as a review, but I'm a hardcore zombie flick fan. If its been made and it has zombies in it, chances are I own it. So I've come across my fair share of low budget movies and cheesy acting in my time, but absolutely nothing compares to this film.

Straight up, I couldn't sit through the whole film. The acting is so wooden, and the dialogue is so forced, that watching it seems like you're indulging children putting on a once-rehearsed play. Apparently it was translated from Serbian by a brain-damaged hamster. The average guy on the street could give a better performance than almost every single member of the cast, with a few "yeah okay" exceptions.

If you're a fan of zombie movies, don't rent or buy this piece of crap. It scores nil on all draws. I give it ten severed thumbs down.

Firstly the good news. Ken Foree is an absolute legend and it's great to see him returning to the zombie horror genre.

And now for the bad news, which is absolutely everything else. Having read some good reviews on this film, I decided to give it a go as I'm a big fan of zombie flicks even bad ones. It isn't often that I can't watch a film to the end (The Country Bears being the last one - I even made it through the Squeakquel) but at the half way mark I felt like eating my own head. Around two thirds of the way through I couldn't take any more and fast forwarded through the rest, stopping every so often to see if it improved. It didn't.

Allow me to list off some of the things that made this the worst movie I have ever seen.

1. The dubbing. At least I hope it was all dubbed. If these idiots really speak like this, they should all be shot.

2. The acting. OMG! Where did they get these muppets from? Everything was wrong and I do realise that zombie movies rarely get Oscar nominations. The body language was completely wooden - not one person (including Ken) managed to look like they really were in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. They looked like they were taking part in a primary school play and a bad one at that.

3. The plot. Seems like the same terrible primary school did the screen writing as well. If you were responsible for the script then you should be ashamed. Never, ever write anything again. I mean it. Put the pen down. Bite your fingers off. You'll be doing us all a favour.

If I can prevent one person from ever having to go through watching this drivel, then I can rest easy knowing my sacrifice wasn't in vain.

You've been warned...

Definitely a throw back to the "old school" of zombie film making. The acting, direction and dialogue are rather wooden and stilted for the most part as with Romeros classics but that said it does give this film the look and feel of the originals and thus makes it an entertaining way to spend your viewing afternoon. There are some rather irritating moments when the main protagonists whilst running from hordes of pursuing zombies still find time to stop mid flight to engage in some rather meaningless and throwaway conversation and one liners but not enough to spoil the movie. This movie, although low budget and with flaws does on the whole entertain albeit in a predictable fashion with few surprises. If you like the old school feel, this movie is worth a look and will satisfy your blood lust, if you prefer the more high end, special effect type of movie, it's probably not for you.