The Demented

'The Demented.' The latest in a seemingly never-ending line of zombie films. Only the monsters aren't zombies - they're more the 'infected' that we've seen before in 28 Days/Weeks Later or the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. Both films were great successes, but, just because you have 'running zombies,' doesn't guarantee you an automatic hit.

Perhaps the main problem here are the characters. Okay, this is a horror film and no one's expecting deep and meaningful character developments with watertight arcs etc, but, both Dawn of the Deads, 28 Days/Weeks Later and others like them, proved that just because your heroes are getting chased by zombies, doesn't mean you can't give them some decent traits to make the audience relate to them.

In The Demented we have six friends. Let's call them, 'Attractive Blonde Female, Attractive Brunette Female, Attractive Mixed-race Female, Attractive Dark-haired Male, Attractive Blond-haired Male and Attractive African-American Male.' For that's all they are - we never really learn anything about them, so we don't really care when they start getting chewed up one by one.

And there isn't really that much gore. I know this is a cheap film, but a bit of entertaining mayhem might have given it a bit more of an edge. So our six generic protagonists get caught up in a zombie outbreak. How does it happen? Does it matter? Do you care? They just do. So they're chased continually, in between sneaking here and there while the zombies are 'sleeping standing up.' Whatever.

If you've never seen a zombie movie before (there must be one of you) then you may actually enjoy this. Or if this was made all those years ago before Night of the Living Dead, it may even have been called 'groundbreaking' and 'a classic.' However, it wasn't. And there's absolutely nothing here that you haven't seen before. If you like zombie films (or running zombie films in particular), stick with Dawn of the Dead 2004 or either 28 Days Later film. Both have budgets, gore, suspense, action and decent characterisation in them. The Demented has none of those, sadly.

The acting is just horrible. They claim it's a rural area, but it's clearly a suburb. They see a mushroom cloud a few miles away, but choose to stay put. It was a terrorist bomb, it's no telling if nuclear fallout is headed towards you. Any person with a half on brain would have left.

This was a film I was willing to give a chance, but like most low budget films in this genre it fails beyond belief. Think a low budget '28 days later' with splatters of 'World war z', but on a much smaller scale, a waaaaaaaay smaller scale. The intensity and ferocity was there, but it was obvious the budget didn't allow for much. The 'infected' appeared to be dressed by some wannabe costume designer, who for whatever reason decided to dress all the infected in the same tattered clothing. The film featured a pretty good young cast which included Sarah Butler from the 'I spit on your grave' remake. The saving grace to the film if any was the performance by Kayla Ewell, who seemed to be the only one who took her role serious. Again on the subject of budget, it was obvious the producers couldn't afford karo syrup and red dye number five because it was a near bloodless film. So don't be fooled by the DVD cover, you'll be greatly disappointed if you're expecting a gorefest. Lastly, the ending, believe me when I say this film has one of the most dumb and confusing endings in the history of horror films. I don't know what else I could say about this film without reviewing it with spoilers, but since I'm never the one to divulge spoilers, I'll leave up to you to decide if you wished you De-rented the Demented.

"The Demented" is sort of a reminiscent of a lower-budget version of "28 Days Later". So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well that depends on what kind of zombies - or infected - you enjoy in movies.

Story-wise, then "The Demented" is a very standard movie as movies go in the zombie genre. A group of young people find themselves trapped in a rural setting when a biological outbreak takes place - turning people into crazed killers. And I would use the term zombie loosely here, as they aren't exactly zombies, if you measure them up by the standard of many movies in the genre.

The infected in the movie, like in "28 Days Later", are agile and fast running. And for some reason they have to make sounds like prowling animals. And also, once you become infected, your clothes become shredded and ripped. Try looking at all the infected, their clothes is all torn and ripped, and they are smeared in blood, yet they don't have any visible cuts, wounds, bite marks and the like. It was a little bit too ridiculous.

The way the movie ended was actually a nice twist to an otherwise generic zombie movie. I will not spoil anything by mentioning it here, but I didn't see that ending coming, not by a long shot.

As for the title of the movie, well, they could have found something more appropriate, as "The Demented" doesn't really do a zombie movie any kind of justice in any possible way.

For a zombie movie, then "The Demented" didn't really bring anything new or innovative to the genre. Everything in the movie has been done or seen before. But still, the movie was enjoyable and actually fared well for a movie of this production value.

4 friends get together at another friend's house to have fun. Along with his girl, this makes 3 couples. At some point during the course of their get together, they receive news of a terrorist attack via a telephone call from their friend's father who owns the house they're partying in. They are freaked out, naturally, and wonder if they should leave or stay put. They decide to stay (Hmmm...this can't be good).

They later become besieged by zombies of the fast-moving kind who for some reason at one point in the movie can't figure out what to do about a gate that is only a few inches taller than them. Reminds me here of the zombie movie with Dolph Lungren. Steep stairs are a breeze, but apparently this ability is not transferable to going over a gate 2 or 3 inches taller than you. Ah, well, can't have everything.

Let's see now... In this movie there's a lot of running, panicking, screaming, yelling as the zombies try to thin out the herd (the weak, the infirmed, the stupid...you know how it is). And what would a zombie movie be without some occasional "laying low". Or to put it in less cool terms: "Waiting until the dead stinking things leave". It becomes kind of like a video game. The group (whats left of them), learn that choppers are picking up survivors at strategic locations. Can they get to a rescue point without being the main course at a zombie banquet? If they can they get to fly away and give everything below them the middle finger.

The ending of the movie might be somewhat puzzling. There are 2 possible endings depending on WHEN the woman was dreaming or imagining things. You have to decide for yourself. Oh yeah, before I close, I must tell you that this movie strain of zombies are often in some kind of trance or suspended animation; dormant and "statue-like" until their food unwittingly wakes them by making too much noise. Then they become Olympic material. In a way it's kind of flattering though. You know, that something thinks you're so delicious that they break all kinds of records to get to you. Now that's love. Boloxxxi.