Gone with the Dead

Looking into a new cancer serum, a doctor realizes that the virus has escaped and begun mutating residents in the area into ravenous, flesh-eating zombies that are overrunning the citizens, forcing them to band together with other survivors to get away from the creatures.

This was a fairly solid indie zombie effort. Among the better features of this one is the strong setup that provides the kind of setup to unleash the zombie outbreak. With the initial cold open providing the reasoning for the outbreak, with the failed robbery allowing the infected to escape from the lab where the scientist was studying it, the resulting idea of the outbreak forces the group of friends who are out in the middle of nowhere enjoying the weekend party to find that they've become the zombies' target. This starts the group of friends and several other survivors they come across to battle across the zombie wasteland to deliver some intriguing confrontations and encounters throughout, with some fun moments spread throughout here to give this a solid enough pace. That carries a fun amount of indie-style zombie encounters throughout here, which have some thrilling moments. From the assault at the party that splits up the friend group and forces the survivors to band together and escape in the car to go on the road seeking shelter and survival, the different encounters surrounding the group on their trip, or the other random survivors that they encounter in the streets, make for some fun times. The cheesy zombie gore, acceptable make-up work on the decaying creatures left behind, which includes a series of fun encounters, shooting them off to get to safety, all of which come together to provide this one with some enjoyable elements. There are some big issues here holding this one down. The main drawback featured here is the sense of confusion that arises from having so many characters present without much to introduce them. With as much time as we spend with the characters in the first half at the house party or just seeing the series of random one-shot characters that are there merely for a body count against the zombies, most of them don't even get names for so many of the scenes involving more than one person, and it makes for a disorienting time when so much of the film features random characters you don't know interacting with each other. It's underwhelming enough on its own that it also highlights the kind of dragging tempo, and with the obvious low-budget limitations here, is what brings it down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Let there be no doubt that this movie's cover was the sole reason for why I stopped and picked it up. I have to admit that, the movie's cover was really, really interesting. And I am a huge fan of all things zombie after all. Sure, I had never even heard about this 2024 movie titled "Gone with the Dead" prior to sitting down to watch it, so I didn't know what I was in for.

In all honesty, I was not harboring the biggest of expectations to the movie, as I figured that the movie's cover probably over-sold the movie by a landslide.

It was rather amazing that writers Josh Gersh, Kino McFarland, Jim Mitchel, Tony Newton, Justin W. Smith and Reyna Young collectively couldn't muster to conjure up more than an insanely mediocre and generic zombie script. Sure, "Gone with the Dead" was straightforward, but the writers cashed in on every single over-used zombie movie trope in the how-to-make-a-zombie-movie playbook. So you're not in for anything grand here. And should you opt to skip on "Gone with the Dead", it is not like you're missing out on anything.

Something that spoke well in favor of the movie, was the fact that I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list. The acting performances in the movie were fair, but nothing noteworthy or outstanding.

The effects were low key and amateurish, especially the zombie make-up.

"Gone with the Dead" looks and feels like an ambitious home-made attempt of making a zombie movie.

Ultimately, then the movie's cover was actually the best thing about the ordeal. But I sort of had figured that would be the case.

My rating of directors Bobby McCallen, Kino McFarland and Justin W. Smith's 2024 movie "Gone with the Dead" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.