Zombies of the Living Dead
Starring: Christian Ackerman
FastCoast Productions
2015
Reviewed by Jess Landry
There’s something special about a low-budget horror movie. More often than not, the people behind the scenes are folks just like you and me, except with maybe a little more drive. After all, they’ve scrounged up all the dollars and cents from under their sofa cushions, hammered open their piggy banks and shaken them a few times to make sure all the bills have fallen out, and asked their Grandma for any cash she may have saved for their college tuition. All this, just to do something they love – to make a movie.
These people, they love horror movies just as much as you and me, so when their visions come to fruition, any fan of the genre can immediately recognize one of their own and that gets them an instant approval. Such is the case with Zombies of the Living Dead.
The undead outbreak in this zombie romp is caused by a scientific experiment gone wrong. Somehow, a signal gets transmitted through the radio waves causing the living-impaired in the quaint town of Clear Water to snap back to life (think of it almost like the movie Pontypool, minus Stephen McHattie’s soothing radio voice and awesome cowboy hat).
The film follows Sid, a young, bored cop looking for some excitement in his daily life. Not soon after he meets up with an old crush, the limbs start to fly. Can he lead a group of survivors through the infested streets and become the man he was meant to be or will he end up falling in with the rest of the undead herd?
The overall look of the film is great – it’s chock full of vibrant, bright colours. In fact, it’s so vibrant that if Red Bull were a movie, this would be it – it’s fast-paced, relentless, and overall impressive for the apparent $5,000 budget it had. My only qualm was some of the music didn’t seem to fit the atmosphere, mainly the opening sequence song which gave off more of a late-90’s-boyband-power-ballad vibe than a they’re-coming-to-get-you-Barbara one.
All in all, Zombies of the Living Dead is a worthy tribute to the great undead movies of years past, and its dedication to the genre is something all horror fans can appreciate.
