The October Zombie-Thon 2009 - Day 5: The Dead Hate the Living!

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.05.2009

Not really that great, but what do you expect from the future writer of House of the Dead?

THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING! (2000)




Written & Directed by: Dave Parker
Country: USA


Much like Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels or Dead Clowns, The Dead Hate the Living! is one of those zombie movies that is nowhere near as fun as its title would have you believe. Perhaps that is only appropriate, seeing as how it is little more than a thinly-veiled remake (or "re-imagining," if you prefer the hipper term) of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things – one of the all time greatest offenders in the "Not Living Up to Its Name" department.

That film (reviewed here, way back in the first Zombie-Thon) concerned a group of actors messing around with a real corpse, and the deadly repercussions that follow. So too does The Dead Hate the Living!, although things here are a little modernized. This time, for instance, rather than a theater troupe it is a small group of friends making their very own indie horror movie in an abandoned hospital.

Unfortunately for them, the hospital turns out to be the former workplace of one Dr. Eibon (if you get the reference, you might be a Lucio Fulci fan). Judging by the look of him, Eibon was a professional Rob Zombie-impersonator who also dabbled in mad science. In particular, he was obsessed with finding a cure for death following the passing of his beloved wife. And find it he did, with one small hitch – those he resurrected came back as murderous monsters that soon rebelled against their creator and killed him. Alright, so actually it was a big hitch.

Anyway, our intrepid group of filmmakers has just started to settle in for a night of filming and/or bickering when they manage to stumble across the surprisingly well-preserved body of Dr. Eibon, stuffed inside some sort of strange contraption that looks like an oversize coffin. Although the more sensible members of the crew want to hightail it out of there and alert the authorities, the pragmatic director sees an opportunity to add some real production value to his opus, and thus decides to use Eibon's body and the coffin it came from as props in his movie. But no sooner have they put Eibon back in and turned the machine on then the mad doctor is resurrected, along with several of his more vicious undead flunkies. To make matters worse, the machine also seems to have sent the hospital into some sort of limbo, leaving our heroes absolutely nowhere to run from the living dead killers now out for their blood.

Like I said, The Dead Hate the Living's general plot is clearly influenced by Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. But of all the other things to borrow from that movie, why did Dave Parker have to choose the dreadful pacing? Just like Children…, this movie just takes way too long to get to the actual point. It's a good 45 minutes until the dead finally show up and start, you know, hating the living. Up until that point we're forced to endure nothing but inane conversations and pitiful attempts at character development, all of which I think Parker expects us to find interesting because it's happening in a "making a movie within a movie" setting. The problem is that this kind of inside look at filmmaking is rarely as fascinating as filmmakers seem to think it is.

It's even worse here, because it allows Parker to fully indulge in the incessant self-referential nonsense that is this movie's calling card. The Dead Hate the Living is obviously one of the first post-Scream zombie movies, and it's clearly trying to tap into that same "made by and for horror fanboys" vibe. But as effortlessly as Scream pulled this off, Dead Hate the Living goes so overboard with constant references and shout-outs to other genre films that it just ends up feeling desperate.

This is more obvious now than it was in the years right after Scream – so it's too bad no one was able to warn Parker – but the problem with this sort of self-referential approach is two-fold. For one thing, when you're constantly referencing movies like The Beyond, Bride of Frankenstein, or The Return of the Living Dead, all you're doing is reminding your audience of much better films that they could be watching instead of this one.

The other part of the problem is that people who make these kinds of movies seem to think that "cleverly" pointing out various horror clichés automatically forgives them for falling into the same clichés themselves. Quite the contrary – it only ends up making the clichés all the more apparent and annoying. For instance, why would the characters in The Dead Hate the Living – massive horror-movie fans, don't forget – do stupid things like split up and investigate dark hallways? For that matter, how is it that they don't instantly try shooting the zombies in the head? You're telling me these guys wouldn't remember that little tidbit from the dozens of zombie movies they have presumably watched?

If it seems like I'm being awfully harsh and spending a little too much time on the whole "self-referential" thing, it's only because The Dead Hate the Living has very little else to separate it from the rest of its ilk. I'll give credit where credit is due – some of the zombie make-up designs are cool-looking (if never quite convincing), for the most part it's competently made (except for some truly horrendous fire FX near the end), and it even did the "act like zombies to blend into a crowd of them" joke years before Shaun of the Dead. And heck, the fact that it is even remotely watchable puts it miles ahead of most other movies from Full Moon studios (oh man, Bryan Kristopowitz is gonna hate me for that one).

But still, this is essentially a one-trick pony, and it's not even a very impressive trick. I've seen far too many truly-worse zombie movies to completely crap all over this one, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement, either. The Dead Hate the Living is trying hard to please its audience, and has a few kinda-decent moments spread throughout. But, overall, it is almost completely forgettable. I'd say if you're a die-hard zombie fanatic, check it out once for the fun of catching all the references. But believe me, once will be enough.

Oh, but before I forget, let me also just quickly say that the film's theme song is performed by Penis Flytrap, which is somehow simultaneously the worst and best band name I have ever heard.

FINAL SCORE: 1.5 out of 4 Bubs (For die-hard zombie aficionados only)