The October Zombie-Thon! - Day 1: Dead & Deader
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.01.2007
I can only assume the title refers to Dean Cain's career before & after this film.
One year ago, I was just a guy with a dream – to spend the month of October introducing the readers of 411 to some of the lesser-known zombie movies out there. 31 days later, my dream was an accomplished reality and, as a result, my brain was pretty much mush.
And yet here I am again, one year later, ready to put my mind through the same savage assault…ahhh, who am I kidding. Of course I was gonna do it again. Because as mind-numbing as this can sometimes seem, I do love me my zombies.
Still, you will notice some changes this year. For one, I'm not sure the reviews will always be as long as they were last year. This isn't to say they will be super-brief, but on occasion they might be a little bit more short, sweet, and to the point. Whether this is due to laziness or the realization that you can only write so much about so many similar movies is a debate I leave to you, the readers.
Also, this year I'll be applying a new rating system – The Bub Scale. That's right, from now on, the Zombie-Thon films will be ranked on a scale from zero to four Bub's. If you don't know who Bub is, well, you might not exactly be the target audience for this column anyway.
One quick note – when regarding the Bub Scale, it's important to remember that these are zombie movies we're talking about here, and as such I apply a whole different sort of critical eye to them than I would to your regular movie. Why? Well, as my fellow zombie fans already know, there's a pretty big difference between good-bad and bad-bad, and I'm hoping my reviews can reflect that. As such, let's try to keep in mind that the scores I give these movies are based on how I feel they will appeal to zombie-movie fans. Anyone else, enter at your own risk (although we're more than happy to have you).
So enough small-talk, let's get to the bloodshed! Year two of the 411 Zombie-Thon starts now!
DEAD AND DEADER (2006)
Directed by: Patrick Dinhut
Written by: Mark Altman & Steven Kriozere
Country: USA
There's an old saying – "if you're gonna kick off a month-long look at zombie movies, do it with a Dean Cain movie."
OK, maybe that isn't actually a saying, but it should be. After all, we're going to spend 31 days looking at dead things, so why not start with an actor whose career is as deceased as the zombies we speak of?
But I kid Dean Cain. And, in the interest of honesty, I should admit that I was actually looking forward to Dead and Deader, and originally thought it might be a pretty fun first movie for the Zombie-Thon, a perfect way to get the ball rolling this year.
I should have known better. I mean, the signs were all right there. For starters, the back of the DVD case clearly said "from the producers of Free Enterprise and House of the Dead." As if that wasn't warning enough, there was that little fact that it starred Cain. Still, I've been pleasantly surprised by lesser actors before, and had actually heard some pretty positive buzz about this film. Plus, no matter what its glaringly obvious faults may be, it did seem to have a fairly promising premise.
Cain stars as Lt. Bobby Quinn, a Special Forces Op (with frosted hair, nonetheless) who, along with his entire squad, is killed while on a mission in Cambodia – although not before being stung and infected by some sort of mysterious black scorpion. Surprise, surprise, it turns out the scorpion's venom can bring one back from the dead. Actually, considering this is the Zombie-Thon, I guess it's probably not that big of a surprise, but try telling that to the Army doctors who are just about to start their autopsy on Quinn when he wakes up and assures them he's feeling fine.
Alright, so now Quinn is a zombie, but it could be worse. After all, at least he has his wits about him, which is more than can be said for his fellow squad-mates, who also wake up but, in their cases, with a mad case of zombie rage. Quinn, with the aid of his newfound superhuman strength, helps fight off his now bloodthirsty ex team-members, although he doesn't really get a very appreciate thank-you as a result. Instead, he becomes wanted by the Army. So, along with a wise-cracking Army chef (Guy Torry, trying desperately to channel Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, and Chris Tucker – and failing on all counts), Quinn escapes the facility and hits the road.
Eventually, the two meet and begin traveling with a sexy bartender (Susan Ward), and it doesn't take long for sparks to start flying between Quinn and her. Unfortunately for them, any potential relationship has a few hurdles to clear first. For instance, there's the fact that Quinn is being hunted by both the Army and an evil, dying scientist intent of using Quinn to discover the secret of eternal life (Pulp Fiction's Peter Greene, who sounds like he had laryngitis during the entire shoot). Oh, and then there's the little matter of Quinn's newfound hunger for flesh, which is getting harder and harder to resist.
Now, assuming you're on the same wavelength as me, I think we can all agree that this is a fairly solid concept, no? And perhaps in the hands of the right filmmakers, it could have lived up to its potential. Unfortunately, Dead and Deader is in the hands of filmmakers who seem less concerned with making a decent film than they do convincing the horror fans that they've made a movie for "us." Hey guys, the way to win over the horror community is not to constantly pepper us with (supposedly) funny nods and winks to far better films, but to actually create a movie that scares, thrills, or at least entertains us.
True, a subtle Phantasm reference here is good for a chuckle, but the rest of the films "shout-outs" to the horror community are more annoying than endearing. For instance, it's hard enough to believe that both Cain and Ward's characters are huge horror fans (I can't explain why it's so hard to believe…it just is), but when the two actually engage in a debate about whether the remake of Dawn of the Dead is better than the original – during a daring raid, no less – it seems completely out-of-place, not to mention having the undesired side-effect of reminding us of not one, but two much better zombie films.
Maybe if the filmmakers had been less obsessed with including these "clever" jokes and references, they could have spent more time concerning themselves with the number of story problems found in the final product. For instance, why does Quinn's Highlander-esque power to sense other nearby zombies simply vanish after the film's first act? Why are some zombies felled by a gunshot to the chest, even after the movie clearly states only a headshot will do? How is it that a ceiling fan clearly on the low setting is able to completely demolish a zombie's head? And why are the military bases of this universe populated by about 20 people and protected with only flimsy bolt-locks?
Still, I might have been able to overlook the story's plot problems and the screenplay's overly Tarantino-like movie referencing. But what really sinks Dead and Deader, however, is its stubborn desire to mix humor with horror. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing wrong with a little laughter mixed in with my carnage and mayhem, but it always helps if it's being delivered from people who actually know how to write a funny joke. If there's one negative about Shaun of the Dead, it's the number of unfunny, trying-too-hard "zom-coms" that followed in the wake of its success, and Dead and Deader is yet another one to throw onto the pile.
I mean, I know Torry (best known as Edward Norton's cell-mate in American History X) is supposed to be funny here, but his constant jokes are both witless and grating, and he soon earns himself a place as one of the more irritating sidekicks in film history (and I'm talking any movies, not just zombie films). Meanwhile, the film also expects us to find it absolutely hilarious when our heroes are forced to grab new clothes, and Cain spends the last half of the movie dressed like Don Johnson in Miami Vice. Not only is the visual joke about 20 years too late, but it probably wouldn't have been very funny back then, either. All it really serves to do is make it impossible to take Cain seriously.
Then again, that's also accomplished by Cain's performance. Now, I know I was a little harsh on the guy earlier in the review, but the truth is I have no real feelings about the guy one way or another. I remember watching Lois and Clark when I was younger, but it was too long ago for me to remember if I thought Cain was any good in it. I'm fairly sure, however, that he must have been better there than he is here, as he spends quite a bit of Dead and Deader looking like he is absolutely bored. One could argue that this is his way of acting like a dead person, but I think it's far more likely that Cain simply found this material to be a little below him. And let's consider that for a moment, shall we? This is Dean Cain we're talking about – if even he is a little embarrassed to be in this movie, well, that pretty much tells you all you need to know about Dead and Deader, doesn't it?
Originally intended as the pilot episode for a potential Sci-Fi Channel series, it's really not that surprising, given the final product, that Dead and Deader was not picked up to become a weekly show. And thank heavens for that. For years, I've told anyone who would listen how better off the American TV landscape would be if there was a weekly series about zombies. If this had ended up being it, I would have felt like quite the fool.
