The October Zombie-Thon - Day 27: Dead Men Walking

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.27.2008

When you think about it, getting eaten by zombies is probably only the second worst thing that can happen to you in prison.

DEAD MEN WALKING (2005)



Directed by: Peter Mervis
Written by: Mike Watt
Country: USA

So I've been doing some thinking, and I believe I figured out just what makes the idea of "zombies in prison" such a cool idea. Whereas 90% of zombie movies focus on a group of characters who have barricaded themselves inside a location to try and keep the ghouls out, the zombies-in-prison movie instead barricades the humans and the zombies inside together. Now, granted, this idea need not be exclusive to prison, as other movies have shown people trapped in hospitals or underground bunkers with the living dead. But there's something about prison that gives the idea more power. This is a place specifically designed to keep people in. There is no escape. And while we all know the best defensive strategy against zombies is simply to avoid them, being locked in a prison during an outbreak completely removes that as an option. You can't hide…you have to fight.

Having said all that, Dead Men Walking kinda sucks.

No, it's not that the movie ignores the potential of the idea. In fact, the problem is it seems a little too willing to just rest on that potential. I have no doubt the filmmakers recognized the same potential that I explained above, but apparently they were content to simply coast by on the strength of the concept, never bothering to realize that it also helps if you throw in interesting characters and an intriguing storyline. I can almost visualize an early meeting between those involved, where someone might have asked what they should do with the story once the zombies actually get loose in the prison. I imagine the response was something like, "what do you mean? We have zombies…in a prison! That's all we need, baby!"

Well, no…no, it isn't.

To be fair, things start off promisingly enough, with an immediately attention-grapping opener – a man named Travis (Brandon Stacey, who looks a lot like Heroes' Zachary Quinto) blasting away zombies with a shotgun in his home. In a true case of taking the good with the bad, Travis does manage to dispatch of all the creatures, but not without getting infected blood sprayed into his mouth. He is also arrested when the police arrive on scene – for some strange reason they don't seem to believe his story about fighting the living dead.

Now dubbed the "Shotgun Killer," Travis is immediately whisked off to Harwood Maximum Security Prison. I guess this area doesn't really see the need for little details such as trials. Anyway, Travis isn't looking very good once he gets there, and is soon puking blood all over the place…including on the guards and fellow prisoners. Amazingly, the prison doctor's solution to Travis' obvious illness is to have him sent to solitary. I don't know, maybe this doctor is squeamish about the sight of blood.

Of course, by that point it's far too late to contain the problem anyway, and it doesn't take long before those who Travis threw up on to turn into zombies and go about their business of infecting the rest of the prison population. The CDC quickly swoops in and places the entire building under quarantine, leaving one of their own agents, Samantha Beckett (the cute but bland Ray Bruner) trapped inside. Beckett is forced to team with Johnny, the token "prisoner who really isn't that bad of a guy" (Griff Furst), and together the two try to avoid the flesh-hungry zombies and find a way out of the prison.

I can pretty much quit summing up the plot right there, because that's effectively where it stops anyway. There is really no story left once the zombie outbreak actually begins. No more character development is offered, no plans are formed amongst the characters, and no tension is built. Instead, the movie simply devolves into scene after scene of characters running through hallways and shooting at zombies, with the occasional gory zombie feast thrown in to break things up. Heck, it even actively ignores potentially interesting story beats that are staring it straight in the face – we learn early on that Johnny has escaped from more than one prison before, but that never comes into play once he and Samantha are trying to find a way out of this one. Why play up his expertise in breaking out if you're just gonna have him run around like an idiot when he actually has to break out?

I guess they were afraid that might make Johnny a compelling character, a trait Dead Men Walking has no real interest in. I'm used to collections of boring, one-note characters in my B-horror movies, but it's especially annoying in this instance, given the location of the story. Go to any real Maximum Security Prison and I guarantee you're going to find a pretty a pretty fascinating group of characters. These are people who made decisions in life that landed them in prison. Of course they're interesting. So why does this movie only seem to want to focus on one of them, treating the rest of the inmates as little more than zombie fodder? The only truly entertaining character is the abusive prison guard, Sweeney – but even he is a generic stereotype, and is only made entertaining thanks to the admirably intense performance of actor Chriss Anglin.

And so, with no characters or story to really get behind, we're instead just left with a parade of violence and gore. It's handled effectively enough, I suppose, although it starts feeling repetitive long before the movie reaches it climax. And even when the movie throws in something a little more out-there, such as children being devoured by zombies, you're not so much impressed by its courage as you're wondering "wait, why where those kids even there?"

And before I go any further, let me just ask…what the hell is up with the bizarre editing in this movie, which frequently inserts one or two seconds of a silent, black screen in-between sequences, as if we're watching this thing in little mini-installments?

Look, I know there's a certain contingent of less-demanding zombie fans who ask for nothing more than continual carnage and perhaps a little T&A (which this movie awkwardly wedges in with a conjugal visit scene). And it's not that I'm opposed to those things, either. But it can't be all you have to offer…especially when you're sitting on an idea that could be so much more.

What really bothers me about a movie as lazy as Dead Men Walking is I always feel like it's going to be the movie that some non-horror fan is somehow going to see, thus confirming their suspicions that the genre is fairly boring and unimaginative. And I'll admit, there are a lot of movies like Dead Men Walking out there, so I guess there's at least a tiny level of truth to that. But for those of us who know that there are also actually a great number of truly creative and memorable zombie films, it makes the insipid, half-hearted movies like this one even harder to tolerate.

It's not that Dead Men Walking is an amazingly awful movie. But nor is really any good. It's just sorta…there. And when you have so many other films in the genre to choose from, why bother with one that can really only be summed up by saying, "well, that movie definitely…exists."

FINAL SCORE: 1 out of 4 Bubs (Skip It)