This has to be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Considering that the film had a completion date of 2005, I was utterly appalled at how terrible the film quality was. It was terribly grainy and I can’t understand if they were going for a retro feel or if it was filmed via some dirt cheap medium.
Joe Estevez must have been hard up to appear in this tosh, as he’s done far better (although he does a decent job so he can’t be faulted) and as for Todd Bridges being second or third billed, that is obviously a ‘let’s cash in on his name’ gimmick as anyone who walks in after the credits and hasn’t seen the cover art won’t even know he’s in it. He appears a total of four times sporting the stupidest false stomach and Billy Bob teeth ever committed to celluloid!! He appears first as a retard being flogged by his boss, then again to mumble a line that is inaudible thanks to his falsers, before jumping into frame to save the day right before making one last attempt to talk in his final moments, which see him eating a microwave dinner in an old barn. He must have been even more in need of work than Joe!!
The script is preposterous and is filled with pathetic dialogue full of throw away lines of laughable exposition, such as the dinner scene where the female protagonist informs her dinner guest (who she has spoken to once for approxiamately 1 minute) that she was in a psychiatric ward for two years because ‘exactly two years, seven months and six hours ago my daughter was killed’.
The film gets worse as it proceeds, with a couple of ‘wet backs’ to quote the insulting dialogue being held by a member of the village people and his nympho girlfriend, who proceeds to torture them by stripping and caressing her breasts whilst miming to a silly pop song that she obviously pre-recorded for the soundtrack. They don’t even try to work it into the film by having the song play on a radio or something. Nope the music and vocals just come out of the wind.
The film further insults your intelligence by denouncing that a little girl had time to draw a bunch of pictures whilst being chased by a murderer who catches her and shoots her almost twenty seconds after she finds a hiding place, and by passing off dream sequences as real events when there is absolutely no logical way they could have taken place in the context of the story.
The acting is atrocious, as are the attempts at characterization and aesthetics, and the soundtrack is awful for the majority of the time too.
Besides the so-so make-up and blood effects and one music cue which is repeated far too often, there is absolutely nothing in this that will even entertain.
It seemed to go by quickly which was good, but they obviously spent so long working on the end credits song that they decided to keep the majority of the track in there so you get to watch a black screen for half the song’s running time, as the credits are over with by the first chorus.
OVERALL SUMMARY
This film which was released under the title ‘Dawn of the Living Dead’ here in the UK (yet another gimmick to lure you in) appears to be a vanity project for Writer/Director/Actor/Producer David Heavener, but I’m afraid he only fulfills one of those roles competently on this gig, and it’s his part as bit of rough Michael that redeems him from total humiliation. I couldn’t get into this at all but surprisingly, I’ve seen much worse. I’ve no doubt that David Heavener can make movies…he just can’t make a horror movie.
