The zombie genre is by far my choice horror offering when it comes to that tough late night decision as to what I should be feeding my DVD player. So when something like the new Andrew Gilbert helmed no-budget British zombie horror ‘The Dead Inside’ arrives on your desk your interest should be well and truly piqued.
With the advent of modern British zombie features ranging from the dreadful to the inspiring and/or groundbreaking it’s a much varied selection box and a minefield if you don’t tread carefully. Let’s face it anyone with a few quid in their pocket, a borrowed camera and some mates can piece together a half decent undead endeavor. Thankfully ‘The Dead Inside’ leans greatly towards the far superior efforts in recent years and manages to keep itself grounded in a humble realism whilst avoiding unnecessary over-the-top-ness.
So what’s it all about? A bad night out just got a fair bit worse: it’s the end of the world! Something terrible has happened, the undead are out in force, roaming the streets and devouring all who get in their way. A group of soldiers, civilians and teenagers hole up in a local school for protection from the undead hordes outside, but no rescue is coming. Food is running low – morale doubly so, tensions are high and things are looking bad when a stranger arrives outside the gate. Then they get a whole lot worse.
Now you may be thinking a synopsis like that sounds awfully familiar. An amalgamation of past zombie movies we’ve enjoyed perhaps? Mercifully ‘The Dead Inside’ provides inventiveness, solid FX work and even throws in some twists for good measure. The performances themselves were also pleasantly surprising and believable and never felt overly amateurish. Perhaps I’m excessively biased as the movie was shot in my birth town but as I’ve said before if I had to resign to an apocalyptic event I would opt for a zombie apocalypse all the way. So seeing events like this on screen unfold in familiar areas certainly draws you in more giving an extra layer of that invaluable audience connection.
It feels very much like a low-budget love letter to Romero and that’s no bad thing. The project was put together on the modest budget of £15,000 using various student loans and personal savings and every single penny spent is right up there on the screen. ‘The Dead Inside’ manages to nail a wholly and impressively professional style and tone, dead impressive actually!
OVERALL SUMMARY
It’s been a lot of hard work and a long time in bringing the project together and finally managing to secure distribution but ‘The Dead Inside’ has arrived full of surprises and originality and immediately reminiscent of post-Romero packed with punch. It just goes to show that even years on the horror field can still churn out new talent in waiting who can take things into their own hands and really knock out a top quality feature.
