DVD Release
It never fails…you mention Sci-Fi Original film and people start reaching for their pitchforks and lighting their torches and I’ll be the first to admit that most Sci-Fi Originals are shitty but c’mon…C’MON…they’re B-movies fer Christsake! Are you expecting Casablanca or Citizen Kane? These are low-budget B-movies packed out with barely passable CG, so so acting B-listers and stories that, for lack of a better word, suck. In my opinion, that’s what makes these films so damn fun! They aren’t Earth shattering…my life won’t be changed by them…they are what they are and I’d rather watch a Sci-Fi Original than ANOTHER rerun of Mama’s House or the entire English Patient.
If you can’t tolerate Sci-Fi Originals…be gone. There’s really nothing for you to read here that you don’t already know. Dead & Deader is a silly, lighthearted zombie romp that never stops long enough to take itself seriously. The zombies are fast, the dialogue is cheesy and the women are hotter than a bottle of Jamaican Hellfire sauce in the Arizona desert!
I would definitely like to warn those of you who stick around for this flick and my review that Dead & Deader was co-written by a low-budget player fans should be wary of…Mark A. Altman. This is the TRUE crapmaster behind such cinematic silent-but-deadlies as House of the Dead, House of the Dead 2 & All Souls Day. Is it just a coincidence that these films all have a serious streak of shit running down their backs like a basket of uncleaned shrimp? Folks, THIS IS THE GUY THAT WROTE HOUSE OF THE DEAD. While the inept editing and technical aspects of the film can definitely be laid squarely on Dr. Boll’s shoulders…Mark A. Altman deserves a healthy portion of “verbal ass-kicking” for his inane script.
Anyhow, if you’ve seen Altman zombie flicks you won’t be in the slightest bit surprised by Dead & Deader.
Lt. Bobby Quinn (Dean Cain) and his Special Forces team are sent to a remote government outpost in Cambodia to investigate after all communications with H.Q. have been cut. The team arrives to discover an abandoned river shack resembling a laboratory containing a tank full of scorpions. Before they can investigate further they’re set upon by crazed attackers and somebody pulls the pin on a hand grenade. The entire place goes up and Quinn survives just long enough to call for medical evacuation.
The next day Lt. Quinn awakens to find a bone saw closing in on him! Apparently, Quinn was to be the subject of an autopsy! Lt. Bobby Quinn, by all accounts, is dead; no pulse or heartbeat. To make matters worse he’s forced to slice one of the Cambodian “insects” from his arm as it attempts to make its way to his heart! What has it done to him? Has the scorpion somehow infected Quinn with some kind of virus?
Despite protestations to remain quarantined, Lt. Quinn stomps off in search of his former teammates. If the same virus infecting Bobby is infecting him they may have big problems on their hands. Naturally, his team is returning from the dead and Lt. Quinn is forced to band together with military cook Hieronymous Judson (Guy Torry) and local horror geek barmaid Holly (Susan Ward) in order to stop the virus before his team spreads it across the country.
Quinn isn’t the only one interested in this virus or the insects though. A mad scientist, played by heavyweight actor Peter Greene, is dying of cancer and desperate to unlock the secret of the insect’s longevity giving essence and Quinn’s ability to resist the “change.” Unfortunately for Quinn, the change is affecting him negatively and he craves raw meat…fresh meat.
Can Lt. Quinn, Judson and Holly stop the zombie onslaught and rogue scientists before the infection rages out of control? Will Quinn be able to resist his new urges long enough to win the girl or will she end up becoming lunch?
Dead & Deader reminded me, quite a bit, of Mark Goldblatt’s Dead Heat starring Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo. You just can’t take the undead “hero” all that seriously when he makes cracks about eating his compadres for disagreeing with him. Dean Cain is…well…Dean Cain. It’s hard seeing him as anything other than Clark Kent or the host of Ripley’s Believe It or Not. He held his own, did his best to play straight man to Torry’s Hieronymous Judson and made an okay “undead” hero. It was fairly obvious Torry was the comedic relief though and he did a decent job. It’s funny but for some reason I kept mistaking Guy Torry for the dude that played limp-wristed Lamar Latrell from Revenge of the Nerds.
This made-for-cable movie had three things going for it…cool zombies, tons of gore and a super hottie played by Susan Ward. Ward’s character Holly is a major horror geek in the film and she even gets into a small debate with Dean Cain’s character about the significance of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead versus the remake! Can you say MAJOR BROWNIE POINTS? Hell, we even get to see Ward in her panties and bra! Honestly, I would have sent Altman a Christmas Thank You card had we gotten some ass or side boob but it is cable so I can only hope we get some censored flesh reinserted for the unrated DVD release.
As I mentioned above…gore…lots of it. Fact is I was shocked at the amount of gore this film had. Course, much of the zombie gore features green blood so that’s perhaps one reason why they got away with so much. There are beheadings, head shots and even the old “hand in the meatgrinder” bit! Just enough to elicit a few “holy shits” but not enough to traumatize my kid.
The comedy didn’t really bother me as much as the occasional lapse in continuity. The film establishes the “head shot” rule then breaks it on more than a few occasions. We even witness a zombie soldier, reminiscent of Bub, being put down with a cattle prod through the chest. Another small thing that had me scratching my head was the “insects”…they were obviously scorpions and yet they’re never called scorpions. Was the scorpion added as a last minute change because the original CG bugs were trashola? Who knows.
I can see the film setting up a sequel or television series and they might even be worth watching but I won’t be adding this to my DVD collection. As much as I enjoy Sci-Fi Originals it was “JUST OKAY.” My recommendation would be to try and catch this on rerun, On Demand or your friend’s DVR but don’t go out of your way to purchase this in a few months.
By the way…was that a flying sphere from Phantasm?
