CAPSULE: THE WALKING DECEASED is a wildly uneven zombie film parody. It takes a lot of pot shots at other familiar films, zombie and otherwise, but it soon loses steam and by the final act neither the jokes nor the plot of the film are working. Freshman Scott Dow directs a script from freshman screenwriter Tim Ogletree. There are better, funnier film parodies of the zombie subgenre. Rating: high +0 (-4 to +4) or 5/10
The IMDB tells me that the original title of this film was WALKING WITH THE DEAD. Do you get it? Like WALKING WITH DINOSAURS? But my guess is that probably made the title seem a little sepulchral and most people would not get it was a joke. So the film got the more obviously humorous title THE WALKING DECEASED. If one gag is not working, just remove the joke and drop another one in. Jokes are a major fraction of the dialog; there is little that can be taken at all seriously. That is sort of symbolic of the whole film. The plot is weak as a story but wherever things are not working the filmmakers just drop in another joke. Unfortunately their humor becomes wearing and not very funny. They at least try to take jabs at WARM BODIES, WORLD WAR Z, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, DAWN OF THE DEAD, ZOMBIELAND, 28 DAYS LATER, and of course THE WALKING DEAD. All the jabs leave little room to develop characters. You do not need a zombie attack premise to spend several minutes showing people getting stoned on drugs, but it seems thrown in to help the film reach feature length.
Our story opens as Sheriff Lincoln (played by Dave Sheridan) awakes in a hospital coming out of a coma and finds the world he knew has come to an end while he was unconscious. (Note the reference to 28 DAYS LATER, and to THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS.) Soon we are jumping around "two weeks later," "five weeks earlier"... Lincoln has formed a small band of survivors killing zombies and roving around the countryside. Joining the band is a closet zombie, Romeo (Troy Ogletree), who decides not to be antisocial to the living. We hear his thoughts as a sort of inner monolog, so the viewer may think he is the main character until he notices there is another of the band whose inner monologue appears in texting language as printed in air. The band finds Safe Haven Ranch ruled over by a mysterious couple who want to serve them Kool-Aid.
This is a film with minimal characterization beyond jokes and with even less plot to it. By the last half hour it has lost its narrative momentum. The movie is all sugar and no tension and is stretched to feature length with excessive drug sequences and a lot of politically incorrect humor. With all the zombie films being made, by now there have been some decent films parodying the zombie subgenre. Two of the better ones are FIDO and WARM BODIES. This one I cannot recommend. I rate this one a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10.
If you want to see the blooper clips of the actors having a good time, they run under the closing credits. But nobody involved with this film has the wit of a Jackie Chan.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3499458/combined
What others are saying: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_walking_deceased/
Mark R. Leeper Copyright 2015 Mark R. Leeper