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Storm Of The Dead (2006)

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Overall Rating 24%
Overall Rating
Ranked #11,672
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The Florida Militia guns down a looter during a major hurricane. All hell breaks loose when the looter's grandmother turns out to be a Voodoo Queen and seeks revenge for the murder of her grandson. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: September 6, 2011
I love zombie movies, you dear readers already know that. What you may not know is that I live on the east coast, and last weekend, we sat at home and braved Hurricane Irene. We came out of that one relatively unscathed, but imagine my surprise when I got online and saw somebody discussing a movie that promised to mix hurricanes and zombies into one fun-filled night in front of the tube. I was all over it and hoping for some campy entertainment, but sadly, that isn't quite what I got.

The story takes place down in Florida just days after a category five hurricane has ravaged the state and turned huge chunks of land into swamp. We pick up with a trio of members from the Florida Militia, who have been ordered to shoot any looters they come across, and what do you know: they come across a looter. They chase him into the swamp, where they quickly put a couple of bullets into his chest. Unfortunately for the Militia, this looter's grandmother (Yvone Williamson) is a voodoo priestess, and she quickly gains her revenge by killing the men off with her voodoo powers.

We then skip over to the Militia barracks, where we see the captain putting a search and rescue crew together to find out what happened to those men and bring them back if they are still breathing. The crew, consisting of Hutch (J. Todd Smith), Dani (Debra Cassano), Red (Brian Renner), Mike (David Guarente), and Andrews (Bill Zientek), is also saddled with the task of taking along a reporter by the name of Lisa (Karin Justman) in order to get her out of the captain's hair for a few days. So, with their machine guns in hand, our fearless heroes set out into the Florida swamps to rescue their comrades. They eventually come across an attractive and very nude young lady (Xiomara Ortiz) who happens to be a mute, and from there, people start dying and things start getting weird. I'll leave it as an exercise for the viewer to figure out what happens and why.

Observant readers may have noticed two things: I never mentioned zombies in my synopsis, and all of this takes place after a hurricane has already hit. Aside from a few stills that appear during the opening credits, the hurricane plays absolutely no part in the storyline whatsoever: we are told a hurricane has made landfall, but we don't see any horrific weather or devastation. We simply see a bunch of guys and a couple of gals stomping through the swamp. As for the zombie side of things, there is one zombie in the entire film, and he doesn't appear until the closing minutes of the film. He doesn't eat any of the humans or terrorize the survivors, he merely shows up and puts on a mean face. I came to see a movie about zombies in a hurricane, and I didn't get either of those elements. Bummer.

What we get instead is a heavily-padded film about soldiers in a swamp who deal with voodoo mysticism, and the voodoo aspect of the film is just barely there. For the first hour or so, we simply see long shots of these people walking through the woods, sloshing through water, and bickering with one another. To be fair, the acting was better than it had any right to be and the character interactions during this time made it more entertaining that it could have been, but it was far from a horror flick - more like, a couple of soldiers bickering and screwing around with one another. It was alright for what it was, but it certainly wasn't what I paid to see.

As for the voodoo and supernatural elements, they are rather weak to say the least. As an example, one of the soldiers is washing off in a lake, and the voodoo lady will make a downward motion with her hand. The soldier disappears, the other soldiers freak out, and that is that. There's no graphic imagery, no inventive uses of magic, just simple sleight-of-hand camera tricks.

The entire film culminates with a blatant piece of social commentary about not shooting looters on sight, helping out our fellow man in times of need, and even a little bit of government conspiracy. I can't say I disagree with the message at hand, but again, I paid to see a zombie movie with a side of disastrous weather. I got neither of those, and thus, I really can't recommend the film. I'll throw it a few points for the acting that exceeded my expectations and I'll give it a thumbs up for the message, but at the end of the day, I think that a 4/10 is being more than kind.
Tobes #1: Tobes - added September 6, 2011 at 8:00pm
Those are some huge weird boobs in that one screen shot...
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