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59%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #5,968
...out of 20,725 movies
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A hotshot White House speech writer deals with the publicity nightmare of his life when recently deceased soldiers return from beyond the grave.
--IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: August 11, 2006
Political satire meets zombie film... while a couple of Romero's films touched on political situations to a small extent, I don't think that any zombie movie has ever been so blatantly obvious and in-your-face about the subject matter. Does it work? Well, I sure thought so.
It all begins back in October of 2004, back when a certain Republican president was trying to keep his seat in the White House amidst controversy concerning his war efforts. His former speech-writer David Murch (Jon Tenney) and conservative pundit Jane Cleaver (Thea Gill) are on the Marty Clark show (think Larry King) in an attempt to bolster the President's image, when Marty decides to take a call from a woman who lost her only son in the war (think Cindy Sheehan). When Cindy... I mean, this woman... asks why her son had to lose his life in a war that is founded on lies, David tells her that if he had one wish, it would be for her son to come back to her and tell her how he feels about the war - because naturally, all of these soldiers were proud to die for their country. It doesn't take long before his wish comes true, and not only does this woman's son come back from the grave, but so do a slew of other casualties of this war. However, this batch of the walking dead aren't interested in eating brains or dismembering people, but instead, they simply want a chance to vote in a president who will stop the war. When these two Republican spin-doctors, along with the President's chief aid Kurt Rand (Robert Picardo) attempt to put a stop to this through lies and deceit on various media outlets, things get just a wee bit nasty...
Yes, this movie is very open about the current situation in America, and it's also very slanted against the Republican party. As such, if you're a proud red-stater, you might as well stop reading this review right now and skip on this movie; quite simply, you'll almost certainly hate it. However, if you want to see an intelligent zombie film mixed with some stinging social commentary or if you're just in the mood for some good Republican-bashing, this is definitely a movie to rush out and purchase.
My only real complaint with this film, and this is a minor one, is that it's hardly a horror film. As a standalone movie, I would have had no gripes with this fact, but considering that it was episode number six in the Masters of Horror series, I thought that that aspect should have received just a little more focus. Sure, there's zombies rising from the grave and there's even a couple of deaths, but scaring the audience is far from the main goal of this film; if anything, I'd place this more in the comedy genre than the horror. However, I suppose that it could be argued that the current war situation and the way that the Republicans are ruining this country is more horrific than anything else could ever hope to be, but that would be stretching it just a bit (and I suppose that I'm also getting a little more political than I should in this review). Again, I did enjoy the hell out of this presentation, but I couldn't help feeling that it was awfully out of place in the series.
Joe Dante has a slew of classic movies to his name: The Howling, Piranha, Gremlins, and the list just goes on and on. This one can be tacked onto said list, and although Dante doesn't exactly show why he's considered to be a "Master of Horror" with this entry, he does show that he hasn't lost a step in his years away from the genre. 8/10.
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#1:
Ginose
- added August 14, 2006 at 9:41pm
Well, hate to be the raw end here, but I really
didn't like this episode at all... I might go as
far as to say that I hated it. Understand that I
am a huge horror fan, zombie movies are a
paricular of mine. In fact, they're my favorite
sub-genre of horror. But this film... it... well,
it didn't work. Political satire is just not a
freind of mine, I appreciate a good message in
politics. But I don't want it to overshadow the
film I'm trying to enjoy as a horror movie, that't
what it was supposed to be, a horror film. Not the
anti-Repulican fan film.
Maybe I'm being
alittle bias, I've never cared much for Joe Dante.
I mean, "The Howling" had it's appeal, and it
worked. Not my favorite werewolf film of all time,
but it worked. And "Gemilins" was a great
childhood movie of mine, but I'd hardly consider
it horror, it was a bit to family oriented to be a
horror film. I'm still waiting to be impressed by
Mr. dante. Guess I'll have to keep waiting... 3/10
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#2:
Cryptorchild
- added December 12, 2006 at 10:23pm
I have to admit this was in my opinion one of the
best entries in the MOH series. What's funny
about it is that I had the lowest expectations for
this too when I heard about it. But it definately
suprised the hell out of me. I love the message
to this film. I think Joe Dante hit the nail on
the head with this one though, I think it's great.
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