The Dead (2010)
 

The Dark Continent becomes a Dead Zone in the first zombie road movie set against the spectacular vistas of Africa. A stunningly shot horror announcing the arrival of the Ford Brothers on the global genre scene, THE DEAD is as much an emotional journey through terror terrain as it is a physically demanding and beautiful-looking one.

Shot in life-threatening, never-before-seen locations in Burkina Faso, French-speaking West Africa, and Ghana, including the Sahara Desert, on 35mm film by the Ford Brothers, THE DEAD is the ultimate Zombie movie.

American Air Force engineer Lieutenant Brian Murphy (ROB FREEMAN) survives a plane crash and runs the gauntlet across Africa, battling with the living dead. Joining forces with local military man Sergeant Daniel Dembele (PRINCE DAVID OSEI) who is searching for his missing son amongst the chaos, they must fight together if they are to survive the flesh-eating horrors of the bush.
Indelible Productions and Latitude Films present THE DEAD starring Rob Freeman (Saving Private Ryan, The X-Files, Smallville), Prince David Osei (Pirate of the Night, The Dons in Sakawa, Kiss Me If You Can) and David Dontoh (Welcome Home, No Time To Die).

The highly anticipated horror chiller is written and directed by Howard J Ford and Jon Ford (Mainline Run, Distant Shadow). Produced by Howard J Ford, executive producer is Amir Moallemi and the director of photography is Jon Ford. Music is by Imran Ahmad (The Greenwich Village Massacre, In His Shoes, Mayomi, The Foundation), special and visual effects by Dan Rickard with special make-up effects by Max Van De Banks (Whatever Happened To Pete Blaggit?, Born of Hope).

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes, I've been looking forward to seeing this for soooo long. I'm proper excited now that it's being promoted through Cult-Labs :D

Me too, when I first saw the trailer ages ago, it looked so familiar yet completely different due to the setting.

This looks awesome, I can see a pre-order going in pretty damn soon!

looks good, nobodys played Resident Evil 5 then??

That was my first thought when I saw this :)

... Which leads me into the most important selling point for the movie in my purely subjective opinion.

The Dead is a post video game movie. Not a pale imitation of the interactive experience like the pop-tastic but ultimately empty and silly Resident Evil movies, I mean a film that appears to have been conceived by people whose formative Zombie experiences involved involved holding a Playstation Controller as much a VCR remote.

Recent years have seen a post-28 Days Later spate of athletic 'infected' style zombies. (Lets keep arguments about them not being zombies for another thread shall we. The eat us, they don't have functioning brains and they smell funky, they're zombies 'kay?)

But slow zombies create a different type of fear. A different way to think your way out of the trap you find yourself in. A 28 Days Later style movie twitches. It's fight or flight and fear is generated by the overwhelming rush of death that's hurtling towards you with it's rotted teeth exposed.

Stumbling, traditional zombies allow for strategic thinking. Do I have time to fill up my water can before the dead get within grabbing distance? I'll need all the water I can and they'll take a minute to get here.

This is what I mean about a post-gaming movie. When you play survival horror titles, you calculate how much ammo you have. Clearing rooms of the dead will leave you with no bullets for the boss. So you conserve your firepower and think instead of acting. These instincts are on display in The Dead.

I went to a screening recently. It's a superb movie. The co-director producer told us about the problems encountered during filming which will make for an interesting commentary when the disc comes out.

This looks good!

Could be a great one for Halloween night :).

Hey Bobz,

You're right it is a great watch and also one with a unique production story. As I've doubtless said before, I'm also attracted to movies that have a sense of quest about their production time. Lord of the Rings has that sense of mission about them and the numerous horror enacted on the cast and crew of The Dead make the finished film all the more interesting.