Granny of the Dead

Good movie!

source: Granny of the Dead

Raig Tudor James directed, wrote, produced, edited, shot, did the effects and sound, as well as acted as Corey in this movie, a film in which a guy named Ed learns that his grandmother has gone on to her just reward only to come back as a shambling zombie who is gained power with each moment. In fact, everyone old has become a zombie, which means that elderly care is about to change for all of us. Sometimes, your zombie movie is Shaun of the Dead and sometimes, it's Hard Rock Zombies. This one is, well, the latter. A funny idea that maybe will make a few laugh, but probably the weakest of the films on this set.

To be fair to everyone giving it bad reviews the clue really is in the title of the film and for a very low budget independent film I quiet enjoyed it

Hanging out in their small-town, a group of friends wakes up one morning to find the elderly residents in the area have become infected with a zombie virus that turns them into savage killers and must rally their group together to stave off the killer hordes before it overruns the town. This was an overall disappointing effort. One of the few bright spots to be featured here is the fact that there's a nearly nonstop pace with this one essentially being all action from the start. The zombie threat is basically unleashed from the very beginning and doesn't let-up at all, giving this one a series of action scenes to keep itself fun in that regard as the need for battling the series of zombie attacks from the beginning is rather fun. There's numerous fun encounters out along the town as well as inside the house which showcase some rather fun moments trying to get the upper hand against the zombies as they continuously try to sneak into the house or chase them down in the streets around town, while the scenes of them out attacking other citizens that they see through the binoculars makes for a nice enhancement to these types of sequences. That these lead into rather fun gore effects with all the impalements and wounds being shown inflicted by the zombies makes these scenes all the more enjoyable due to the creative kills featured due to the nonstop battles. As well, the other big element is the rather nice-looking zombie makeup which alternates between the ravenous demon or bloodied distorted features. While these hold it up, there are a few problems with this one. Among it's biggest problems is that the tone shifts so rapidly throughout here it's at times impossible to know what type of film it wants to be. The setup here, with the wisecracking lead and the bizarre behavior he exhibits point to this one attempting to be a comedy of sorts which is completely against the serious tone exhibited by the attacks. None of the sequences are really that funny and it's such a disappointing affair that this can't capitalize on its setup as this one seems ripe for comedy as ideas like him trying to call his friends on the phone while they're trying to fend on an attacking being or seeing the police officers responding to the distress calls really could've been funny. Instead, they come off as completely dull and mishandled by the lackluster direction of the film much like the serious scenes which are also quite problematic. From shaking camera-work to out-of-focus moments and ludicrous action scenes of the zombies attempting to shuffle towards their victims, these here are laughably bad and really do a disservice to the film without a whole lot of enjoyable moments. This is also due to the central premise which is stretched out to absurd lengths in order to pad it's running time as there's a lot of unneeded moments added to enhance this one that includes extremely shoddy scenes of observing the situation from binoculars or just using lame slow-motion photography to make things go longer when it really shouldn't since the main storyline here is so flimsy. It also has the undesired secondary effect of making the action completely unremarkable and unworthwhile for the most part, rendering a lot of the encounters into a dull, dreary experience the robs this of a lot of the intended horror elements it could've had. The last big flaw here is no real reason for the apocalypse that's mentioned here from a supernatural to a virus and nothing really makes sense due to neither one really being explained. These here are what hold this one back. Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and violence-against-animals.

The film had its couple of flaws, but as a regular visitor to Wales, I am one of those who can relate and "get" the humor behind it, and from that aspect I thoroughly enjoyed the script to a degree. Some reviews on here are pretty mean, and are kinda exaggerating, but they are forgetting this isn't a Hollywood film! Anyway, my negatives on this film are: There wasn't much back story on the characters, and not much friendship development. Instead of separating them through the whole film until the very end, it would have been cooler to have them reunite sooner. Whether one bumped into another along the way during the film. From an acting perspective, the only characters I couldn't relate to much was Dai and Gemma. But I loved Will and Charlie (Ricky Valentine and Tom Barker) who made me laugh in all their scenes "brainy brainy". And then there's Ceri (Sabrina Dickens), who was also enjoyable to watch. Her character is pretty bad ass and cute considering she is covered in blood and dirt throughout. She is also the serious character of the group, which broke down the humor of the film quite nicely. Finally - The camera shakiness was a bit too much, and kinda ruined the film in parts, other than that, the zombies were pretty cool, good special effects, and a good laugh for a low budget film!

Old people in Wales are turning into zombies, something that may have something to do with the first church scene that was as poorly developed as the characters with cell phones growing out their ears. The rest of the film consists of young men dealing with their zombie grandparents while talking on a phone being filmed by someone who doesn't think a tripod is necessary for a decent film. The film had its attempts at situational humor, nothing that reached my funny bone. The acting was bad and the zombie growls got real old at the end. The main take away was in case of a zombie apocalypse, stay put and supply up. That advice got old too. Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

Right, well I am a huge fan of anything even remotely zombie in nature. And with a title such as "Granny of the Dead", I was intrigued, because it had the potential for being a good zombie comedy; at least it had the potential for it. The storyline in "Granny of the Dead" was easy to follow, and doesn't really require much explaining. The elderly are dying and returning as animated corpses with a hunger for the living. A group of Young people are trying to live through the ordeal and remain alive and sane. Yeah, that was essentially it, simplistic for sure. It felt like the movie was comprised of various scenes shot independently of one another and then put together in the editing room in order to make something reminiscent of a movie. It just didn't have a particularly coherent feel to it and it felt like continuity was a thing of the past. Zombie movies should not, and I repeat, not have running and agile zombies. Having running zombies just adds a disruptive element to the atmosphere, and when dead, a body should not have the coordination and cognitive ability to sustain complex movement such as running. As for the zombies in "Granny of the Dead", well I will say that there was a great number of zombies actually here, more than I had anticipated, so that was great. And the zombie make-up and special effects were actually quite nice. It is always a plus when a low budget zombie movie go beyond the usual error of just adding gray make-up and cheap theatrical blood to the face, but forgetting about the neck, hands and all other exposed areas of flesh. So thumbs up for the special effects team in this movie. Now, I will say that the character gallery in the movie was broad. But I can't really claim to say that it was characters that you particularly took a liking to, or actually even bonded with on any level. The characters were just too mundane, generic and rather indistinct from one another. And it didn't really help that the dialogue was strained and forced; that didn't do much to make the character any more interesting. When the zombie faces started to change from being dead elderly faces to what I assume was demonic faces, then I was about ready and done for. I was ready to call it quits and give up on the movie. But I decided to stick with it, since it was a zombie movie after all. But color me unimpressed. It was rather difficult to get fully immersed into this movie, because it just felt forced and unnatural - well as unnatural as it gets with zombies. "Granny of the Dead" was nowhere near as interesting or entertaining as I had hoped. And it turned out to be somewhat of a struggle to actually stick with the movie and not give into the desire of turning it off prematurely to find something more worthwhile to watch.

Granny of the Dead will fulfill your want for a movie that is both parts horror and comedy. The film takes you on a journey through a small Wales town that is under attack by zombies. The thrilling story follows a group of teens as they each uniquely try to fight and survive when zombies are around every corner. Granny of the Dead is a fresh take on our society's zombie phenomenon as you experience the supernatural story unfold with surprising twists and witty British humor. A movie created to entertain and keep us at the edge of our seats with seemingly real looking zombies by amazing special effects makeup and a lighthearted story of friends working together despite the life and death situation. The cinematography is visceral and creative that keeps you intrigued as you follow along with the story line. This is a must see for anyone who enjoys horror and comedy films as Granny of the Dead blends the genre together seamlessly for an entertaining experience.

Granny of the Dead