War of the Dead

Don't be fooled by the title or the plot summary, both of which are typical of many low-rent sci-fi and horror vehicles that populate the genre market. War of the Dead is a surprisingly effective low-budget thriller. Though not the first film to combine Nazis and zombies, War of the Dead is perhaps the most effective. Direction is taut and rarely succumbs to camp, and a genuine sense of dread overlays the picture from beginning to end. Character development is paramount, and while the acting isn't always great it is generally competent. Special effects aren't necessarily cutting edge, but they are good enough and the zombies are effectively realized and quite threatening. Indeed, these zombies are rather unconventional examples of the species, and exhibit a certain degree of intelligence to go along with their enhanced strength and resiliency. And unlike many zombies, the ones in War of the Dead are fast and there's none of the traditional "zombie shuffle." Of course this isn't a perfect movie--the aforementioned lack of funds does make everything a little rough around the edges, and like many films of its kind the director makes the mistake of shooting many of the action scenes in the dark so that it's sometimes hard to discern just what is going on. But overall War of the Dead is a fine production, and one that genre fans would be well-advised to check out.

War Of The Dead is further proof that I'll watch any old tosh if it features the potentially awesome combo of Nazis and zombies. A US/Lithuanian/Italian co-production, this shoddy mess of a movie sees a platoon of American and Finnish soldiers come up against the results of a German 'anti-death' experiment: snarling super-zombies. What follows is a virtually plot less series of dull battle scenes between the living and the undead, all of it shot at night, most of it very hard to discern, and none of it in the slightest bit scary or exciting, despite the urgent music and frantic camera-work trying to convince otherwise. The only remotely interesting aspect about the whole thing—a strange clockwork device stolen by one of the soldiers—is subsequently ignored without any explanation of its relevance or purpose. According to IMDb's trivia, James Van Der Beek was originally slated to play Captain Stone. When Van Der Beek bails on a project, you know you're in trouble

Yet again another staggeringly bad entry under the zombie banner. The movie has zero character development which leaves the viewer with nothing to care about. The writers should have watched predator or at least the first 15 minutes, it's a master class in how to set up the protagonists. Add to this the thinnest plot imaginable and you really are left with something you purely just stare at for 90 minutes. This means all that is left are the action sequences. I was often left wondering what the hell was going on and who was killing who. Action scenes were messily shot and in between you were given little more motive than let's drive this car over there to the next scene. The director clearly had been brushing up on his band of brothers and private Ryan as the film does mimic their look but only to a degree. The scene from Ryan where the Jewish soldier and German soldier wrestle over the knife was practically lifted wholesale and chucked in, laughable. These were not zombies, Nazi or otherwise. More like mutants. To address the "if you love zombie movies, you'll love this" or genre lovers (zombie or horror). I ask you this, why would you like or love this? It's terrible. I love zombies and horror, so much that this film irritated me. You may love zombies too but if you rate this at all you also simply like awful films too. That's fine but this particular film is a disservice to an already struggling genre. Avoid this watch Dead Snow.

Bad reviews aside, if you're into zombie movies, then you'll find a nice spin to this one. First of all, it plays out as a real WWII movie - the action, drama and dialog are all what you'd expect from a basic WWII movie. Of course though, there are Nazi zombies to fight. But the nice twist on the zombies is that they are fast-movers, and relatively intelligent in their attacks. As far as low budget, it seems pretty high budget for a zombie movie. In the trivia it even states that this is the "Most expensive film ever produced in Lithuania." Now that may not be saying much but, the trivia also states that "The film's original title was 'Stone's War', but was changed to 'War of the Dead', after Stan Lee had suggested it." So, if Stan Lee gave it the nod, and if the Lithuanian's spent their national budget making it, it's worth a look see.

This is a combination war story and horror film that could have been better than it was. The suspenseful and creepy atmosphere is there along with plenty of action to keep you from losing your attention. The acting was fair and perhaps it could have been better. The story however doesn't explain or go into much detail about the secret sinister experiments that were conducted in the bunker. This I feel should have been elaborated more which would have improved the story quite a bit making it far more interesting than it was. This is one movie that at first seems to be promising but later on lets you down with disappointment. One can only feel afterwards that this movie could have been better than it was. It had all the potential to be a 1st rate horror film.

I watched the UK premier of this title at Fright fest Scotland. It's your basic mystery story at the start. Bad things are happening behind enemy lines. What is the cause, well with a title like War of the Dead it is easy to say its Zombies. What I liked about this movie was that it told the same old story of dodgy dealings behind enemy lines. It does it pretty good. The effects whilst good are below par. The movie itself looks like its a low to medium budget movie. This is not top of the class but it is good fun for what it is.Its better than zombies of war and Armageddon of the dead.

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