Zombie Film Review:
Gangs of the Dead
Director: Duane Stinnett
Year: 2006
Aka: 48 Weeks Later, Last Rites
Tagline: “The Bums are eating the Cops” or “Die Hard… or Rot”
Review 1: By 'Zombie Ed' Thurlow
Gang on gang, drug dealers, meteorites, insane preachers and zombies… nice… lots of zombie action… This ends up in a traditional siege style film with a modern gang land setting, in a shitty derelict warehouse. Good filming, good acting for a genre film too…
Zombie Quality: ***
New style burned yellow, similar to ‘Severed FOD' Bit rotten, bit veiny and the fact the first of the infected are street bums gives them a good ragged urban feel.
Zombie Behaviour: **
Staggering, flesh eating, drooling and infected, all good, but green drool, possibly because of the meteorite?? What's going on?
Zombie Threat: ***
Outside the warehouse loads of threat, inside only the humans themselves… good zombie film values to live by…
Gore Content: **
Bites arm stumps, spraying blood all the norm, but pissing on a zombie is just wrong. Nice head shot!! And the main villain gets more than he deserves.
Overall: ***
Modern, well thought out zombie film, not a massive budget but really atmospheric and the warehouse is claustrophobic and dark as well, but this movie just lacks a certain something, that stops it from becoming a massively recommended or a classic in the making…
Review 2: By James Parkins and Isaac Thornton
Imagine if a gigantic, meteor crashed into a remote part of LA, and a mysterious element which emanates from the meteor changes (what can best be described as) tramps, into the walking dead. Zombie Quality : ***
Zombie Quality: ***
Green blood oozing from every orifice. Which is then passed onto everyone that they happen to bite…it's just like that. If you can take your eyes of off the hammy acting (which believe me isn't that difficult), the zombies do fall into the ‘I look like a zombie' category, and to be fair, from a zombie film, it's all you can ask.
Zombie Behaviour : **
Nothing particularly special here, however they do seem to have a knack of pulling people out of cars rather spectacularly!, and like most flesh-hungry zombies, they seem to do anything to conform to their craving.. Including going through wheelie bins.
Zombie Threat : ****
The interesting twist in the tale (Plot spoiler coming up!!) is that at the end of the film, it appears that the original meteor was part of a bigger shower!! ‘GASP' good luck LA!!
Gore Content : **
The use of green blood is a welcome change from the usual red-bloodedness of most zombie flicks. It should be said though, there are a couple of very touching moments, one involving a beanie-wearing-about-to-turn-into-a-zombie-gangster tied to a chair and the other involving a box of hand grenades and an FBI van.
Overall Rating: *
Beanie wearing gangsters, who overuse the word ‘B*tch', the appalling use of the name‘ Johnny Weatherman' (who happens to be the local TV weatherman) and the tagline “the bums are eating the cops”, make this 2007 film a silly yet intriguing hotchpotch of a zombie film. The blurred camerawork, and sometimes incoherent dialogue just add to it's overall splendour.
SPECIAL AWARD: Most Beanies ever seen in a Zombie movie.
