Zombie Film Review:

The Wickeds

Year: 2005

Director: John Poague

Tagline: A Haunted House… Graverobbers… Fleshripping Zombie… No Ordinary Halloween!

Review: A carload of teens/20 somethings in moms station wagon heading to the Haunted House film set for the weekend… Plenty of sarcastic comments about cheesy B-movies… Then Ron Jeremy and his ‘son' are in the local graveyard, stealing a huge amulet from a zombie or possibly vampire who dresses like a camp version of ‘Sesame Streets,' the Count! Then for what seems like ages two of the youths simply make out upstairs and this goes on for too long… then the zombies arrive… Ten pranks happen and it suddenly turns into NOTLD. Not sure about the Ghost sub-plot and the electric room, yes you will have to see the effects to believe them and it all goes a bit strange.

Zombie Quality: **

The first zombie looks a bit like the Count, as mentioned above, and he might be a vampire and does have whole line to himself, later on in the film. But the zombies when they start emerging are good and do get better, plenty of greys and although it is one of the first times I have properly notice this, some thought has obviously gone into the costuming. Nothing too inspiring, but nothing too wrong.

Zombie Behaviour: **

Staggering, flesh eating zombies, not too fast and emerging from their graves… This is what we want… But suddenly the infection is spreading and the zombie/vampires victim gets up again and suddenly the victim of a normal zombie is a sexy, horny seductively talking zombie and then the angst ridden dude, starts talking after he has been devoured and it begins to lose stars from here.

Zombie Threat: **

These zombies are a bit rubbish, apart from the Count who rises from his grave like the Wrestling worlds Undertaker, the rest shuffle, stagger and simply fall apart if the right piece of ancient costume jewellery is smashed… Sorry did I give the game away? I suppose so, but this is telegraphed from the moment Ron Jeremy has appeared and so won't ruin it too much!

Gore Content: ***

None of the effects in this film are amazing, and at one point the worst spraying blood from a decapitated neck I can remember occurs. BUT this film is not shy, there are decapitations, disembowelling, heads being stamped, flattened, beaten and broken, bites, eyes being pulled out, they are not brilliant, but this film is not afraid to go for it on the gore scale and gets my two thumbs up for having a go!

Overall Quality: ***

For the budget this film is good, not the best produced film in the world, but its heart is in the right place and it contains a lot of zombies, a lot of claret, loads of graveyard capers and is blatantly a homage to NOTLD with a few slightly dodgy additions, like did I mention the Count? This films is not ace, but come across as the kind of finished result that The Dead Next Door should have been and wasn't!