Two in the house, not counting the dead around. It is simply impossible to calculate exactly how many zombie horrors of various calibers come out every year. Over time, the genre put on its feet by George A. Romero not only did not lose its popularity, but also advanced so far that Hollywood producers without a shame invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the revived dead. Thus, what was once a low-budget horror has now turned into an expensive multi-million dollar blockbuster. “Resident Evil”, “World War Z”, “The Walking Dead” – all these popular projects producers spare no money. But where entertainment and special effects come to the fore, drama and qualitative development of relationships recede into the background. Unfortunately, in our time, coming to the cinema, you will not see the good old zombie film, whose action unfolds on a limited scale, and the characters simply sparkle with originality. Such tapes settled on home video and look for them only the most real fans of the genre, which I consider myself and myself. But you should not twist your nose from inexpensive productions, since it is in them that original ideas are often born, refreshing not only the zombie direction of art, but also cinema in general. Not so long ago, the efforts of unknown enthusiasts released a wonderful dramatic horror "Battery", in which you can count 1-2 murders of the dead for the entire film. And yet to watch the "Battery" is very interesting, because the creators on the spot managed to capture our attention to the surprisingly brightly set life of the heroes, and also were able to make ordinary guys really interesting characters who empathize and are interested even in how they go to the toilet. And such a strong effect is obtained without all sorts of large financial injections and stars in the credits. However, not every independent zombie horror can boast the same aftertaste. Most of these tapes are created only in order to satisfy the self-esteem of a director who absolutely does not deserve his post, but nevertheless wants to prove himself and release at least one movie that can later be shown to friends, and with some luck also placed on some sites and sold to some provincial TV channel. Just such a tape I can safely call "Among the Dead" from an unknown director, producer and screenwriter Ben Wagner.
The official description of the plot and the setting of the narrative were really intriguing. At first, the director shows us the plans of a huge metropolis and people who scurry back and forth without suspecting that their world is about to collapse forever into the abyss and the streets will wander the living dead, whose only purpose will be to eat flesh. Then all the action is transferred to a small house located somewhere far from the city, in the virgin nature of one of the American states. The main characters of the film are the couple in the person of Mike (Dean Chekwal) and Kim (Amy Cale Peterson). As you can understand from the small digressions, the young people went out to nature with two of their friends to take a break from the annoying mundaneity. However, what happened after that remains a mystery to us for the time being, as only Mike and Kim remain in the house, and their comrades disappear without a trace. It becomes known that the couple for more than a month keep the defense in their house and fight off the hordes of zombies that periodically come to their house. Since supplies are running out, Mike goes every few days in search of food and other things necessary for life. Kim never leaves the house and begins to go a little crazy, as he is in a small wooden box for such a long time for a person raised in the metropolis, not so simple.
Some filmmakers do not need either scale, multimillion-dollar scenery, or star actors, in order to create a sensation on the spot and subsequently give a strong impetus to the development of their career. Recall only the beginning of the work of Quentin Tarantino or the recent exciting mystical thriller “Entry into nowhere” with the fate of Scott Eastwood, the son of Clint Eastwood. Only here the team “Among the Dead” most likely shot their picture exclusively for themselves, because there is nothing in it that the average viewer should cling to. As you can imagine, almost everything will take place in one house. And this means that Ben Wagner was obliged to reveal the characters of his two heroes in as much detail as possible, because nothing more special happens in the frame. But, unfortunately, we do not learn anything special about the heroes. The whole movie is a set of scenes in which Mike constantly goes somewhere, and then returns, telling stories about how he killed another couple of zombies and shows what he found. Sometimes the director indulges us with sexual scenes, but despite the strict age rating of the film, but special revelations in this regard should not count. also the characters periodically snack on canned food and wander around the house like those zombies, especially without talking to each other. Perhaps in real life, certain people would behave this way, but from the point of view of a feature film, this approach is wrong. We kind of watch not an art house, but a drama with elements of horror, but in sufficient quantity neither the first nor the second we do not get.
As for Amy Cale Peterson's character, Kim, she's the only one trying to show us something. The actress is known for her participation in a number of popular TV series in second roles, and now she decided to try herself in the main positions. If you take specifically “Among the Dead”, then her efforts look quite acceptable, but if you remove rose-colored glasses, it becomes clear that psychosis caused by limited space and one relatively interesting plot twist (without spoilers) Peterson does not play out one hundred percent. Something the actress lacked, in some places she did not give the maximum, so that to really penetrate her image is not possible. In fact, for the entire timekeeping there are only 5-10 minutes of standing scenes with the participation of the characters, yet the rest is a waste of free time.
In the end, I want to say that "Among the Dead" could become one of the best hermetic zombie horrors of recent times, but due to the creative failure of the filmmakers and the catastrophic lack of vision of the project as a whole, this film becomes for the audience anguish, which, perhaps, should not be tolerated until the very end, but should either be turned off at half, or not included at all. Believe me, there’s nothing in Ben Wagner’s film that justifies viewing to the final credits. I’d rather watch my inexpensive battery. At least it is interesting and somewhere even a positive look, not that for an hour and a half despondency, which we are unable to offer anything new.
3 out of 10
