Do you like Zombie movies? Do you like classic comedy spoof movies like Airplane? Do you like a hot chick kicking butt? Did you know there is one movie that combines all these things? If you answered yes, yes, yes, no then you've obviously never heard of Death of the Dead and now you can learn all about it. Death of the Dead is a zombie ninja comedy/independent film from director Gary King. King, who will slowly turn into one of the bigger indie directors around, takes a Bo Buckley script and turns it into spoof gold.
Death of the Dead is the story of Wanda (played by the beautiful Christina Rose), an outcast high school student. She wants to be part of the in-crowd, part of the cheerleaders and overall just be one of the gang. But Wanda's a loser. The cheerleaders laugh at her and tease her in the girls' locker room (a scene looking like a perfect homage to Porky's or Revenge of the Nerds). Wanda just wants to be liked and to fit in, but with the oversized 80's glasses and horrible clothes, she's straight from the Island of Misfit Toys.
Wanda has heart and is secretly training with Master Sensei. But what Wanda doesn't know is that Master Sensei is pretty much a loser too and all his strength comes from his magical belt. And oh yeah, he's a giant perv. Wanda is learning as much about martial arts as she can and soon she finds herself in a match against a boy who will clearly defeat her (think Ralph Macchio if he lost in The Karate Kid).
Meanwhile scientists are making a concoction that they believe is way too hazardous. So what do scientists do with bad goo? Dump it outside of course. The winning martial arts team is celebrating in their bus when it spins out and lands in the goo creating not just zombies, but ninja zombies. The ninja zombies start turning more people into ninja zombies (including the cheerleaders) and it's up to Wanda and Master Sensei to save the day.
Master Sensei tells Wanda about his magical belt and steps out to defeat the walking dead. Leading the group of bad guys is Sensei's arch-enemy who defeats Wanda's teacher. Wanda takes control of the magical belt and is transformed into the hot, ass kicker she was born to be. With new found confidence, killer weapons and a great outfit, can Wanda defeat the zombie ninjas and turn everything back to normal?
Death of the Dead is one of those movies that has cult status written all over it. A) look at the name, if that doesn't scream comedy spoof then nothing else does. B) it doesn't try to be anything it's not and scores laughs because of it. It's a low/no budget movie that practically mocks itself in its very own film. It takes everything "bad" about zombie movies and makes it great. It takes everything "good" about movies like Blazing Saddles and makes it just as good. With one liners and random acts of gross outs, DotD goes for the laughs at any cost and hits on almost all of them.
The star of the film is hands down Christina Rose. The talented new-comer handles the weapons as a pro and clearly has some sort of dance, martial arts or gymnastics type background. And she knocks out the comedy lines and facial expressions as good as a 20 year veteran. Learn her name so you can say you knew her before all the fame.
Death of the Dead takes a tongue in cheek look at a combination of genres. With gratuitious nudity, gratuitous blood and sporadic sex toys, you see equal parts 80's sex romp and George A. Romero storytelling. But don't think that's all you should expect from this group of indie filmmakers. Up next for Gary King is How Do You Write a Joe Schermann Song an independent musical that he hopes to use a full orchestra in. Christina Rose will once again star in the King directed vehicle.
If you'd like to learn more from the filmmaker and its star you can follow director Gary King on Twitter www.twitter.com/grking and Christina Rose at www.Twitter.com/christinarose12. And you can always follow me www.twitter.com/murraymaker
Comments