Dead Meat (2004)

An infection spreads from slaughtered animals to humans, which causes the dead to rise and feed on the living.

Director:

Conor McMahon

Writer:

Conor McMahon

Stars:

Marian Araujo, David Muyllaert, Eoin Whelan

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Marian Araujo	...	Helena (as Marián Araújo)
David Muyllaert	...	Desmond
Eoin Whelan	...	Cathal Cheunt
David Ryan	...	Martin
Amy Redmond	...	Francie
Kathryn Toolan	...	Lisa
Ned Dennehy	...	Road Zombie
John O'Connor	...	Farmer
Ivan McCullough	...	Abbey Zombie
Anthony Litton	...	Abbey Zombie
Roy Gleasure	...	Abbey Zombie
Daniel Katz	...	Bio Team (as Danny Katz)
Paul Markey	...	Bio Team
Kurt Lang	...	Bio Team
Nicholas Ward	...	Bio Team (as Nicky Ward)

Storyline

The tourist Helena (Marián Araújo) and her mate Martin (David Ryan) are traveling by car through the County of Leitrim, Ireland, when Martin hits a man. He brings the body to his car, and the corpse returns to live and bites him. Helena looks for help in a cottage and is attacked inclusive by Martin. Sooner she realizes that the place is infested of zombies. She meets the gravedigger Desmond (David Muyllaert) and they cross the countryside trying to find a safe place. They meet another couple and they become aware that the mad cow disease has infected humans transforming them in living dead.

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Plot Keywords:

cow | stabbed in the eye | gore | decapitation | hit with a shovel | 

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Taglines:

It's not what you eat, it's who you eat!

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong pervasive violence/gore, and for language

Details

Country:

Ireland

Language:

English

Release Date:

December 2004 (Ireland)

Also Known As:

Carne muerta

Filming Locations:

Leitrim, County Leitrim, Ireland

Company Credits

Production Co:

Three Way Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Goofs

Louise Gallagher and Anita Martin are each credited twice as Castle Zombies in the closing credits.

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Connections

Edited into Cent une tueries de zombies (2012)

User Reviews

Fun, but overtly mindless Irish undead shenanigans

Dead Meat I believe may be the first ever entirely Irish horror film, if not the very first then certainly one of them and the feature debut of up and comer Conor McMahon. Getting into gear quickly we see cows penned away with the intimation that something has gone wrong with them, then are heroine is introduced, travelling across rural Ireland with her boyfriend. Unfortunately they hit a man and even more unfortunately things are far from OK with the fellow, not that being hit by a car has really peeved the guy but something worse. With double quick time the film turns into a case of heroine Elena, pursued across the countryside fighting off the living dead, teaming up with Desmond, helpful local and handy with a spanner and later with the impenetrably accented Cathal Cheunt and his wife to form an efficient zombie slaying team as they head across the countryside in search of safety. And that friends is it in terms of plot, more or less. The film comes down to nothing more than a chase, the pace is quick and the zombie encounters suitably grisly if evidently low budget, with entertaining shovel work and use of a few other cool implements in battling the dead. The zombies are not the most menacing pack, but still not the sort of thing you'd like to run into on a dark night, slow moving, bloodstained and hungry, effective enough as zombies go. The cinematography of Andrew Legge works very nicely in capturing the beautiful rural Ireland locale, its a truly picturesque setting and it comes across very nicely, makes for quite a good tourist advert actually. Conor McMahon handles the pacing well but the suspense is only fair (despite nice use of frantic camera-work clearly inspired by The Evil Dead), the film isn't as gripping or as fearful as it should be but worse, I didn't feel much for the characters and the plotting is as mentioned, very thin. Marián Araújo is just there as Elena while David Muyllaert has little more presence as Desmond, neither are unlikeable but neither are very interesting either. Eoin Whelan gives the best show here, forceful and mad edged, but I really should have had the subtitles on since his accent is very thick indeed at times. Ultimately the actors keep the film going, but I wasn't over thrilled, hooked just enough but more impressed by the landscape and decent amount of splashy grue. All in all the film doesn't come down to that much, but I still liked it. It has heart, verve and a nice dash of grisly wit and sense of fun, it moves like a breeze and has a handful of quite sweet moments. As far as low budget zombie films go then, its fairly good stuff and worth a viewing for fans of the area.