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 | blood splatter | hit with a shovel | hit by a car | 

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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

Did You Know?

Trivia

First Conor McMahon Horror Movie. Second being Stitches (2012) and then From the Dark (2014).

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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)

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Soundtracks

Dead Meat
Written and performed by David Muyllaert
Sound engineering by Colm Jones, Promenade Studios, Bray, Co. Wicklow.

User Reviews

Low budget gore with all the successful elements

A young couple accidentally run over a pedestrian in rural Ireland. If we didn't know from the opening shots or advance publicity that this was to be a zombie movie, we are soon left in no doubt. Comments on the car radio about mad cow disease dispense with the 'how' problem quite efficiently and the rest of the movie just gets on with being a nice gory tribute to the genre with plenty of Irish humour thrown in.

The pedestrian gets up and walks after being run over, then attacks the driver. Helena heads for a cottage, fights off more zombies, teams up with another 'normal' human, fights off more zombies, finds someone with a mini-bus, fights off more zombies etc. You get the idea. Generally speaking, originality is not the strong card in Dead Meat – everything is recycled, from moons going behind clouds, to scary castles, to ghoulish faces coming out of the bogs silhouetted by torchlight, creepy crawlies on a plate of food or a decomposing body, to the story line itself and final denouement. Dead Meat's winning streak is firstly that it uses the classic elements in a way that is almost deferential to films like Bad Taste, Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead, secondly that it is well edited to be genuinely scary, and thirdly that it uses heavy doses of inimitable Irish humour.

Much credit goes to Conor McMahon who wrote, directed and edited the film on a budget of about £125,000. One of the leading characters, the mini-van driver who is described as 'slightly normal', is very memorable as a the sort of jovial Irishman who picks an argument with everyone first (living or dead) to decide if he likes them. I also enjoyed the (at times rather 'home-made'-looking) special effects - these rarely missed an opportunity to show the variety of horribleness portrayed by different zombies or hacked off body parts. For sheer entertainment, Dead Meat is a must for horror fans. Other audiences may have problems with the poor sound quality on some of the voices, the Irish accents (dialogue is not too important but adds to the humour), or the unashamed purveyance of formula, but for an aspiring young director, the signs from this first feature are good.

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