The Dead Undead (2010) User Reviews

It's a scientific fact, folks. The sound of gun shots can make you sleepy. This movie proves it.

[Someguysomwhere · 2/10 · 6 January 2011]

Dull, amateurish, zombie effort about a group of militia vampires who are trying to eradicate other vampires who've become infected from drinking bad cow's blood and who are now on a rampage as "zombie vampires". The movie begins with a bunch of young people (of the vacuous type you've seen in countless horror flicks) stopping at an out-of-the-way hotel out in the woods some place (hmmm...that can't be good). What they don't know, at least right away, is that the whole area is crawling with zombie vampires and that they have in fact landed in a war zone of uninfected vampires vs. infected vampires or "zompires" (I'm calling them). The former is armed to the teeth and the latter is just running around crazy.

This movie does not want for firepower and the number of zombies running around loose. I'll say that much for it. However, I'll also say that if you spent an hour and a half tracing the lines in the palm of your hands it would be as interesting as this movie if not more so. I can only surmise that the people who made this film believe in "shooting first and writing a decent script later". I would have gladly taken half the shooting and zombies in this movie for a more interesting story of which there wasn't much beyond what I've outlined; just a bunch of heavily armed people out in the woods somewhere playing soldier vampires hunting zompires. That's the plot. As a respite from all the dull shooting and fighting, there are some EVEN DULLER, disruptive, amateurish intervals traveling back in time to explain how some of the militia vampires became vampires (Who cares!). That's like me wanting to know the life story of uninteresting people.

So there you have it. In my opinion you're better off staying home watching a couple of Tom & Jerry cartoons or playing some computer games than wasting time with this. Although there was one point in the movie (hardly sufficient to warrant you going to see it) where, in the course of explaining themselves to 2 non-vampires, the vampires were asked what they did for a living and one responded that one of them "sold stuff on Ebay". For some reason that cracked me up. And ironically, I viewed that "getting acquainted little chit-chat moment" as the best part of this dull, trigger happy film. Go figure. Love, Boloxxxi.

What might have been...

[Michael_Takes · 2/10 · 31 July 2010]

Oh what a disappointment. And it started so well.

As a lover of Zombie Movies I was really looking forward to this movie. Also Luke Goss is a guilty pleasure to watch based on his work in Bone Dry and of course Hellboy II.

It starts of well with 5 young adults arriving at a motel for a vacation. The characters are the usual assortment but the actors portray them with fun and energy, especially Joshua Alba (who was very good in Unrest too). Unfortunately they don't all last long and the cast is replaced by a gang of 'Good vampire commandos' who, with the exception of Goss, CAN NOT ACT! The exploding heads are a laugh, there is plenty of blood and violence but I felt removed whilst watching it. The best zombie movies make you fell as if you a part of the danger, and you care about the characters, and you duck when a zombie jumps out (ala Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead). This movie had me checking my watch to see how long until the end.

I have given this movie a 2 out of ten. The first 15 minutes warranted more but after that... well, actually a 2 might have been too generous..

Dead should have stayed dead..

[acapulsky · 2/10 · 28 July 2010]

I watched this movie last night out of boredom. The movie has a pretty decent story line but loads of flaws e.g. if they had focused more on the ZV's(zombie vampires), as they are referred to in the movie, rather than on the guns and bullets used it would have turned out to be much better. The story starts interesting but after 10 minutes into the film quickly diminishes and you end up wondering when it would end(not a great sign). Talking about the cast, I remember Luke Goss from Blade II(Nomak) and Hellboy II(Prince Nuada), both roles were played extremely good especially in Hellboy. He had really good action scenes in both movies and I really enjoyed the ones in Hellboy II..but having said that, the action sequences in this movie are pretty bad. There is a part where Luke gets to fight a whole bunch of ZV's...well I could not believe it was the same guy from what I had witnessed in the other mentioned movies. There are parts in the movie where the director took the liberty of showing how each one of the good guys became vampires, starting from vikings, going through the jungles in Vietnam and ending up in the wild west. I found it pretty funny but it was a good effort and with some good visual effects(which BTW the movie lacks) would have made a good impact on the movie. With a bigger budget this movie could have got somewhere but as it is it will not be ending up in my collection and I would not recommend it to anyone. Watch it if you are really bored and don't have anything better to do.

Good, fun bubblegum.

[eddietude-1 · 14 November 2011]

I read the reviews here and had to laugh, especially at the "critics" many of whom clearly didn't "get it", or they don't know what they are talking about.

It's bubblegum folks, not art. Let's start with that.

Also, the gunfire in the movie is ALL REAL. Over 10,000 rounds of blank ammo was fired during the filming of this movie. NONE of the gunfire was faked. NONE OF IT.

The Dead Undead was NEVER intended to be a "zombie" movie. Nor was it intended to be a "vampire" movie either. It was always intended to be what it is... an action film with a horror edge.

The Dead Undead

[dukeakasmudge · 5/10 · 20 April 2017]

If you like Action, If you like Horror, If you like Vampires, If you like Zombies, If you like Vampire Zombies, then you'll like The Dead Undead.If you only enjoy big budget Zombie/Vampire flicks, then this is NOT the movie for you.The Dead Undead is a low budget Horror flick that is surprisingly good (For shooting this movie on a 1 million dollar budget, they did a pretty good job) When I 1st started watching, I wasn't expecting to like it at all but as it went along, it just got better & better.There was a ton of shooting going on with a few explosions which was pretty awesome.I especially enjoyed the individual stories of how the good vampires came to be (Where was the story of Jack?) It was a nice touch & it added to the movie.I really have no complaints.I would hope there would be at least a sequel because of the way it ended but since this movie was made in 2010 & it's now 2017, I don't see it happening.If I can find it on the cheap I wouldn't mind adding it to my DVD collection.If you get a chance to see The Dead Undead, give it a look.You might be surprised

One for zombie/vampire/zombie vampire movie completists only.

[BA_Harrison · 4/10 · 9 June 2012]

The Dead Undead. What the hell does that mean? Dead is no longer living, and undead means technically dead but reanimated. So does that mean that 'the dead undead' are the undead who have died again? If so, doesn't that mean that they are just dead?

Beats me! As it happens, the dumb title isn't the worst thing about this film. It all starts out promisingly enough with a group of young vacationers (three hot babes, two guys) arriving at a strangely deserted motel, the girls immediately opting to get into their bikinis and go swimming, but goes rapidly downhill when the group is attacked by zombies with vampire like traits. It turns out that these are ZVs—zombie vampires—vampires that have turned into zombies after feeding on bovine blood infected with mad cow disease.

Hot on the heels of these horror hybrids are a highly trained and well-armed team of 'good' vampires (led by Luke Goss) who hope to deal with the problem before it spirals out of control. Cue lots of repetitive action, plenty of random gunfire, much macho posturing, crap CGI blood, stunt-men leaping from hidden trampolines onto the roofs of cars, dreadful flashbacks to pad out the running time (with two of the most unconvincing Vikings imaginable), truly awful acting, a pointless cameo from Forrest J. Ackerman, and Vernon Wells (of Mad Max 2 fame) passing time between signing autographs at movie conventions.

3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up 4 to IMDb.

Satisfactorily unsatisfied

[movieman_kev · 1/10 · 7 August 2012]

A group of immunized hippie vampires fight off animalistic zombie-vampire hybrids with the help of a group of human camping teens.

If there were an award for worst use of a repetitive metal riff, this movie would clean up, alas there is not. What we get is grade school amateurish action sequences with little care for such trivial details as plot, or acting ability. A partly neat idea just squandered. Awful in nearly every way (and the nearly qualifier is merely feeling sorry for everyone involved in that sad little fiasco. The late legendary Forrest J. Ackerman, even in a cameo, deserves way better than this.

My Grade: F

A really bad vampire/zombie movie that hardcore fans may like. I thought there was nothing good about this at all. I say D+

[cosmo_tiger · 2/10 · 22 March 2012]

"When you guys are done with the social-hour, maybe you can let us know and we can all go look for the bad guys." When a group of "good" vampires become turned in to zombies they begin to look for anyone they can find to eat. When a group of vampire soldiers begin to fight them off they do all they can to hide the fact that they are vampires. The only problem is that a group of human kids out camping are now caught in the middle of it all. If you are still interested in watching it after that synopsis then I guess nothing I can say will stop you. This movie is bad, bad. Acting is bad, like really bad. On the other hand there is nudity, so there is that I guess. If you are a hard core zombie movie fan then this may appeal to you. I am not really a fan, and to be honest I couldn't actually make it all the way through. So if the ending is great someone tell me. Overall, not good at all. To me at least. I give it a D+.

The plot

[wargojason-94698 · 5/10 · 8 August 2022]

The movie had a lot of action and all but there wasn't a big storyline I thought the movie would have a strong plot but yeah but anyway it was kinda in the middle.

Tennagers die horribly but it's all smiles in the end

[andrew_goodman · 2/10 · 5 July 2011]

When will he, will he be famous? If this is the mark Luke Goss has reached then it'll still be a long time coming. Luke plays Jack, the leader of a group of 'good' Vampires … sorry, 'Nightwalkers' as they term themselves, in Anderson and Conna's The Dead Undead. The premise behind the film is that a group of five teenagers go to a remote hotel in the back-end-of-nowhere (although based on the scenery I suspect that it was just outside LA) and are attacked by a number of rather nasty zombie-type creatures. They're saved by Jack and his team who are determined to use every round of ammunition they have within the first five minutes, but remarkably discover they have enough for the rest of the film. Phew, that was lucky. Jack tells the surviving teenagers that the creatures are ZVs. What's that, they ask? Zombie-Vampires, he says. Yeah, really. Jack and his team are trying to wipe out all of the ZVs before they can reach heavily populated areas and cause their condition to spread across the whole country. The film quickly deteriorates into a series of badly orchestrated shoot-'em up scenes which smacks of the producers having a SFX budget that, by God, they were going to use. The humans quickly die off until only Summer (Cameron Goodman, no relation) is left and (surprise, surprise) she forges a relationship with Jack. Summer? Some Buffy reference, perhaps? I guess so, and that's what the tone of the film felt like: it was trying to give nods to so many other genre references that it didn't really have an identity of its own. There are many issues with The Dead Undead; the casual acceptance of the teenagers to their predicament not least amongst them. The characters are so two-dimensional that I swear on a couple of occasions when they turned to the side you couldn't see them. The use of laboured flash-backs to show the audience how the Nightwalkers came to be what they are was sooooooo badly done, the person I had watching the film with me asked if it was supposed to be a comedy. The 'Viking' flash-back reminded me of a poor pastiche of the live role-playing scenes in Role Models, it was so poorly done. Oh, and by the way, the two 'Vikings' were named Ares and Gabrielle – I guess they felt that going all-out and calling the woman Xena was a step too far. And the ending (such as it was) was sign-posted so far off that when it came I was just glad it was all over: Jack believes in a mythical place where the blood of a Nightwalker can be used to bring them back to life – or unlife, I suppose – it wasn't clear which. And quelle surprise one of Jack's buddys turns up to save the day (deus ex machina, anyone?) and he tells Jack that he's found the second parchment which leads to the mythical place. Jack then turns to Summer and asks if she wants to 'go on a trip?' 'Yeah', she says with a big smile, 'we could do that.' Hello! You're friends have all just been horribly killed and mutilated, and you're treating this as a date? Good God, woman. Anyway, cue The Dead Undead part deux. Although why beats the hell out of me. Oh and Luke ... you owe me nothing. Nothing at all.

I agree with the Dead part

[dew_drop_morning · 1/10 · 15 May 2012]

The only part of this movie that actually had me intrigued was that Aries looked like a younger Ron Jeremy. I absolutely LOVE Zombie movies, so I'm used to most of them being cheesy, but they are fun to watch. This movie however...I can't even say they take the (cheese)cake, because I don't think they deserve a slice at all. The actors were horrible. The script was horrible. The predictable teens,swimsuit, and shower scene took out any points for originality. The fact that this was the one and only zombie movie I found myself falling asleep to over and over is horrible. Gunfire blaring out of my speakers almost non-stop and it actually had me yawning? And the flashbacks were like bad Xena reruns. The big grin I had when I found this at Red Box definitely was me jumping the gun. I'd actually like a refund of my 99 cents just on principal, lol.

Don't knock this movie

[alabamagrammie · 10/10 · 17 January 2021]

I thought this movie was a great spin on the vampire genre. It had something unique in it.

You know what....? I like it!

[Angeeel · 6/10 · 23 April 2011]

I watched this movie for the first time about a month ago. I got it, watched it, and as with any not so good movies, I was about to delete it from my computer when I suddenly changed my mind. I then read all the reviews a few days ago and thought to myself that that's not what I felt about this movie. So I watched it again last night and I came to a conclusion: I like it! But then again, I am the rare breed of people that can actually appreciate and sometimes even enjoy a B-movie, no matter how bad. Sure, "The Dead Undead" isn't what I would call a good horror/zombie/sci-fi/fantasy flick, but compared to a whole lot of crap that's circulating out there - it's really not that bad. And in all fairness, it's a pretty decent action film.

The big downsides are the F/X. The shooting...is...ehhmm.. kinda off. Just the sync between the shots fired and the actual impact. Once a ZV (as they call the mutated vampires) actually gets shot, the blood looks like red paint just suddenly vaporized on the creature. But I have a way of seeing past that because "The Dead Undead" has good sides that, the way I see it, outweigh the bad sides. For one, we get three flashbacks which are actually interesting. The dialog features some jokes that completely cracked me up at times. There are scenes where I actually jumped a bit 'cause... I got scared. And it's completely and utterly trigger-happy! There were bullets flying, stuff exploding, sword fighting, ass kicking, more shooting and even more shooting. What else can you want from an action movie than shooting and explosions?

Now don't get me wrong, just 'cause I giggled here and there doesn't mean that I'll ever watch this movie again. I just feel that someone has to put in a good word for this better type of B-movie because all the reviews and the ratings do not do it justice. I mean, just read the plot! It pretty much screams "Hi! I'm not a very good movie". But if you, just like me are completely into this type of film, you should watch it. If you however crave all your movies to be (not saying that it's a masterpiece, but I can't think of a better example) "Avatar", you should probably just leave this page and forget about the existence of "The Dead Undead" because you will be disappointed and only add to this movie's bad rep.

But what I really don't like is the ending.(HUGE spoiler coming up!) As in any classical vampire movie, the guy turns the girl and becomes strong from her blood. So there Jack (Luke Goss) was, kicking ass and outta nowhere – he gets backup who scare away all the ZVs! And then the movie ends in a dialog. Sure… the dialog reveals something that makes you wonder for a while about what happened after the movie had ended which makes the movie more interesting. Yeah, well… Interesting shminteresting! I'd rather had watched him kick ass longer than a minute and a half!

Bottom line here is: If you feel like you can appreciate an action flick that happens to have a few vampires in it – watch it! If you have no sense of humor – go watch something else!

(And at the end of the day, it's still better than "Twilight"!)

Wretched as a vanity flick, repellent as horror hybrid, bad SFX.

[suite92 · 1/10 · 13 October 2013]

Curtis, Travis, Summer, Megan, and Shelley arrive at a motel after a long warm drive in crappy truck. They all want to check in and takes showers. Trouble is, there is no management present. After a bit of a wait, they pick out rooms. A child vampire almost lunches on Megan, but the others intervene. Megan freaks out, but a shower and clean clothes fix it. Shelley freaks out over a mouse in her room.

Summer watches (peep hole in the door) two vampires duke it out. Travis shoots some zombies. Megan turns after a couple of hours, and Curtis gets mauled by a zombie.

A van runs over one of the zombies, then people (perhaps) with guns come out of the van: Jack, Gabriella, Aries, Doc, Viper, and a couple more. They proceed to mow down a couple of dozen zombies. They encounter Lance, who manages to convince them he's not infected.

"Relax honey, we're the good guys." Comforting words.

Zombie-Vampires (ZVs) are explained. They are hard to kill at night, but die in the daylight. The zv are fast, as opposed to traditional zombies.

Aries gets a scratch; they let him tag along a while before he turns zombie and they kill him.

He and Gabrielle discuss Valhalla. Great, very old vampires. The extended flashback to the meeting of Aries and Gabrielle was amateurish, bloated, stupid. Also, the yellow filter did not make it more interesting, just more repellent.

Soon after Gabrielle detonates Aries, the team shoots her until she dies. Who knows when she got infected. Lance finally gets it that the commandos are vampires who are not also zombies. The zombie problem came from vampires switching to cows blood; unfortunately, someone ate a cow with mad cow disease. The flashback to Viper becoming a vampire was also not interesting. The flashback for Doc was just as stupid as well as repulsive. They used the ugly yellow filters again.

It was good to see the Doc character die horribly, but not heroically. Vanity films usually suck rocks, and Eddie Conna's effort here is no exception.

The ending does not help with any of the film's shortcomings, but it does hint at a sequel.

------Scores--------

Cinematography: 8/10 Fairly good for film mostly shot at night. The weakest point would be the SFX.

Sound: 2/10 Beyond boring and repetitive.

Acting: 0/10 Next time, hire some actors.

Screenplay: 0/10 Bad dialog. Ridiculous exposition of motivation. Zero characters to care about. Excessive flashbacks to cover the lack of top level plot. Useless cameo by Forrest J. Ackerman.

Here's a vampire flick that is best forgotten

[Nyx_Selene · 2/10 · 10 July 2011]

I don't know what this movie is trying to be, but what it isn't, is good.

The story is that in a town of cow's-blood-drinking vampires, mad cow decease has started spreading, resulting in a gang of zombie vampires. The not-zombie vampires chase after them, to kill them. A couple of teenagers end up in the middle of it, of course.

These teenagers will start out screaming over a mouse running over the floor, but will later show remarkable complacency about blood spraying from gunshot wounds. When the owner of the motel they're staying at starts acting weird, one of the boys in the group even grabs a shotgun from his trunk at goes on to shoot complete strangers in the head, without so much as making a face.

When the vampires show up, they turn out to be average, middle-aged guys who've filed down their fangs to blend in. One of them even writes an advice column in a magazine - can you believe it? Their weapons of choice are fully automatics with too little ammo, but the gun shooting scenes nevertheless drag out for so long that they end up being sleep inducing. Nothing special happens during these "action" scenes, except that a bunch of middle-aged guys shoot their guns a lot.

In the end, vampire Jack and some blond girl are the only survivors. A new group of not so sissy vampires show up and save them, and one of them - some old friend of Jack's - says that he's found out how to revive fallen vampires. Everyone is happy about this - even the blond girl, despite the fact that all of her friends died painful, horrible deaths.

THERE IS NO BACK-UP

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 28 December 2018]

A group of young adults arrive at the Lakeside Motel for a vacation romp, only to find it is deserted. Summer (Cameron Goodman) takes a shower and we get to see her back and belly button piercing (yawn). Ten minutes into the film we have the first zombie and a few minutes later a militia shows up lead by Luke Goss to take out the zombies. We eventually discover that the zombies are called Zee Bees and are vampires who have turned into zombies and Luke Goss' group are actually vampires, a plot spoiler on the DVD cover and by-line.

The film includes several vampire flashbacks as the plot consists of Luke Goss firing an automatic weapon and sometimes you see what he is firing at. Luke LaFontaine plays a dark haired Viking named after the Greek God of War or a Ram's Head. We know he is a real Viking because he quotes Latin. At one point he calls his girlfriend Gabrielle (Spice Williams-Crosby) Aries, apparently reading his own name in front of the script colon. Early in the film Shelly (America Young) is called Val, that is neither a nickname for Shelly or America.

All in all it was a fairly sorry film unless you simply want to watch vampires without fangs shoot guns.

Guide: No sex or nudity.

Could have been better...

[highflier87 · 8/10 · 10 May 2011]

I think overall the movie was pretty good. Anyone could tell that it was a low budget film because you could tell the gunshots were fake, and some of the graphics were pretty, well, lame. I personally thought the plot made up for the mostly bad acting and the bad graphics. I think they should make a second one detailing where Jack came from, since he "made" everyone else. They should also make a second one with all of them searching for the "sacred place." But keep the same main actors/actresses, Luke Goss, Cameron Goodman, and Vernon Wells. If they do make a second one, I would hope that they would spend a little more money on the graphics and get some better actors/actresses.

It's Not Really a Horror Movie But More to an Action Film

[empatmk · 6/10 · 15 July 2017]

It was a superb idea, combining vampire and zombie as a new hybrid in the movie. Unfortunately the horror scenes weren't as much as the expected, instead it was more like an action flick. And it wasn't gore enough for a zombie or a vampire movie. Too many gun shots and explosions instead of bite the chunk of flesh and suck the bloods.

Amateur yes, but good none the less (:

[lordredwolfofgreenhaven · 10/10 · 28 January 2013]

Excellent amateur movie. Low budget, but for having only a million to work with, very good. Well done and put together for what they had (most of that probably went towards film) and very enjoyable, it brought me in. I had as much watching it as Dead & Breakfast, Dance Night With The Dead and others of the genre. Don't go in expecting too much and you'll really get a lot out of it At just about any amateur movie fest this would be a winner, they really actually develop the characters and their backgrounds too First twenty minutes I didn't really enjoy that much but after that it got really good Worth the watch in my opinion if your looking for cool characters and good fight scenes, very nice movie

Fun horror/action hybrid

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 23 March 2021]

A group of young campers run afoul of a ravenous zombie vampire horde in an isolated mountain area. The campers join forces with a squad of good guy commando vampires led by the tough Jack (Luke Goss in fine two-fisted form) in order to increase their chances of survival.

Directors Matthew R. Anderson and Edward Conna keep the enjoyable story zipping along at a brisk pace, maintain a generally serious tone along with a pleasing sense of self-mocking humor, stage the copious rousing action with considerable go-for-broke flair and skill, and deliver a satisfying serving of splatter. Moreover, it's acted with zest by an enthusiastic cast: Cameron Goodman as the feisty Summer, Anderson as the rugged Viper, Conna as the sensible Doc, Spice Williams-Crosby as the scrappy Gabrielle, Luke LaFontaine as the rough'n'tumble Aries, Vernon Wells as the hearty Raleigh, Lance Frank as the vengeful Lance, and America Young as the brash Shelly. Forrest J. Ackerman has a cool cameo as an old guy vampire zombie in a wheelchair. A total blast.