So... would you be interested in a Walking Dead-ish zombie western? If so, would you still be interested if features a large number of former boy band pop stars in prominent roles? (It was produced by and stars Nick Carter of the the Backstreet Boys. and other members of BSB, *Nsync, 98 Degrees, and O-Town show up. Oh yeah, and Jon Secada for some reason.) Still with me? What if I told you it was produced by The Asylum to be shown as a SyFy movie of the week?
Well, that last one would turn me off Dead 7, but I'm watching a movie a day and figured what the heck. But even if you said yes to all those questions - the bottom line is that Dead 7 just isn't good. Which is a little frustrating, because there are some good ideas in the film. But mostly, it's a glossy/cheap looking film with gimmicky casting, strange performances, and a very bad script.
My synopsis: It's years after the zombie apocalypse, and the human survivors have holed up in small towns that resemble the old west. Many people have decided to dress like cowboys, to help maintain the "post-apocalyptic western" vibe. But evil Apocalypta has amassed an army of the undead, and it's up to a team of 7 heroes/misfits to take her out and save what's left of humanity.
Elaborate genre: Zombie western comedy
Overall: Not very good. A few good ideas and some okay special effects, but the gimmicky casting and the weak script override any potential goodness. It's okay for a Syfy film, which means it's still pretty bad.
Dead 7 takes an obvious cue from The Walking Dead in terms of zombie design and violence. But this film throws comedy into the mix, which just doesn't work. There are ways to do comedy in zombie films, but aping the famously dour Walking Dead ain't it. I mean, the zombie make up and violence looks okay for a film of this size. But there is a lack of interesting conflict between characters, which they make up for by just killing TONS of zombies. If the folks doing the CGI (which is surprisingly okay) got paid per the exploding head, they made out like bandits here.
But all the zombie violence in the world doesn't matter if you don't care about the people getting attacked, and while there are some charismatic performances by the boy band crew, the script lets them down by just putting them in one generic situation after another. Plus, the film is just a little too stuffed with characters. They have a hard time getting one character right, much less seven. I guess the idea was to have quantity over quality, but you just get one character after another just built around one lazy trait (the ninja, the sharpshooter, the drunk, and so on).
I have to say though, some of the actors are trying hard to make it work. AJ McClean of BSB and Joey Fatone from *Nsync are *really* swinging for the fences with their performances - McClean is Apocalypta's right hand man - kind of a crazy mime/Joker character, and Fatone plays good guy/drunken lout Whiskey Joe. They seem to be having fun, which translates to enjoyable performances - these two were my favorite things in the movie, although I could see how your miles may vary.
But the script is just aggressively dumb, and worst of all assumes *we* are all dumb too. In case you're not paying attention, they split the movie into chapters and tell you what's going on in each one. And whenever a character is introduced, their name flashes onscreen, accompanied by a few seconds of obnoxious and desensitizing zombie violence. Since that's the easiest way to introduce a character, I guess. And one point, they are fighting off a bunch of henchmen zombies, and one character says "You don't kill a dragon by cutting off it's claw." I think it's pretty obvious where she's going with this, but then another guy chimes in and says "yeah, you have to cut off their head!" Sheesh, thanks for explaining. Not for nothing, the woman that makes the dragon comment is Sirene, the Indian-Guide character (although race is not specifically mentioned, it's pretty obvious the trope they're going for). The was she says it makes you wonder if she thinks dragons are real. It's just goofy, is all.
Which is too bad - there are some decent ideas and world-building here. I don't seek out zombie movies, but I've seen my fair share. I don't think I've come across the idea of a living person controlling zombies quite like way they do here. It's kind of cool how the baddies lead the zombies on to a town (driving slowly with bait on the back of a truck) to have them clear things out. It's an interesting concept - one that someone with Romero-esque tendencies could easily use for social commentary - but nothing happens here. It's just a neat idea, and that's it. There are little quirks here and there that I liked (skulls balanced amongst ceremonial piles of rocks, for instance), but it's all in the service of a weak story.
Dead 7 just isn't good enough to enjoy on its own merits, but isn't stupid enough to be fun. You'd think that the boy band aspect of a gimmicky film like this would be the weak link, but they're not even the bad part. Ultimately, the film is just a little too Asylum-y and SyFy-y for it's own good. It looks okay, but suffers from ADD, too much meaningless violence, and a half-baked story.
I would not recommend this film.
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