Some movies are so bad you can't help but wonder what the hell the filmmakers ever though they were doing. After watching The Dead Outside, I can only picture Kerry Anne Mullaney and Kris R. Bird sitting in an empty room and having the following conversation...
"Let's make a movie like 28 Days Later, except we'll pick up the story long after all the exciting stuff has happened and just have the characters stand around and mumble to each other."
"You're a genius! But let's also not explain any of the particular details of the story, fill it with fragmentary flashbacks to further muddle things up and then have a character lie on a sofa and describe the plot of what would essentially be a prequel to the film we're actually going to make."
"I like where you're going but let's also have the storytelling and filmmaking get worse as the movie goes along. The dialog should become more insipid, the performances should go from minimalistic to practically coma-inducing, pieces of the plot should start to fall off like the film has leprosy and the editing must turn completely into crap."
"The more you talk, the more excited I get about this project! I also think there needs to be an important scene where the soundtrack is so loud that no can understand what the actors are saying."
"I couldn't agree more. It's like the two of us have only one brain!"
After a neurological outbreak in Scotland which turned people into murderous, retarded hoboes, Daniel (Alton Milne) runs out of gas on the road and must take shelter in a seemingly deserted farmhouse which turns out to be the home of April (Sandra Louise Douglas). They sort of hang out and have dueling flashbacks to much more interesting periods in their lives until another person shows up. Kate (Sharon Osdin) seems about to drive a wedge between the deeply f'd up April and the whiny Daniel, then the Almighty Plot Hammer pounds Kate into the ground like a circus tent pole and the whole thing sputters to an ending that will leave you staring at the screen and wondering "Wait. Where did that come from?"
This cinematic stinkburger is spoiled at the most basic of levels. Let me give you an example. A big plot point of The Dead Outside is that April is supposedly immune to whatever is turning folks into violent and unhygenic vagrants. However, the script never bothers to explain what is infecting people or how they get infected. The big revelation of April's immunity is in a scene where she's been handling the bodies of some infected dead and gotten their blood on her. But at no point is it established that the virus or whatever is transmitted through the blood. So, when April turns to face the camera with blood on her, this film is going "Ah ha!" while the audience is going "Uh what?"
After suffering through this thing, I decided to indulge my masochism and flipped over to the DVD extras to watch the trailer. I was expecting to see one of those trailers where you can tell the movie is going to suck, but this one kicked 37 different varieties of ass. It makes The Dead Outside look complex, dynamic and unnerving, which is about as big a miracle as Jesus doing that whole bread and fish thing. The person who made this trailer should have made the film instead. If Mullaney and Bird actually made it, they should be paid extremely well to create trailers for other movies but never allowed to make another motion picture themselves.
The zombie apocalypse genre doesn't exactly have the highest standards, but this dishwater dull production can't even make it over that very low bar. Don't bother with The Dead Outside.
"Let's make a movie like 28 Days Later, except we'll pick up the story long after all the exciting stuff has happened and just have the characters stand around and mumble to each other."
"You're a genius! But let's also not explain any of the particular details of the story, fill it with fragmentary flashbacks to further muddle things up and then have a character lie on a sofa and describe the plot of what would essentially be a prequel to the film we're actually going to make."
"I like where you're going but let's also have the storytelling and filmmaking get worse as the movie goes along. The dialog should become more insipid, the performances should go from minimalistic to practically coma-inducing, pieces of the plot should start to fall off like the film has leprosy and the editing must turn completely into crap."
"The more you talk, the more excited I get about this project! I also think there needs to be an important scene where the soundtrack is so loud that no can understand what the actors are saying."
"I couldn't agree more. It's like the two of us have only one brain!"
After a neurological outbreak in Scotland which turned people into murderous, retarded hoboes, Daniel (Alton Milne) runs out of gas on the road and must take shelter in a seemingly deserted farmhouse which turns out to be the home of April (Sandra Louise Douglas). They sort of hang out and have dueling flashbacks to much more interesting periods in their lives until another person shows up. Kate (Sharon Osdin) seems about to drive a wedge between the deeply f'd up April and the whiny Daniel, then the Almighty Plot Hammer pounds Kate into the ground like a circus tent pole and the whole thing sputters to an ending that will leave you staring at the screen and wondering "Wait. Where did that come from?"
This cinematic stinkburger is spoiled at the most basic of levels. Let me give you an example. A big plot point of The Dead Outside is that April is supposedly immune to whatever is turning folks into violent and unhygenic vagrants. However, the script never bothers to explain what is infecting people or how they get infected. The big revelation of April's immunity is in a scene where she's been handling the bodies of some infected dead and gotten their blood on her. But at no point is it established that the virus or whatever is transmitted through the blood. So, when April turns to face the camera with blood on her, this film is going "Ah ha!" while the audience is going "Uh what?"
After suffering through this thing, I decided to indulge my masochism and flipped over to the DVD extras to watch the trailer. I was expecting to see one of those trailers where you can tell the movie is going to suck, but this one kicked 37 different varieties of ass. It makes The Dead Outside look complex, dynamic and unnerving, which is about as big a miracle as Jesus doing that whole bread and fish thing. The person who made this trailer should have made the film instead. If Mullaney and Bird actually made it, they should be paid extremely well to create trailers for other movies but never allowed to make another motion picture themselves.
The zombie apocalypse genre doesn't exactly have the highest standards, but this dishwater dull production can't even make it over that very low bar. Don't bother with The Dead Outside.