The Age of Commercialism

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Perfect cast and a good story

One of my all time favorites.

The film centers on Nicolas (Joseph Millson) an American working in India on a wind farm. He is up on a windmill talking to his Indian chamber maid pregnant girlfriend when all hell breaks loose. The film consists of him crossing desert by car, bike, foot, and that flying thing in an attempt to reach her.Like the zombies, the characters are rather lifeless. The zombies have zombie teeth, and walk in half steps...unless a gun is fired then they swarm and move fast, like piranha who never attack until someone yells "Piranha!"The film includes the problem of western ideas vs. prearranged marriages, a theme used in 99% of Bollywood films, but failed to have a musical number.The Ford brothers attempt to take the zombie film up a notch by creating faux-drama and unnecessary metaphors as zombies are their own metaphor. If you liked the slow moving first film, I will say this one is better.Parental Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

I really loved The Dead in Africa movie, but I don't remember much of it. I finally got to see The Dead: India and it was really bad. Perhaps the original was like that, too, but I have fond memories of it. This one is badly acted, with nothing to make me empathize with any character except the little Indian child (good job, kid!).What I think really makes this unwatchable, though, is the editing. It seems like someone wanted to make a movie out of still photos and struggled to move and shake the disjointed images in some semblance of a narrative thread. Not only the horror and action scenes, but even the normal transitions felt like someone slapped them on, with no care on how they would look.I really hope the Fords wake up. They vowed to never film in Africa because of their difficulties with corruption and the bad conditions there. I don't know how it was in India, but is it possible that the Africa filmed movie felt more natural because and not despite the hardships in making it?

The Dead 2 starts with beautiful pictures and a good outbreak scenario, but it soon becomes clear,that the acting range goes from "medium to low" and the further the "story" develops, the more of this movie becomes a mess up until the very very bad ending.The first half was enjoyable and captured the mood of its very good predecessor, but then it takes a downward spiral with forced, cheesy dialogues, a very stupid "coincidence" that should trigger emotions, but only makes you laugh after the "soapish" moments, leading to it.And the acting had its moments, but turned more and more to the level of a very bad TV soap with amateurs, trying to make their first steps into the business.I liked the "slow moving" Zombies, but even there it turns out to become really ridiculous with editing mistakes and scenes where you are thinking: just outrun them, as they are sooooooo slow... I loved "The Dead" but "The Dead 2" you have to take with a lot of humour (unintended). It promises a good sequel and starts in the spirit of part 1 but goes wrong on every level as the movie progresses into a cheap acted soap opera with Zombies...

The Dead and The Dead 2 prove that even in a genre as used up as zombie movies there can still be some diamonds in the rough. The Ford Brothers have made a couple of really scary films that don't rely on camp to be entertaining. What makes these two films stand apart from all the other zombie films out there is that these zombies are ethnic, African in the first film and Indian in this sequel. And for some reason, it's pretty creepy. Although the first one is the superior film, this second one definitely has its moments.What also saves these films from drowning in the sea of zombie films is that they are really well shot on location. The Ford Brothers do a good job with suspense and sudden scares, I only wish that they would have used their creativity for something a little more original than the standard slow moving cannibalistic zombie that can only be stopped by shooting it in the head or otherwise inflicting damage on its brain. I wish they could have at least concocted their own version of a zombie, their own explanation of why the zombie apocalypse is happening, and some type of unique vulnerability that other zombies don't have. But it is what it is, standard George Romero zombies taking over Africa first and now India.The Dead 2 seems more like a remake of the first film. The plot is pretty much identical. An American engineer in a foreign land finds himself caught up in the zombie plague and must travel a long distance for one reason or another, battling zombies at every moment. The tried and true clichés are used--the car won't start right away as the zombies approach, the corpse isn't really dead and opens its eyes and lurches at the optimal moment for a scare, the protagonist must team up with an unlikely partner in order to survive--but nevertheless it's all done well, which is what counts. The end result is scary, creepy and somehow at least a bit original.I can see why the Ford Brothers are making these zombie films. They get to show off what they can do on a safe bet at the box office. I just hope they can find their way out of the genre and some day deliver something that's entirely their's instead of rehashing a story that's been done 999 times before. I really think they have it in them to some day really create an epic masterpiece of horror.