Siege of the Dead (2001)

Posted on Oct 02, 2002 under Horror |

Directed by Chris Kaylor
Written by Kurt Zettlemoyer
Starring
- Doug LaVigne
- Joshua Spearing
- Myriam Audrichak
- D.W. Beck
- Kurt Zettlemoyer
Produced by Chris Kaylor, Doug LaVigne, and Kurt Zettlemoyer

You know up front that zombie films are a labor of love these days. Aside from those rare theatrical releases based on videogames, the bottom has really dropped out for the genre; witness the trouble George Romero has been having for years to get a fourth Dead film off the ground. Even the Italians don’t make them anymore, and they’re the ones who turned it into a full-fledged genre once Romero showed them how. Any new zombie movie these days is likely to be either a) made in Japan (for some reason, the living dead are all the rage over there right now), or b) put together on a microbudget by a bunch of friends who simply love zombie flicks. And since “Chris Kaylor” isn’t even remotely a Japanese name, I think you can guess which camp this movie comes from.

Insert your own joke here.

In the best post-Romero tradition, we open in a world already overrun with the dead. Single guy Lloyd (Doug LaVigne) hikes down a rural road, baseball-batting the occasional shuffling corpse that lurches into his path. His voiceover provides the standard backstory: The dead suddenly started rising (it was first reported in a tabloid), the world went to hell, and now Lloyd’s stuck without a car, trying to get to the home of an ex-roommate who’s got the survivalist gear and knowhow to make it.

Along the way, he teams up with the first live people he’s seen in days, Lane (Joshua Spearing) and Jennifer (Myriam Audrichak), a newlywed couple who came back from their honeymoon in Jamaica to find all hell’s broken loose. (Which makes me wonder why we just had a voiceover, since all of that was information that Lloyd could reasonably have conveyed to these two right here.) Given that the newlyweds are out of gas and lost off the highway, Lloyd invites them on his trek to sanctuary.

Their journey takes them on a time-padding hike through the woods, including a few more zombie-clubbings along the way. They’re a particularly reserved bunch, I have to say; Jennifer does little more than cock her head in reserved annoyance when she very nearly gets chomped by a sneaky zombie. (Romero rules apply, by the way; one bite, and you’ll end up a “deader” yourself.)

And he’s properly kept his tie tightly knotted, too.

Their journey eventually takes them to the house of Lloyd’s friend Martin (D.W. Beck); unfortunately, Martin’s survivalist comrade-in-arms Gib (Kurt Zettlemoyer) doesn’t recognize Lloyd through his scopes, and starts peppering the turf with bullets. With the paramilitary in front and the zombies behind, it’s not surprising that Jen gets a hefty chunk bitten out of her leg. They manage to get their identity across (thanks to a lot of screaming), but as they approach the porch, Gib does the brutally necessary thing: he plants a bullet in Jen’s brain. Kudos to all involved for playing this, not as another moment of splatter, but as the instant in which the bottom of Lane’s world drops out. Once safely inside the house, Martin pulls the violent Lane down and explains how Martin tried to dress his own mother’s zombie-inflicted wound — and still had to put her down, along with his father, whom his mother had herself bitten.

From here… well, I hate to say it, but the movie really doesn’t go anywhere. Lane’s got some story behind him, but since his main reaction is nigh-catatonia, it’s not terribly meaty. And everyone else is, well, reserved. Which is both unimpressive dramatically, and not terribly realistic for people in this situation. Living under extreme stress, especially in a situation in which societal strictures and support have completely disappeared. I expected Gib, the crackshot, to turn out to be ultra-militaristic, focusing his identity on harsh discipline and brute strength. No such luck; he’s a pretty average guy, who just happens to be good with a rifle. So’s Martin. And Lloyd, our nominal protagonist/viewpoint character, is probably the averagest of the lot; great lengths have been gone to, to avoid giving him an appreciable personality at all.

Pointin’ right back atcha, buddy.

As far as story goes, we’ll have to satisfy ourselves with the fact that they’re almost out of food and ammo and have already depleted the commercial establishments in the county. By stroke of luck, however, they recognize one of the zombies wandering their lawn (why in the world would a dozen of the living dead linger on the grounds of a house out in the middle of rural nowhere?) as Ed, a fellow survivalist who often bragged about his stockpile of ammo and edibles; now that Ed’s dead, all they have to do is brave the zombies outside to get his wallet and find his address, brave those same zombies to get their gasoline-depleted pickup to the house, and braving another score of zombies (again, don’t these corpses have a mall to hang out at or something?) at Ed’s house as they try to find his survival stash.

Siege of the Dead was obviously made for chump change, and it shows — and not just in the fact that it was shot on video. The locations are all notably ones where they wouldn’t have to worry about permits or crowd control: the woods, a road in the woods, a house in the woods, more woods, another house in the woods… Despite being their fortress against the dead, Martin’s house shows no sign of boards or other barricades across the huge picture windows; there’s not even a deadbolt for the front door. Couldn’t you at least drag a piece of furniture in front of it?

**“How I Spent My Summer Vacation Hunting Zombies. By Lloyd.”**

The cast is clearly of the “friends ‘n’ family” variety, as the same people (and similar surnames) show up all through the credits. And the zombies all just happen to be in the same late-teens-to-early-thirties age range as the cast members. (Too bad no one could persuade their elderly grandmother to put on the greasepaint for variety.) Makeup is visibly cheap, but some compensation is made by using software-based special effects to add muzzle flash, bullet hits, blood splatters, etc.

There are a number of notable cinematic moments. The death of Jen is one such moment, as is Lane’s subsequent dream sequence in which he meets not only the his reanimated wife, but the zombified version of himself. And when Lloyd points confidently toward Martin’s house, only to cut directly to his head framed in a rifle’s sights… That’s good visual storytelling. The sound design is also intriguing — there’s a damned annoying “impending menace” sound cue that’s meant to be damned annoying — but it’s hampered by the uneven miking and abrupt mix of location and dubbed dialogue.

Zombies Vs. Testosterone.

But these moments don’t raise the movie above its padded structure (even with tons of montages and tableaus, it still clocks in under an hour), muted characterization and lack of real story. At best, it’s an episode in a zombie world, not a real story about the people involved. Such is one of the dangers of the fan film homage: It’s such a tribute to the idol that it doesn’t actually add anything to the film canon.

On the other hand, if you posit that the target audience is zombie fans of the same caliber as the filmmakers, then it just might find an audience to appreciate it.