Anchor Bay has long been no friend to the Zombie Community, releasing a slew of Anti-Zombie films onto DVD, including ‘classics’ like ‘Day of the Dead’ and ‘Evil Dead’, and modern atrocities like The Walking Dead (which they’ll be putting out on disc soon).

Therefore it wasn’t a huge shock to hear that they’d picked up another Anti-Zombie film for wider release:

We have mentioned Howard J. Ford’s African zombie movie The Dead a few times now and while it has been making its rounds on the film festival circuit for some time now I’ve been waiting for its release as I’m sure some of you have been as well.

According to STYD Anchor Bay/Starz has picked up The Dead for U.S. distribution with a DVD release expected some time this year.

…

Synopsis: “In the very near future, most of the world has succumbed to the virus of the living dead. After crashing off the coast of Africa, Lt. Brian Murphy battles for survival across the terrible terrain of Africa in search of a way to get back to his beloved family in the USA. Saved by local military man Daniel Dembele, who is also searching for his son, both men join forces, all the while battling against the ever-present threat of the living dead.”

The premise is somewhat reminiscent of Monster Island, which also featured an American narrator working with survivors from Africa against the ‘living dead’. Here, however, the action is set in Africa, not back in the States, as Lt. Murphy tries, I guess, to get back home.. while leaving a trail of massacres and corpses in his wake.

Which could be taken as a subtly political message about the influence of US foreign policy in Africa, but is more likely just to provide scares to the audience.

I know I’ve been watching and reading far too much about Anti-Zombie movies lately when I found myself at least relieved by a novel setting for this particular movie; no farmhouses, no suburbs, no houses that scream ‘Joe offered to let us use his place for an afternoon’. The filmmakers seem to have poured a lot of love and work into making the movie, which makes it all the more tragic that this divisive and unpleasant looking film is the result.

What is it about making Zombie bashing movies that leads so many aspiring filmmakers to put so much heart and soul into spreading the message of hate, anyway? Oh, if only I could find a simple answer to that question.

In the meantime, ‘The Dead’ will apparently be coming to DVD this year, and you can see the trailer for this blood-soaked Anti-Zombie road trip movie below.

Tags: Movies

This entry was posted by John Sears on Saturday, February 12th, 2011 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.