The Dead Undead – Zombies vs Vampires

A group of peaceful Vampires are infected and turned into crazed zombie like creatures whose only motivation is to feed on flesh, whether Human or Vampire. A group of Vampire commandos tries to keep their identity secret, while trying to stop the spread of the infection. Soldiers from across the ages, it’s up to these vampires to end the zombie infection. Caught in the middle is a group of human kids on a camping trip, who team up with the Vampires in an attempt to survive

I picked up this dvd because the tag line on the front said “Zombies vs Vampires” Ok, I thought that could be very cool – I haven’t seen that before – I imagined some sort of Underworld (you know the film with Vampires vs Werewolves) type scenario and imagined in my head how the story would unfold – hmm sounds pretty good if you ask me and I threw down my hard earned money and bought the film.

So the film starts and its a bunch of soldiers in the woods at night shooting up Zombies or some sort of running infected people..Err..did I get the wrong film? The film then switches up to a bunch of teens going to a remote motel – trying to check in with no manager there and going swimming in a murky lake – err did I get the wrong film again? About 30 minutes in the teens start to check into the motel regardless of no manager being there and , start to shower and get cleaned off and that’s when you see a small boy vampire(who actually looks like the kid who played the 12 yo vampire in Near Dark – Joshua John Miller) I wonder if that was intentional or not?

So one of the chicks gets infected ( I guess from the kid drooling on her as she doesn’t get bitten or so they say) and finally the mercs we saw at the start of the film turn up and we think the movie that we bought (Zombies vs Vampires is going to start)

Spoiler Alert: Please don’t keep reading if you don’t want key plot points of the film exposed to you – but either way I would hope you don’t waste your money on this film and just catch it on basic cable.

So it turns out the mercs are vampires, good vampires and that the so called war between the vampires and the zombies are vampires that have drunk the blood from mad cows. Kind of mis-leading because really they are all vampires but some all fucked up with infected cow blood.

Now the thing is there was a decent budget for this film , the effects aren’t bad and you can tell that this film is not an “el-cheapo” – ok, so it’s not 28 days later or Zombieland but its not the Wisconsin Project or Running Zombies with guns either – so some where in that middle ground. Anyone who has been reading this blog for awhile will know that I am definitely not opposed to low budget Zombie films as long as its a great story (I-Zombie anyone?) My biggest problem with this film is the story – they have the basis of a good story but its slow moving and jumps around so much you wonder if you are watching the right film at times – like the flash back sequence to the vikings…some of the other flashback sequences make sense but that one left you wondering ‘what the hell is going on?”

The main merc Luke Goss (yes from the English 90s Boy band “bros” ) actually does a pretty good job with the material given to him – I have seen him in a few other films – without checking I believe he was in a Jason Statham film (one of the 2 Deathrace 2000 remakes I guess) and possibly in one of the Hellboy films? and Vernon Wells (Wez the mohawked biker from Mad Max 2) makes an appearance at the end of the film – what was up with that? How much money did they pay him for that? and why? makes no sense to me but hey always great to see Vernon in any film.

All in all – I was pretty bored throughout this film – the multiple Zombie kills made you feel nothing just wave after wave of running Zombies doing martial arts flips when they die. Save your money and if you absolutely must watch this film wait till it hits cable Tv

Here is the trailer:

Disappointed…oh and for any of you script writers out there – I am still waiting for the definitive Vampires vs Zombie film!