Schlock Corridor: Day Four

SCHLOCK CORRIDOR: The Dead Undead

I will admit I was intrigued by the premise provided by Netflix: Fleeing a horde of zombies, a group of people stumble upon a vampire community. The vampires vow to protect the humans and wage war on the zombies. That has potential, right? I was envisioning some sort of post-apocalyptic scenario, with the world overrun by the walking dead. A small ragtag group of survivors is saved by some badass vampires who promise to keep them alive in exchange for their delicious blood. You know, something with a little scope, a real high concept picture. Too bad that's not what 2010's The Dead Undead has to offer.

The film opens with a boring group of young people out looking for a good time at some dilapidated old hotel. Nobody seems to be around, so they just check themselves in like anybody would. Things quickly go pear-shaped as a handful of suspiciously sunlight-sensitive zombies pop out of the closet and start attacking our cast of nobodies. Then some militia-type folks arrive in their fatigues and start blasting the shambling monsters like it ain't no thing. Only one of the horny vacationers survives this initial encounter, and she is quickly joined by some random guy who comes stumbling out of the woods looking for help. More zombies arrive, more zombies get shot, then they are revealed to be zombie/vampire hybrids, the product of morally conscious bloodsuckers feeding on cows infected with mad cow disease. This makes them totally crazy for blood!

Big surprise when the militia folks are revealed to be vampires themselves, hunting these rotting abominations because they apparently have nothing better to do. They all get murdered one by one, Ten Little Indians style, in a series of tedious and poorly choreographed fight sequences, until our hero vampire (Luke Goss) and the horny vacationer are our sole survivors. They sit around in a wrecked van for a while, accomplishing nothing, because our vampire is in bad shape, not expected to survive for much longer. In this world, if a vampire feeds on anything less than pure human blood, they become simpering weaklings, unable to do any cool vampire stuff, and Luke Goss has vowed not to feed on people, because he's a cunt. I don't know and I don't care, because the horny vacationer immediately offers her neck to the wounded bloodsucker, and he gratefully accepts, getting all pumped like crazy for his final assault on the vampire-zombie hordes. This is an incredible disappointment, as the only difference between this battle and all of the other battles is a slightly louder generic rock music soundtrack. Still outnumbered, he's conveniently saved by the arrival of another group of gun-toting vampires, led by Vernon Wells, the guy who didn't need a knife to kill John Matrix in Commando.

Can I mention what I liked about this movie? The flashbacks. Our vampire heroes have come together from several different cultures throughout mankind's history, sired by Luke Goss' character in an effort to create a peaceful community of "night walkers", away from the dangers of human society. They include two Vikings, a male and a female, who mortally wounded each other on the field of battle over 1,000 years ago, falling in love as they bled to death under the shade of an ancient tree. Offered the chance of immortality, they accepted and became an inseparable pair for centuries. The male becomes infected by the zombies, and tells his companion that he'll be waiting for her in Valhalla before he sacrifices himself.

Another member of our crew was rescued by kindly vampires as a child after his biological parents succumbed to scarlet fever in the mid-19th century. His new sunlight-allergic parents raised him to be an upright young man, and after he returns home from receiving a higher education, he discovers that the citizens of his hometown murdered them both simply because they were different. So he goes on an epic quest of vengeance, wiping out the entire population in the throes of a red rage. This ghost town eventually became the hub of Luke Goss' vampire community, which has been thrown into disarray by the outbreak of mad cow disease among its citizens.

As our two survivors recover in a wrecked van near the end of the film, Goss' mortal companion asks him if he believes in any kind of afterlife, and he tells her about an ancient vampire myth, older than the religions of mankind, that promises the resurrection of the fallen with their preserved blood and the incantations written on a scroll lost before the dawn of civilization. All of this material works to a degree, and helps build up a mythology behind the film that is ultimately much more interesting than anything that happens during the main plot. This is a relatively small, self-contained story that is wrapped up in a neat little bow by the time the end credits begin their inexorable slow crawl across the screen. Only the Vikings and the vengeful cowboy character manage to leave any impression, and that's only due to their origin sequences. If these scenes were cut, leaving the entire plot in the present, these characters would have been nothing more than background players, and I would have despised the film.

The script introduces a few interesting ideas, but the film either didn't have the budget to realize these ideas, or there wasn't enough talent behind the scenes to capitalize on the concepts provided. This film is a complete bore for the majority of its running time, and I had to keep fighting the urge to stop watching it. It's around ninety minutes in length, but it feels so much longer. There's plenty of potential in The Dead Undead, but it's almost completely squandered by a paltry budget and an inept cast and crew.

The film ends with Vernon Wells informing his pal Luke Goss that the ancient vampire scroll of legend has been found, and the two promise to set out on a quest to retrieve it and resurrect their fallen brothers and sisters, which sounds kind of interesting, because at least this potential sequel would feature my boy Vernon Wells more prominently, which would only improve matters. However, I'm not holding my breath for The Dead Undead, Part 2: The Scrolls Of Resurrection, or whatever the fuck these assholes want to call it.

TOMORROW: Virgin Witch