Filthy Review - 'Dead Season'

Dead Season (2012)

Review by Jude Felton

It’s not often that a horror movie comes along that I am completely unaware of. It’s even rarer for one that I have not heard of, turning up in the mail. This, however, was the case with Dead Season, complete with glossy but generic cover artwork, to surprise me one morning. Now, it is easy to say that there is an overkill of zombie, or undead, movies, especially since the Dawn of the Dead remake and more recently the success of The Walking Dead television show. I’d prefer to say that there is an overabundance of shitty zombie movie. Personally, I don’t care how many movies of a particular sub-genre get made; just give me the quality to justify it being worth my time.

So, glossy but generic artwork aside (and that bloody insistence of slapping “Dead” in the title), I will move on to Dead Season and see what it had to offer. Straight off the bat I will tell you that you aren’t going to get a genre changing blast of originality here. You will get plenty of action, a ton of zombies, machetes, hammers and buckets of blood and chewed flesh.

Dead Season follows the story of former paramedic, Elvis, who has holed up in his apartment after the zombie virus hits. Making the best of it that he can, he manages to strike up a conversation, via radio, with another survivor, named Tweeter. Elvis tells her of his plan to get a boat and head off to an island, in order to escape the undead throng.

Stowaway zombie and an empty gas tank later, they arrive on the island, and wouldn’t you just know it, there are zombies there too. Not only are there zombies, but there are also survivors there; led by a character named Kurt Conrad, and they don’t take too kindly to visitors. Anyway, push comes to shove and it’s up to Elvis and Tweeter to escape this heart of darkness, if they can survive it.

So, as you can see, we aren’t exactly pushing the boat out in terms of originality; with elements of Romero’s Night, Dawn and Day being evident, as well as a few other undead movies. What it lacks in originality though it makes up for in energy and execution. Dead Season doesn’t really mess about the lengthy dialogues about the why’s and wherefores’; this is first and foremost an action-orientated horror flick. Zombies and violence are the order of the day, and it is fairly good fun to watch.

Dead Season is a good looking fella, with good crisp images, plenty of zombies and some good effects. Tag on top of that one of the better scores I have heard, and you have yourself a solid, if not spectacular, zombie movie.

It is an entertaining movie, some of the acting and dialogue might be a little on the cheese-tastic side, but if a movie can entertain me it has won half of the battle. Not all movies need to add deep and meaningful subtext, of which many zombie flicks do try, sometimes you just want some good-to-honest balls to the wall action, and in that department Dead Season does its job perfectly. Recommended accompaniment to this movie would be a six pack and a couple of pizzas.

Dead Season is available now on VOD, and hits DVD and Digital Download from Image Entertainment on July 31st.