Rise of the Dead is set in the small town of Dudley in Ohio where Laura Childs (Erin Wilk) works as a waitress, while walking home by herself one night Laura is attacked by respectable lawyer Sam Fulton (Jason Madera) but Laura's boyfriend Jack Walther (Stephen Seidel) manages to save her by running Sam over. Laura is shaken but not badly hurt although she has no idea why Sam would try to kill her, a question that local Sheriff Brown (Peter Blitzer) has the task of answering. Then soon after Laura's best friend & house-mate Amber (Jaime Whitlock) also tries to kill her without any sort of reason & again Jack comes to Laura's rescue & in a struggle Amber is stabbed & killed. Something definitely is going on, Laura discovers that a woman named Sally Sherman (Brooke Delaney) killed her husband & that they had both adopted Laura's baby & that the common link is Laura & her baby which she gave up. Laura becomes convinced that her baby has been possessing people in order to kill those responsible for it's misery & ultimate death...
Directed by William Wedig this was originally filmed under the title Tantrum which was then changed to the more horror sounding Rise of the Dead when brought by the company that eventually released it, the title Rise of the Dead gives the impression that this will be some sort of apocalyptic zombie film in the vein of one of George A. Romero's efforts but Rise of the Dead is in fact much more low key than that & is more of a supernatural ghost story as much a flesh eating zombie film. To be fair to Rise of the Dead it only lasts 72 minutes (including opening & closing credits) so at least it's short, unfortunately that's pretty much where the positives end. The story is an audacious one, the dead spirit of a young child starts possessing people in order to kill those that let him down & led to his untimely death by handgun, for some strange reason Laura is the only person in the town of Dudley who can defend herself since no-one else the kid goes after puts up any sort of fight whatsoever & while I was sat there watching this I was wondering to myself why doesn't it just possess Laura & then make her commit suicide? There are no rules, the kid seems able to possess anyone whenever it wants for no apparent reason, no explanation is ever given & the ending has to be seen to be believed. In order to stop the kid no killing her while in her boyfriend Jack's body & therefore not having to kill him Laura seduces her kid & has sex with him which leads to a so-called twist ending where laura is seen to be pregnant, I didn't know whether to laugh or be repulsed to be honest. With such a short duration there's no time to flesh the story out & all of the character's really are very basic one dimensional nobodies that leave no impact, the story is nothing more than random incidents strung together & the lack of any zombie action will surely disappoint many.
Obviously shot on an ultra low budget Rise of the Dead looks like it was, the video camcorder look, the drab colours, the lifeless cinematography & basic music. All the locations seem to be people's house's & the special effects are no more elaborate than a bit of fake blood splashed around. There are no special effects to speak of, no CGI or traditional effects work. There's no tension or atmosphere, the script never sets up any rules or limits & as such everything feels rather random.
Apparently filmed in Ohio & Connecticut the production values are rock bottom. The acting isn't much better from a cast of unknown's, what else can I say?
Rise of the Dead had the potential to be a decent supernatural possession revenge horror exploitation flick but isn't, it's bad in every aspect. Do yourself a favour & give this one a miss.
Directed by William Wedig this was originally filmed under the title Tantrum which was then changed to the more horror sounding Rise of the Dead when brought by the company that eventually released it, the title Rise of the Dead gives the impression that this will be some sort of apocalyptic zombie film in the vein of one of George A. Romero's efforts but Rise of the Dead is in fact much more low key than that & is more of a supernatural ghost story as much a flesh eating zombie film. To be fair to Rise of the Dead it only lasts 72 minutes (including opening & closing credits) so at least it's short, unfortunately that's pretty much where the positives end. The story is an audacious one, the dead spirit of a young child starts possessing people in order to kill those that let him down & led to his untimely death by handgun, for some strange reason Laura is the only person in the town of Dudley who can defend herself since no-one else the kid goes after puts up any sort of fight whatsoever & while I was sat there watching this I was wondering to myself why doesn't it just possess Laura & then make her commit suicide? There are no rules, the kid seems able to possess anyone whenever it wants for no apparent reason, no explanation is ever given & the ending has to be seen to be believed. In order to stop the kid no killing her while in her boyfriend Jack's body & therefore not having to kill him Laura seduces her kid & has sex with him which leads to a so-called twist ending where laura is seen to be pregnant, I didn't know whether to laugh or be repulsed to be honest. With such a short duration there's no time to flesh the story out & all of the character's really are very basic one dimensional nobodies that leave no impact, the story is nothing more than random incidents strung together & the lack of any zombie action will surely disappoint many.
Obviously shot on an ultra low budget Rise of the Dead looks like it was, the video camcorder look, the drab colours, the lifeless cinematography & basic music. All the locations seem to be people's house's & the special effects are no more elaborate than a bit of fake blood splashed around. There are no special effects to speak of, no CGI or traditional effects work. There's no tension or atmosphere, the script never sets up any rules or limits & as such everything feels rather random.
Apparently filmed in Ohio & Connecticut the production values are rock bottom. The acting isn't much better from a cast of unknown's, what else can I say?
Rise of the Dead had the potential to be a decent supernatural possession revenge horror exploitation flick but isn't, it's bad in every aspect. Do yourself a favour & give this one a miss.
