Director: Zach Lipovsky
Cast: Jesse Metcalfe, Meghan Ory, Virginia Madsen, Dennis Haysbert, Rob Riggle
Certificate: 18
Running Time: 118 minutes
Dead Rising is a popular zombie video game and as always happens these days, it was popular in one medium so it got converted to another. Obviously trying to capitalise on the success of the Resident Evil films, another series based on a zombie game, comes Dead Rising: Watchtower. Players of the game may find it of interest that the events of the film supposedly take place between the second and third game, though as a non-gamer it doesn’t seem to have much of a bearing on the actually proceedings.
We start our tale in a city that has been boarded off from the rest of America, the population consisting of reformed zombies. That’s right, it’s a zombie film where there is an actual cure for zombism called ‘Zombrex’. As expected the cure stops working and a group of non-zombie-afflicted folks find themselves trapped in a city raging with zombies. Can our gang make it out before the government fire-bomb the place?
Although well shot, and clearly having some relatively high production values, the film’s obvious lack of story, direction and compelling plot, is bewildering, tedious and repetitive.
The trailer made Dead Rising: Watchtower look like it was going to be very tongue-in-cheek and self-referential, however the end result is a film that oddly wants to take itself too seriously. The only cast member having any fun is Riggle who relishes played Frank West, a survivor of a previous zombie outbreak (the events of the first game) who hams up his role beautifully. If the crew and rest of the cast could have gotten on-board with Riggle’s tone then maybe the film would have been better for it.
118 minutes is a long time for any film, but especially when it comes to a horror film. The genre is better suited to shorter lengths, 90 minutes being the perfect timing. Sadly Dead Rising: Watchtower drags its plot to just shy of the two hour mark, and it really does suffer. There is a valiant attempt to kick of the action from the get go, and twenty minutes in the pace is great, but by the half an hour mark we hit a grinding halt and suffer the addition of a tedious sub-plot involving an anarchic motorcycle gang which does nothing of any value.
A sequel has already been announced and we can only pray that they rectify the mistakes made here as Dead Rising: Watchtower had the potential to be so much better than the end result.
Dead Rising: Watchtower is available on Blu Ray, DVD and digital download now.
