Special Dead (2007)
Review by the Fiend of Grue
A hooter-smoking, back-packing couple stumble upon a boarded up mine shaft. Upon breaking in, the Tourette-inflicted man drinks the water that he sees lying on the ground and instantly becomes a zombie.
Next we are introduced to the setting for the rest of the movie: Camp Special Dude. Camp Special Dude is a camp for the mentally challenged and we quickly see a vast assortment of “retards” that are there to spend their summer. Let the drool begin as they frolick aound with one of them even talking about his ex girlfriend’s nipples that were “the size of pancakes.”
Cameron Stone (Lars Jackson) is the old, wise camp owner whose son Machiavelli Stone (Jason Brubaker) is the lead camp counselor and a Johnny Knoxville look-a-like. While out together one night, Cameron notices something in with his cattle herd. Upon investigating, they find out it’s a zombie and Cameron blows it’s head off. He then quickly decides that what they need to do is get all the “retards” to safety. Once back at the camp, they find out the van has broken down due to Horatio (Carl Storm) and Mattie (Keith Hastings) trying to “fix” it. From there they must do anything the can to band together and find a way out before the zombies find them!
Have you ever plopped down to watch a movie and was utterly dismayed at how bad it was? Have you ever seen a movie that was so bad you couldn’t even fathom someone trying to release it to the masses? But at the same time, one half of your brain is screaming out, “come on man…this is GREAT!” Well, that is the type of conflict that my mind went through while watching Special Dead. It’s bad, it’s horrid, it’s terrible, but goddamn is it fun! This is the perfect movie to pop in during a party. You could put this movie in while throwing back some cold ones (a lot actually) with your closest friends at a time where no one would necessarily be paying much attention to what was going on but would pick up little bits and pieces here and there. As it played, it would slowly work over a drunk crowd and would eventually have them yelling at the TV for more. “It’s so bad it’s good,” is an understatement. It’s so bad, it’s good while smashed drunk seems better.
Special Dead has a mountain of problems that start off as soon as the screen announces the title of the movie. The editing is so bad that during most of the action sequences it is hard to tell what is happening. The continuity is non-existent here also; loads of blood on someone one minute, clean as a whistle the next. The jokes are funny sometimes, including one hilarious scene of a camp counselor singing a song to the “special” campers at a camp fire, but most of the time, the jokes fall flat and aren’t even “bad” funny, if you know what I mean.
I’ll continue with the bad: The plot? Doesn’t matter. The story? Wouldn’t matter even if it did exist. Characters? Forget about it, you won’t care about a one of them…you might laugh at them, but you won’t give a damn about them or whether they get away or not.
Despite all of this bitching about the problems (that I could continue to write about), Special Dead still manages to have a sort of undeniable charm to it. You can easily tell that all involved had a blast while making this film and you don’t need to watch the extras to see that, it’s evident throughout the movie. Too, this movie is so tongue in cheek that the tongue bursts out the side of the mouth here and that is it’s saving grace. Not only that, but there are buckets and I mean BUCKETS of blood thrown around in this film. And too, the zombies also look pretty cool with their hanging flesh and blood running from their eyes.
Special Dead is a fun little flawed zombie fest, much in the vein of a Troma flick. I certainly wouldn’t say avoid it, but rather check it out for the sake of party entertainment. You can’t go wrong with it there.
Special Dead on Myspace
Special Dead’s Official Site
Popularity: 4% [?]
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