THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

A virulent infection has decimated the population of Earth, replacing the once-living with merciless Zombies. However, this happened 9 years ago and, for the small number of survivors, living on the snow-covered fringes of fallen civilizations, it has been long enough for the infection to have died out, having consumed all nearby hosts and the remaining Zombies, rotting away to nothing. Following the downtrodden lives of three such survivors - Jack, Patrick and Lu - as they struggle to continue living, both with the harsh elements and with each other, we discover that the infection did not die out, did not simply go away but evolved and adapted, turning those stricken into far worse creatures than unintelligent Zombies. With the new threat, staying alive just got a whole lot harder.

MY VERDICT:

This movie is a decidedly average affair with most of the slow-burn action being a build-up to the end. The story starts out with the survivors just trying to stay alive in dire conditions, the added goal of finding other people. Early, the film focuses on drama and building up the characters; the hostile tension between Jack and his neighbour Patrick, the efforts of Jack to educate the nine-year old girl Lu and her frustration at Jack's overbearing safety protocols. Then, some tension is provided by the eventual appearance of the evolved infected and other unexpected events, all the while, the viewer is left with unexplained questions about the group's dynamic. Finally, it all bursts out with an unusual and exciting twist - far beyond what you may expect from a medium-budget Zombie movie. The one major problem I have with the movie is that the audio seems very unbalanced; the sound of guns firing, snowmobile motors and other effects being foreseeably loud while the voices of the actors are ear-strainingly quiet - making the finer points of this drama-focused movie, easy to miss. It is also a bit slow, taking slightly too long to get to any meaningful action - something that may cause some less patient viewers to give up long before the improved final section.