Dead Before Dawn (2012)

The Worst Film Ever

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Admirable film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The teenage kids vs. zombie comedies have become popular and have boasted some success. Some are funnier than others. This is an "other."In this film Casper (Devon Bostick) and his friends break a cursed urn belonging to his grandfather (Christopher Lloyd). The people they look at become suicidal, then turn into demonically possessed zombies called "zemons" although they weren't any different than regular zombies. They attack by giving hickies and can be controlled by giving them a French kiss, although these last two aspects were not overly utilized making this a "me too" comedy zombie film.To give you an example of the writing, a funny one-liner from the film: "I remember my first trophy. Most improved hygiene."This is a Canadian production, with all the spice of mayonnaise. The actors did well to deliver their lines, which were hit and miss, with too many falling into the "miss" category. The writers did better on the build up to the action than it did during the action.Recommended as a rental.Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Sex talk.

It baffles me why morons like this get money to make films. Though I suppose women are more likely to get funding now that there is a push for all of this "equality" or what have you.The plot was both campy and highly predictable, Christopher Lloyd despite his star power could not save this movie, and it's clear it was just written by the producer April Mullen because she cannot get any other acting work so she has to write for herself.Overall there was a lot of bad acting (did nobody bother to give their background players any sort of direction? Obviously not, but they weren't the worst of the over-actors to be quite honest) and the production team clearly wasted the budget on god knows what, because it certainly didn't go into the film.Really not worth the time wasted watching.

A bunch of college kids accidentally unleash an evil curse that causes people to kill themselves and turn into Zombie Demons, also known as Zemons! Apparently this received mixed and negatives reviews from the critics, even the regular horror folks (Dread Central and Bloody Disgusting). I have to say I liked it more than they did, and while it may not have had much originality, it had some good jokes -- did no one appreciate the "Wicker Man" joke? And, of course, just having Christopher Lloyd in such a prominent role makes this worth watching, in my opinion. He was great, probably the best comedy role he has had in many years.

The plot: a group of kids unleash a horrible zombie-demon ("zemon") curse on a small town. Everyone who makes eye contact with the kids kills themselves and comes back as a zemon, bent on killing the kids by giving them hickeys. And the kids must race against the clock to break the curse before sunrise. Starring Christopher Lloyd for a couple of scenes, Kevin McDonald in another couple of shots, Jimmy Fallon's college-age clone, and some other people you might recognize as having been in that one thing filmed in Canada.So you have a band of 30 and 20 somethings, that are supposed to be teenagers, in a film that appears to be targeted at adolescents. What could go wrong? Well, here's the problem: the movie wants to be a light hearted zombie comedy, but it's simply not funny. Lloyd and McDonald are woefully underused and most of the jokes simply fall flat. There -are- a couple of chuckles to be had, but simply not enough to make the movie worth watching as a comedy. As a horror film the movie similarly falls flat; the whole premise of "kids get to narrate how their cursed, and decide to come up with a plague of monsters whose name rhymes with 'semen'" kinda' kills any chance of people taking the movie seriously enough for it to be a horror film. There -are- a couple of potentially scary shot though, reminiscent of an early David Cronenberg perhaps, but there's not enough for the movie to work as a horror film either.As for the production values themselves... we're talking shots where not-Fallon is talking to Lloyd on the phone, and Lloyd appears in a little bubble as he talks into the phone. Overall the movie is better than that, with hints of a small budget, but how a stinker of an idea like that made it to print is beyond me. I've seen better production on a tweeny Nickelodeon show, which seems to be the film's desired target demographic.If it weren't for all the people killing themselves, and drooling blood, and getting hacked up, I imagine most parents would be fine leaving their tweens to watch it. Personally though, I'd rather my kids watch films like Shaun of the Dead, Fido or even Wasting Away instead if they need a zom-com fix, because this movie would likely just end up making them feel insulted. Heck, House of the Dead makes for a better zom-com, and it wasn't meant to be a comedy.On the other hand, Brittany Allen as a blonde cheerleader was kinda' hot. So the film has that going for it.