Detention of the Dead (2012)

Sadly Over-hyped

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Breakfast Club Meets the Living Dead. The Harvard-potential geek (Jacob Zachar), horror-loving goth chick (Alexa Nikolas), popular cheerleader babe (Christa B. Allen), the cheerleader's bully jock star dumb-as-a-brick quarterback beau (Jayson Blair), jock quarterback's football pal (Max Adler), and the dope-head skateboarder (Justin Chon) all get detention and must try and survive a high school of zombie students and faculty. This is the zombie joke: a host of high school stereotypes pitted against halls and classrooms of the hungry, walking dead. There's even the expected "smoke dope and share" scene with indie music tunes underlying the absurd situation. There's the idealistic goth who doesn't pretend to be anything but herself surveying the rest and telling the dork that being your own individual instead of following the status quo is the way to go: it was obvious from the get-go she was the cool kid who many of the "misfits" and "rebels" respond to. The dork becomes the hero. The cheerleader realizes her jock boyfriend is a jerk and could do better while bitching about how "difficult it is to be popular". The pothead doesn't want the zombie crisis to damper his mood, opting for "chillaxing" instead of falling prey to the moody blues. There's a running sight gag of the decapitated head of the zombie detention teacher, with the pothead especially enjoying tormenting her. I guess there's only so many times I can see intestines jerked from stomachs or zombies munching on arms; the effect has just wore off. The film does have "ass munching"…that is a first for me as a zombie movie viewer. There is an American flag handle stabbed into the head of a zombie librarian. As you might expect, the cheerleader's skirt is jerked away with her running around in what's left of her skimpy uniform, lots of legs and bimbo tendencies. The goth has the hots for the geek but the geek has the hots for the cheerleader; eventually it all sorts itself out. There's the ventilation shaft attempted escape…undermined by a zombie rat! There's even a conversation between geek and cheerleader over why they cannot date. All of this playing out as all the teens and teachers they once knew are now trying to get at them and eat them! The pothead can't leave behind his pot and succumbs to the zombie rat (which, no matter how grotesque, looks like a hand puppet!). At least the cheerleader makes out with the geek...that's something right? There are scenes of legs, pencils, sports equipment, and books (!) used as weapons of defense! Christa B. Allen gets down to nothing but her undergarments and says, "I don't want to die a virgin." The geek gets to see her in bra and panties, allowed to cop a feel and get a kissy. Bodies go over the roof at the top of the building. The high school gym has plenty of "athlete zombies" perhaps bitten during PE. How does it all start? One teenager gets bit by some infected guy outside the school and brings it to the school where it all goes to hell. Simple way to get the ball rolling. There's some funny moments along the way, but after a while the zombie genre's "comic juice" is certain to be squeezed dry. The cast, though, gives the material their all. I especially liked Nikolas who sums up what she sees throughout realistically and pragmatically, all the while dressed in black with fish net stockings. This does stretch credibility to the max, but the zom-com is know for that.

Detention Of The Dead is a fun and entertaining Zombie-Horror-Comedy that combines nice direction,a good cast,a memorable soundtrack and fine special effects. And while the movie is far from perfect,all of those elements make Detention Of The Dead a nice way to spend 87 minutes.Based on the stage play by Rob Rinow,Detention Of The Dead tells the story of 5 High School students serving detention together. While serving detention the students discover that their fellow students have turned into flesh eating zombies. With nowhere to turn the kids serving detention barricade themselves in the library dealing with the zombies and each other.If you took the Zombies of George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead and mixed it with the Comedy of Edgar Wright's Shaun Of The Dead and Teen Angst of John Hughes' The Breakfast Club you would get Detention Of The Dead a flawed but amusing Horror-Comedy that while not matching the greatness and quality of those three amazing films I mentioned above it has enough moments that make up for it's less than perfect storyline. It's not the kind of movie that is going to be thought-provoking or will make you think but it's a movie that keep your attention. Detention Of The Dead is Horror-Comedy in the truest sense of the genres with the Horror coming from the Zombies,blood and gore although DOTD isn't going to scare or frighten you to make you keep the light on at night. The Zombies in Detention Of The Dead come in huge packs and are disgusting but are mostly used for laughs and lack the intimidating menace of George A. Romero's Zombies. While Detention Of The Dead is a Horror movie there is nothing serious or dark going on in the film because the tone is very silly and offbeat with a proud and quirky spirit. The Comedy and laughs in DOTD are funny with scenes of funny dialog and moments of over the top insanity. DOTD is almost like a Teen movie with Zombies added to the mix. The movie is also funny in the way pays nods to other films whether it's to Night Of The Living Dead or to The Breakfast Club while there are nods that more subtle(the library in the high school is called "Savini Library" named after make-up effects master and Horror icon Tom Savini). The flaw with DOTD is that the Comedy can be flat at times and doesn't always hit the mark but when the Comedy works it works. I love movies that take place in one setting and What I enjoyed about this film is that all of the action takes place in one setting the one setting being a High School library(thanks to the original stage play)where we see the characters having not only dealing with the zombies but with each other and trying to survive. And while the main characters are pretty much High School,teen and coming of age movie stereotypes(nerd,goth,sports jock,cheerleader,stoner)the characters are actually memorable and well-developed because even though the characters are surrounded by Zombie they take time to get to know one another beyond their stereotypes(another nod to The Breakfast Club). The blood and gore is good and something you will always see in a Zombie film and while it's not as bloody or gory as Day Of The Dead(1985)or Peter Jackson's Dead Alive(1992)some blood and gore shows up once and a while. The ending of Detention Of The Dead is good and a little surprising but it fits with the tone and offbeat style of the movie. A Fine ending.The cast is good. Jacob Zachar is wonderful as Eddie,the smart nerd. Alexa Nikolas is terrific,beautiful and sexy in my favorite performance in the movie as Willow,the Goth girl who's Eddie's friend. Christa B. Allen is fantastic and sexy as Janet,a cheerleader that Eddie has a crush on. Jayson Blair is great as Brad,Janet's Football jock boyfriend. Justin Chow is hilarious and memorable as Ash,a laid back stoner. Max Adler(Jimmy),Michele Messmer(Mrs. Rumblethrorp)and Joseph Porter(Mark)give good performances as well.The direction by Alex Craig Mann is simple but good,with Mann at times moving the camera and giving the movie a nice pace. Nice direction,Mann.The score by Cody Westheimer is fine,with Westheimer's score being goofy,offbeat and intense. Good score,Westheimer. There is also some good Rock and Pop songs on the soundtrack as well.The special make-up effects are well-done,bloody and add to the film. Good special effects.In final word,if you love Horror Films,Zombie Movies or Horror-Comedies,I suggest you see Detention Of The Dead,a fun and entertaining Zombie-Horror-Comedy that is flawed and far from perfect but is still a watchable film. Recommended. 6.5/10.

Forced into detention together,a widely-varied group of students are forced to come face-to-face with their own insecurities in order to repel a zombie outbreak at the school.This turned out to be quite a fun and rousing mixture of horror and comedy that works surprisingly well considering the high risk of detrimental flaws here. The fact that the whole film rests on fulfilling clichés and then twisting them does tend to fall short at times, because it is doing nothing more than utilizing the same exact tropes and storied characters that have been a part of the genre for years now and then turns them into exactly what you would expect would happen because you have to invert the clichés, resulting in nothing new or groundbreaking despite acting like it is. The low-budget doesn't help matters much either with a rather pedestrian look overall to the zombies who look decent enough but never really pack that special push to really sell them, settling instead on colored contacts and swollen features to sell their zombified state, and that's not entirely convincing throughout. As well, the lower-budget-means are fully viewed on the swarming scenes, which lack the massive size of most normal zombie hordes as well as failing to really exploit the type of blood and gore that come to be expected in such a scenario despite several rather gruesome moments which signal the start of what it does right. The fact that the zombie outbreak is so early on in the film, barely ten minutes in when the first victim turns into the ravenous being, makes for a rather pleasing amount of action in this one with a rapid series of encounters that are fun, exciting and quite thrilling, working the best when utilizing the comedy in the intense situations. Being forced to sneak past a group of zombies gnawing on a corpse without suspicion and doing so successfully only to be rousing by the cheers and congratulations of the rest of the survivors, fending off zombies by hurling library books at them or continually bashing them over the head with baseball bats but always loosing their grip on the bat are just some of the wonderful comedic scenes throughout that are not only hysterically funny and logical in such a situation but do so to make the non-stop action all the more fun. Coupled with some of the great gore gags when they occur and a rousing amount of heart, it's a lot more fun than what it seems like.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, nude pictures and drug use.

I took my brothers and saw this movie over the summer at a local film festival and LOVED it. I'm a big John Hughes fan and a huge indie enthusiast, so this flick was right up my alley. The story was great and totally relatable, much like the way many of Hughes' films were (and still are) to just about anyone who's ever had to deal with the awkward, where-do-i-fit-in-the-world, purgatory that is high school. The writer and director do a great job of taking on a lot of pretty touchy subjects and adding more than a few dashes of hilarity to them, whether through a character's self deprecation or the irony of an entire situation. And if you're a big zombie fiend like my brothers are you'll love it even more than I did. They've already told all of their friends, and I've told all of mine, and none of us can wait to see it again.