The Dead (2010)

(In French, On Cable TV, June 2021) In the zombie subgenre, you can either distinguish yourself through ideas and plotting or through setting. The Dead clearly chooses the second option, as it sets a familiar zombie film template in West Africa, trading the over-familiar urban landscapes of the west for the sun-drenched savannahs. Much of the film is a personal odyssey, as an American military engineer travels to a location where he hopes to be reunited with his son and find a plane back to the United States. Plot-wise, there’s nothing all that interesting here — the odyssey set against a post-apocalyptic backdrop is familiar, with enough sand to make us think about westerns. The rather nihilistic ending makes the entire thing feel pointless, and there simply isn’t enough in the moment-to-moment rhythm of the film to keep us invested. This is where the setting takes over — The Dead was possibly unique in setting a zombie film in rural Africa at the time of its production, and the film plays everything as straight as possible without much in terms of comedy or self-awareness. It’s hardly perfect—surely, I can’t be the only one uncomfortable at the sight of a white American being under siege from black zombies?—but it does distinguish itself in a crowded subgenre. The Dead’s production history was wild enough (as in: Rob Freeman nearly dying from malaria) to warrant a book titled Surviving the Dead from writer-director Howard J. Ford, which does bring to mind the thought — is this a film anyone would like to die for? The result is thoroughly mediocre — not badly made, but not particularly good either.