Dead Before Dawn (2012)

I love this movie so much

Admirable film.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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.

Zombie Type: "Zemons" (demon zombies); basically fast-walking (they don't really sprint) undead Outbreak/Apocalypse Phase: Initial outbreak (characters experience the outbreak as it happens) Sub-genre: Goofy Horror, Dark ComedyDead Before Dawn had an awesomely cheesy late 80's/early 90's vibe right from the start that carried the fun all the way to the very end. I'm a sucker for 80's cheese (hell yeah gimme some cheddar), so throw in some zombies and it's like crack for me. I had a good time watching this movie.The first 20 or so minutes were a bit slow, but it's all fun once the stuff hits the fan. The basic premise involves a group of college kids fighting off the zemon menace. Main character Casper Galloway (played by "Diary of a Wimpy Kid's" Devon Bostick) is the grandson of Horus Galloway (great Scott, he's played by Christopher Lloyd!), the owner of a store called "Occult Barn." When Casper agrees to watch the store while the elder Galloway steps out to grab something, his friends accidentally unleash a curse that turns its victims into "zemons" and spreads itself from person-to-person either via eye-contact with Casper and his friends after 10pm or hickeys from the already infected. But wait! The zemons can be turned into your personal slaves if you seduce them with a French kiss! Needless to say, this movie's charm comes from the fact that it doesn't take itself the least bit seriously.That's all you need to know. Dead Before Dawn is a bit over-the-top (not insanely crazy, more slapstick and funny than anything), surprisingly funny, cheesy, and fun to watch. I'm lucky to have found so many enjoyable zombie movies over the past month after years of sifting through random crap on Netflix.Final Verdict: Recommended. Goofy, cheesy, funny, great to watch with a group of friends. If what I just typed doesn't immediately turn you off, go watch Dead Before Dawn!

Found this film at the Stereo Media Film Festival in Liege, Belgium.  Everyone should have the opportunity to see this film in 3D.  I heard it was an independent production, but the 3D and the film really blew me away.  It's not a studio picture, but it has all the elements needed to make it truly entertaining.   It was fun, fast and new.  What they did with the 3D was impressive and really unique.  I've never seen a film like this before.  Of course, it being an indy film, there were less special effects and blood shots than I originally thought there would be, but when I realized the type of movie I was watching I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.  Well done.  Again, being a huge fan of 3D it was exciting to see 3D being made in the independent world.  Hopefully this is just the beginning of a new wave of independent 3D films to come.

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.