Rise of the Dead (2007)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

As I've stated in earlier reviews, all I look for in a low budget film is a good story line or at least writing that makes sense. I don't want to blame everything on the writer, since who know what happened behind the scenes, but you would think that at least over a 100 people read the script and could point out the errors.Here's the story line: An adopted baby dies by an accidental gunshot, and decides to take revenge on everyone in his quest to be reunited with his birth mother, by possessing the living and killing everyone that stands between him and his birth mother. Sound interesting? It was, until it went horribly awry.I have to commend real critics who are able to critique a movie without giving anything away ( Siskel and Ebert, I salute you), but I'm not yet at that level. So in order to properly express my thoughts, I have no choice but to reveal some spoilers.********************SPOILER ALERT BELOW******************************* The movie opens with a mother obviously possessed by something and murdering her husband (it's expressed previously that they had lost a young child). Next scene, a woman is attacked by someone else that also seems possessed, but the assailant is killed by the young woman's boyfriend. Boyfriend is held for questioning overnight (though she isn't). She gets attacked again in her home (after gratuitous nude scene), and the new assailant (again obviously possessed) is killed yet again by her recently released boyfriend. Cut to a scene in the police station that begins the nonsensical writing.The cop reveals that this is the third murder in connection with her. Laura, of course, raises an eyebrow and asks "third"? The cop then proceeds to tell her about the opening murder scene and says he did a background check on Laura and it turns out that the baby she gave up for adoption was the child of the mother from the opening scene. He found all this out with a phone call. Which would have been impossible for him to find out, as Laura's shocked response and non-recognition of the adoptive mother's name clearly points out. If the adoption had been an "open" one, she would have known who ultimately wound up with her baby (it is later revealed that the child was placed with foster parents first, who she also didn't know about. More on that later). In a "closed" adoption, the officer could have found out that Laura gave a child up for adoption, but he would never known to whom, as records in a closed adoption are sealed and can only be opened under extenuating circumstances, and even then that would be highly difficult. So there was no way he would be able to find out that information, let alone make a link to Laura.Laura, of course, starts investigating on her own, breaks into the adoption agency (which apparently doesn't have an alarm) and tracks down the original foster parents. A couple of religious fanatics that don't know who Laura is. Apparently Laura's child is taken away from them for being "too Christian", though exact reasons are never given. When the child is taken away from the foster mother, she curses him, which leads to the entire plot. But why curse the child? If the foster mother has this kind of power, why not curse the people who took the child away? Why not everyone who's against your religious convictions? It would have made more sense if she were a Satanist or something (to add to the supernatural element). Anyway, she also winds up getting killed.Moving on. Apparently this kid is really busy and possesses a lot of different people. Her own mother included (who was totally miscast. She was an incredibly beautiful woman who was obviously only a few years, if not the same age, as the lead and was probably hired on her looks). Now here's the rub: everyone who survives being possessed knows exactly who they were possessed by. This is incredibly evident when the original cop mentioned above was also possessed. After he attempts to kill Laura, he heads to the jail to release the boyfriend, saying he now realizes what's going on and he's not guilty. Ummm, if you now know what's going on, where's the reinforcements to protect Laura? I understand that you can't tell the rest of the police force what's going on (who would believe you), but you do nothing? If you have the ability to unseal adoption records with a single phone call, you can certainly try to do something to resolve the situation.Now here comes the sickest part of the movie, which, if the rest of the movie lived up to it's premise, this would have been brilliant. Laura figures out that the only thing that the spirit of her baby wants is to be reunited with it's birth mother (which is contradictory, since all it seemed it wanted to do was kill her throughout the entire film). Her boyfriend (who is not the original father) becomes possessed as well after being released from prison, and while attempting to kill her, Laura says something to the effect of "come to Mommy. Mommy loves you" which seems to calm him. What does she do next? Decide to have sex with her possessed boyfriend (thereby actually having sex with her son) in order to become pregnant again. Sick and incestuous and could've had a lot more impact if the rest of the film wasn't so poorly thought out.This movie had the potential to be a great little horror film, but turned out to be an example of when a great idea is poorly executed. I only wish that someone had the resolve to point out all the flaws in the script prior to filming. Still, it's worth a view if only to see what could've been.

For a crappy low budget movie, not bad. But it's still a crappy low budget movie. I appreciated the plot and story. This movie actually had one, most horror movies of this type usually barely even try. I also was actually impressed with the special effects, for the budget, they did a good job, didn't look stupid.This movie also had those two low-budget horror movie mainstays: Gore and tits! I liked the blood and guts gore, and I also liked the nudity. That is basically the whole point of any horror movie anyway. That is basically the whole point of any horror movie anyway. That is basically the whole point of any horror movie anyway.

This movie is pretty disappointing. I gave it a 4 star just because it was funny when it wasn't really supposed to be. I barely gave it a 4 star considering I thought I was going to watch a zombie movie, not a movie about some women who seems to be chased by people who are getting possessed by her dead son. It was mostly funny due to the sub-par acting, the obvious plot motifs (ie. a girl getting naked and promptly murdered with her breasts out) and corny death scenes. Most of the death scenes were nowhere near realistic, and there was some blur effect they did with a few of the possessed that came off really cheesy. There was also some white balance issues I noticed really early in the movie. I also found the end of the movie to be rather confusing, and sorta disturbing. It appeared like she was having sex with her boyfriend at the end, while he was possessed with her child. Not only that but she was talking to him as if he was her child while they were having sex, strange, I'm sure Freud would have a few things to say about that. Regardless, I didn't understand that at all, ha ha it totally was a "wtf" moment for me. All in all, It was a decent effort but I can't find it in myself to give it anything more than a 4 star mostly because: 1.) I was upset about how I seemed to be deceived by the title and 2.) It came across as INCREDIBLY LOW BUDGET which, even if it is, you should try to avoid that in my opinion (I mean 28 days later was made on a really low budget also, but that was amazing).

Just watched this movie on one of those bootleg movie sites (I would mention it but the M.P.A.A. might shut them down like they did with TV Links, but I digress, this flick was aaaiiight, as far as your B movies go. The acting was second rate but the kill scenes were great, bloody was gory man, just the way I like them, ha ha ha. There was a scene where the mom and daughter were arguing I had to rewind twice to catch something, hee, the mom asked "Where do you think you're going?", before the daughter even reached for her jacket! brrrrooother. The title is what caught me eye. I thought it would be a zombie flick, but it was far from that, oh yea, check out the scene when the kid grabs the gun oh man, this was a baad flick, hence B movie I suppose, oh well, Hollywood keeps turning them out, and we continue to watch them. All in all, it was worth watching. Okay gotta go, love ya, buh bye Grouphome