Living Dead Lock Up (2005)

Simply Perfect

Overrated and overhyped

How sad is this?

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

LIVING DEAD LOCK UP is a dreadful attempt to mix the zombie and prison film genres, utterly failing to convince in either respect. It's a micro budget, shot-on-video yarn in which a bunch of characters hang around in a prison, not really doing much at all. The quality is so poor that the whole thing looks like it was shot on analogue rather than digital.There are no zombie hordes here, no gore, no zombies at all really. Instead you just get endless close-ups of the faces of the actors involved, all of them spouting incessant dialogue that adds nothing to the film's structure. There are lots of extraneous documentary-style clips to pad out the running time, but it's not enough to make this remotely interesting.

After being arrested for stealing a car "Jared" (Mario Xavier) is sentenced to 2 years at Stone Gate Penitentiary. What he doesn't know is that this particular correctional facility has had a history of sinister occurrences which plague the prison even to this day—for which he is about to realize all too soon. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this ultra low-budget film is about as cheap as they come. The acting, dialogue, sets, special effects and cinematography were all quite bad and this resulted in a final product which was just plain horrible. There's really no other way to describe it. As a matter of fact, this ranks as possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. That said I would avoid this film at all costs as it's about 64 minutes of your life you will never get back. I honestly hate to be so blunt but that's just the way it is. It was truly awful.

Living Dead Lock Up was better than many of the big budget horror flicks that I see in the theaters!! I love zombie movies and this one had me begging for more crazy zombie action!! Great job on the casting as well. I especially enjoyed Natalie Morales as Rachel!! She is a fine actress as well as one hot number!! Mario was also convincing as Jared and kept my attention as the non-stop pace of the film and zombie action continued to build to a break neck pace!The evil must stop and stay at Stone Gate Penitentiary!! My all time favorite zombie was the Return of the Living Dead, the one that was released in the 1980's. I would love to see this story done on a big production budget and see what happens from there.

"Living Dead Lock Up" is a triumph of creativity and technology over limited resources. The video is a spooky depiction of zombies inhabiting the basement of a jail, and the chills are real. "Living Dead Lock Up" may not contain the most original of plots, but it knows how to use the latest in digital filming techniques to elicit horror through creepy effects and imaginative cinematography. The acting by the film's creators and others is quite effective for this sort of film, and there is also effective use of old-time newsreels to provide just the right historic touch. What's amazing is that all this was put together on a budget of only a few hundred dollars, and the result is anything but cheesy-looking. Give it a try if you're interested in some creative, nightmarish jolts.