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New Release Review – The Dead 2: India

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Sequels. Sometimes, in the case of films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, they bring something completely new and different to the table. Other times, filmmakers take the ‘if it aint broke, don’t fix it’ approach, delivering more of the same.

The Ford brothers’ follow-up to their 2010 zombie film The Dead falls into the latter category. But not to worry. Because more of the same isn’t always a bad thing in the world of sequels, especially when what’s being replicated is one of the finest zombie movies in recent years.

Released onto DVD and Blu-ray this week, The Dead 2: India features the same simple premise of its predecessor, with the locale of course changing from Africa to India. Like in the first film, an American teams up with a local on an epic journey, the path to their destination paved with undead ghouls.

American turbine engineer Nicholas Burton is the main character this time around, finding himself 300 miles away from his pregnant girlfriend Ishani, when the dead start rising from their graves. After losing his only mode of transportation, Nicolas meets up with a young boy named Javed, and the two of them traverse the treacherous landscape together, in a desperate bid to save Ishani before it’s too late.

Whereas The Dead was about fathers searching for their sons, The Dead 2 is more of a love story wrapped up inside of a zombie film, and unfortunately it’s that core story that’s the weakest aspect of the entire movie.

It’s never clear how long Ishani and Nicholas have been together and I found myself not all that invested in their relationship, which is likely a side effect of the fact that we never see them together, before shit hits the fan. By jumping right into the action, the script leaves little room for character and relationship development, and that relationship as well as the character of Ishani both suffer, as a result.

Throughout the majority of the film, Ishani is trying to convince her traditional father that Nicholas is the man for her, and those portions of the movie just aren’t half as engaging as the ones centering on Nicholas’ journey. Rather than rooting for their reunion or feeling the love between them, the whole relationship falls pretty damn flat, and some bad acting from the lead actress doesn’t do much to help matters.

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Thankfully, there is a relationship beating at the heart of the film that does feel genuine and is both well written and acted, that being the relationship between Nicholas and Javed. As the makeshift father and son duo fight for their lives amongst hordes of the undead, they both learn a whole lot about themselves, through one another, and it’s their relationship that’s most engaging. The Ford Brothers clearly understand that the best zombie films have a large focus on human drama and interaction, and the companionship between Nicholas and Javed adequately fills the gap left by the lackluster relationship that drives the plot.

As for the zombies, they’re of the slow walking, limited makeup variety, just as they were in The Dead. Modern day movie zombies don’t get much more frightening or well executed than what the brothers Ford have brought to the table with both films, giving their budding franchise an old-school feel that’s sorely lacking from most zombie movies to come in the wake of George Romero’s game-changing classics.

The brothers definitely know their zombies and the ones on display here are quite chilling, with little more than white contact lenses marking the difference between the dead and the living. It’s simple and it totally works, making the film realistic rather than gruesomely over the top. Zombies don’t get scarier the messier they look, and the zombies that inhabit The Dead 2 are refreshingly simple and effective – even if they never feel like much of a threat, especially to our hero.

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As for the gore, it’s plentiful and at times savagely brutal, with both practical effects and CG blood coming together to convey the carnage. The CGI is noticeable but never distracting, proving that high-tech effects don’t always have to ruin present day horror films.

All in all, The Dead 2 does a whole lot more right than it does wrong, and the only real complaint I have about it is that it feels just a little too similar to what we saw back in 2010. Whereas The Dead felt like such a breath of fresh air, after so many piss poor zombie films, The Dead 2 feels like that exact same breath, and I couldn’t help but wish a bit of a different path was taken.

That said, striving to recreate one of the best zombie films in recent years is again not a horrible thing, and in doing so the Ford brothers have created another zombie movie that’s light years ahead of most of the sub genre’s last several years of output. The Dead 2 is a damn fine zombie film, at the end of the day, helping to once again improve the reputation of modern day zombie cinema.

Here’s to hoping that if the Ford brothers decide to make The Dead a trilogy, they go in a slightly different direction with the third installment. I would love to see them do another, I’m just not sure that watching another dude trade vehicles and narrowly avoid zombie attacks for 90 minutes would remain compelling the third time around.

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The Pope’s Exorcist Officially Announces New Sequel

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The Pope’s Exorcist is one of those films that’s just fun to watch. It isn’t the most terrifying film around, but there’s something about Russel Crow (Gladiator) playing a wise cracking Catholic priest that just feels right.

Screen Gems seems to agree with this assessment, as they have just officially announced that The Pope’s Exorcist sequel is in the works. It makes sense that Screen Gems would want to keep this franchise going, considering the first film scared up almost $80 million with a budget of only $18 million.

The Pope's Exorcist
The Pope’s Exorcist

According to Crow, there may even be a The Pope’s Exorcist trilogy in the works. However, recent changes with the studio may have put the third film on hold. In a sit-down with The Six O’Clock Show, Crow gave the following statement about the project.

“Well that’s in discussion at the moment. The producers originally got the kick off from the studio not just for one sequel but for two. But there’s been a change of studio heads at the moment, so that’s going around in a few circles. But very definitely, man. We set that character up that you could take him out and put him into a lot of different circumstances.”

Crow has also stated that film’s source material involves twelve separate books. This would allow the studio to take the story in all kinds of directions. With that much source material, The Pope’s Exorcist could even rival The Conjuring Universe.

Only the future will tell what becomes of The Pope’s Exorcist. But as always, more horror is always a good thing.

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New ‘Faces of Death’ Remake Will Be Rated R For “Strong Bloody Violence and Gore”

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In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, the Faces of Death reboot has been given an R rating from the MPA. Why has the film been given this rating? For strong bloody violence, gore, sexual content, nudity, language, and drug use, of course.

What else would you expect from a Faces of Death reboot? It would honestly be alarming if the film received anything less than an R rating.

Faces of death
Faces of Death

For those unaware, the original Faces of Death film released in 1978 and promised viewers video evidence of real deaths. Of course, this was just a marketing gimmick. Promoting a real snuff film would be a terrible idea.

But the gimmick worked, and franchise lived on in infamy. The Faces of Death reboot is hoping to gain the same amount of viral sensation as its predecessor. Isa Mazzei (Cam) and Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) will spearhead this new addition.

The hope is that this reboot will do well enough to recreate the infamous franchise for a new audience. While we don’t know much about the film at this point, but a joint statement from Mazzei and Goldhaber gives us the following info on the plot.

“Faces of Death was one of the first viral video tapes, and we are so lucky to be able to use it as a jumping off point for this exploration of cycles of violence and the way they perpetuate themselves online.”

“The new plot revolves around a female moderator of a YouTube-like website, whose job is to weed out offensive and violent content and who herself is recovering from a serious trauma, that stumbles across a group that is recreating the murders from the original film. But in the story primed for the digital age and age of online misinformation, the question faced is are the murders real or fake?”

The reboot will have some bloody shoes to fill. But from the looks of it, this iconic franchise is in good hands. Unfortunately, the film does not have a release date at this time.

That’s all the information we have at this time. Make sure to check back here for more news and updates.

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Panic Fest 2024 Review: ‘The Ceremony Is About To Begin’

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People will look for answers and belonging in the darkest places and the darkest people. The Osiris Collective is a commune predicated upon ancient Egyptian theology and was run by the mysterious Father Osiris. The group boasted dozens of members, each forgoing their old lives for one held in the Egyptian themed land owned by Osiris in Northern California. But the good times take a turn for the worst when in 2018, an upstart member of the collective named Anubis (Chad Westbrook Hinds) reports Osiris disappearing while mountain climbing and declaring himself the new leader. A schism ensued with many members leaving the cult under Anubis’ unhinged leadership. A documentary is being made by a young man named Keith (John Laird) whose fixation with The Osiris Collective stems from his girlfriend Maddy leaving him for the group several years ago. When Keith gets invited to document the commune by Anubis himself, he decides to investigate, only to get wrapped up in horrors he couldn’t even imagine…

The Ceremony Is About To Begin is the latest genre twisting horror film from Red Snow‘s Sean Nichols Lynch. This time tackling cultist horror along with a mockumentary style and the Egyptian mythology theme for the cherry on top. I was a big fan of Red Snow‘s subversiveness of the vampire romance sub-genre and was excited to see what this take would bring. While the movie has some interesting ideas and a decent tension between the meek Keith and the erratic Anubis, it just doesn’t exactly thread everything together in a succinct fashion.

The story begins with a true crime documentary style interviewing former members of The Osiris Collective and sets-up what led the cult to where it is now. This aspect of the storyline, especially Keith’s own personal interest in the cult, made it an interesting plotline. But aside from some clips later on, it doesn’t play as much a factor. The focus is largely on the dynamic between Anubis and Keith, which is toxic to put it lightly. Interestingly, Chad Westbrook Hinds and John Lairds are both credited as writers on The Ceremony Is About To Begin and definitely feel like they’re putting their all into these characters. Anubis is the very definition of a cult leader. Charismatic, philosophical, whimsical, and threateningly dangerous at the drop of a hat.

Yet strangely, the commune is deserted of all cult members. Creating a ghost town that only amps up the danger as Keith documents Anubis’ alleged utopia. A lot of the back and forth between them drags at times as they struggle for control and Anubis keeps continuing to convince Keith to stick around despite the threatening situation. This does lead to a pretty fun and bloody finale that fully leans into mummy horror.

Overall, despite meandering and having a bit of a slow pace, The ceremony Is About To Begin is a fairly entertaining cult, found footage, and mummy horror hybrid. If you want mummies, it delivers on mummies!

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