Will (Aaron Sosa) is the cool guy in his dorm: Sure he might be a lousy
student and hardly ever attend any classes, but he always knows where the
next party is, always knows where to get beer and drugs from. Sure, he is
one of the most irresponsible guys you might have heard of, but he's
always fun to be around. Tonight is a big night, the best party ever -
sure, it's Monday after Spring Break, but that means everybody's still
somehow in partying mood and eager to give Spring Break a big farewell.
However, there's one thing that spoils Will's partying mood: His parents
have sent over his little brother Cory (Ryan DeLuca) to stay with him for
a couple of days. Oh yeah, and there are zombies in the dorm, zombies of
the flesh-eating variety ... Before Will knows it, he has become the
unlikely leader of a group of students whom he is to take to a safe place,
the TV-studio on campus - which is not only the safest place in the
neighbourhood, but Will and friend also want to send a signal to the
outside to plea for help. At the same time though, Will has to come clean
with his little brother, who thinks he is nothing but a useless slob. He
also has to come to terms with the fact that more and more of his friends
are killed by zombies. And then there's a girl among his little group,
wannabe-girl reporter Gaylen (Chelsea Bowdren), who lures them from one
dead end to the next just to get good zombie footage. And once they have
made it to the TV-studio despite everything, Will has to learn that in
order to get a signal out to the outside of the campus, they have to
return to the dorm they came from to turn its satelite dish to face the
city. Against all odds, Will and friends manage to get the signal out,
and Will and Cory finally bond, and they manage to get off campus ... but
unfortunately, the zombie virus has long spread beyond campus, and the
whole city has become a giant place of "eat or be eaten" ... One
thing's for sure: Dorm of the Dead is not the film that has
reinvented the zombie genre - nor has it set out to be just that. It's
also not the film with the most, best, most graphic or goriest gore
effects. And the film's underlieing stories of brothers bonding in the eye
of danger is leaning a bit too much towards the cheesy side. All that
said, Dorm of the Dead is a pretty likeable low budget genre
effort. Maybe it's no more than a footnote to the rich history of zombie
cinema, but the passion that was put into making the movie, into
overcoming budgetary restraints, and the passion for zombie movies itself
is very evident and somewhat infectuous. On top of that, the film's humour
(yes, it's basically a comedy) never becomes obnoxious or moronic, and
doesn't get in the way of the more horrific aspects of the film. Plus,
there are actuially some good characters in this film (anything but a
given with zombie movies). And Aaron Sosa makes a very likeable flawed
hero, someone who you'd really like to be around, not despite but because
of his mistakes. In all, not a masterpiece by any stretch of the word
... but rather enjoyable if you have roughly 90 minutes to spare.
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