World War Dead: Rise of the Fallen (2015)

Better Late Then Never

A Brilliant Conflict

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

A troupe of highly argumentative film-makers travel to the Somme to record a documentary. Their internal disagreements are interrupted by figures in the distance that suddenly disappear. Similar events occur within and around 'Devil's Wood', scene of one of the most central WW1 Somme battles.Professor Brian Lock's (Robert Bladon) facts are subject to 'artistic embellishment' by a clearly underwhelmed Marcus (Ray Panthaki), who is trying to spice up his documentary. Although his arrogance is legendary among his fellows, it's easy to sympathise with Marcus' point of view. Very little actually happens for a long time, but he decayed cadaver of a Rhodesian soldier dragged from a misty river threatens to liven things up, especially as he appears to have swallowed a black magic amulet – it's apparent power involves bringing the dead back to life.For a found footage film, there aren't many attempts to keep it strictly realistic; too many camera angles for the available equipment to actually record, and the addition of evocative ambient incidental music at crucial moments (music that isn't interrupted by the constant – and annoying – times when the camera breaks up and crackles in the way of this style of film-making). That's not a particular problem for me: we know this isn't an actual documentary; the days when an audience wondered if a found footage film was a drama or real life ended with 'The Blair Witch Project' sixteen years earlier.Of the characters, Marcus is perhaps the best defined. He does his best to be irritating, but is very well played and emerges being strangely likable long before his elevation to apologetic hero towards the end.This isn't the greatest film of its kind, but it features a good cast and an excellent location. The fusion of World War and zombies continues apace, with once again bunkers and trenches and murky fields providing an excellent backdrop for the activities of the living dead.

Found footage features depend on one thing above all: believability. Almost every found footage movie begins by giving you some indication that the footage was discovered and "compiled" by authorities, then later leaked to the general masses. In short, it's a documentary. This illusion is generally effective when dealing with anything possible (floods, natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, serial killers), but becomes weak and convoluted when faced with anything improbable (zombies, vampires, ghosts).As this is a zombie feature, believability is already at stake. The initial implication that this is "real" immediately makes no impression. It comes off as merely routine. Shortly after, other factors follow that contribute nothing to believability, and yet continue to be standards in found footage movie making: 1. Too many camera angles to be possible for one camera. 2. Sound is too consistent as the scenes jumps back and forth between angles. An impossibility for one camera. 3. Lighting is too good to be real. It's clearly studio work. 4. The camera continually falls into the perfect position for filming, even though no one is thinking about it or even using it. 5. The fact that the camera is still on! 6. There's even a scene where the camera itself is videoed! Are you kidding me? Really???7. All the digitally induced fuzz doesn't even look remotely real, or even have a reason for happening. 8. There's a soundtrack. Nice of the authorities to put that in so that viewers of their documentary will be more interested.Then there's the acting, and the plot.. I'll just sum it all up with "It's unconvincing."All of these little pieces simply do not add up, instead the movie suffers from the greatest weakness a movie can suffer from: It was boring.Oh, and it finishes with some grinding electric guitar music, which is the only true constant in zombie films.

Had it been a production of a group of high school kids it would've been perceived as funny and rather a successful first attempt of movie making. But being as this project actually has some established actors in it, one can only marvel at how that came about to be.The film makes good use of many old tricks and methods in order to scare the viewer without actually showing much of anything. When done properly it can work, however in this case it's just sad and shows clearly how the film budget must've been no more than a couple of thousand euros.The film is just terrible.

The Plot. Yet another found footage movie this time about lost WW2 soldiers who turn out to be zombies.Oh boy.Everything about it stinks. Even the fake camera glitches. It sucks.77 minutes long and it feels like you've been watching for 36 hours.It's formulaic and predictable. It goes on and on and nothing happens.There director's idea of action is having the actors pretend they are out of breath.Midway into this movie they go underground and it's so dark you cant see a thing.OMG, it's so horrible.