When I think of various horror genres, I usually think everything that can possibly be done has already been done in one way or another. Then along comes a director like Andrew Parkinson who can somehow find a way to come up with a new angle on old ideas. This type of creativity is desperately needed in today's film community. If more filmmakers would use their imaginations rather that simply "re-imagining" ideas that have already been done, watching films in today's day and age would be a much more satisfying experience.

Dead Creatures is a zombie movie that is played as straight as possible. The film is edited in such a way that we are following the events of a number of different characters. There are Jo and Ann, two women who are taking care of their sick zombie friend Ali. They have some other friends named Zoe and Fran who they meet up with a number of times throughout the film. Also on hand is an older fellow named Reece who is a zombie hunter of sorts and a cute girl named Sian who is afflicted after being bitten by a guy named Christian. The catch with all the girls and Christian is that they survive by eating human flesh and they are all slowly rotting away. As I said, this is not your conventional zombie movie but rather a study of victims who are afflicted with a zombie-like illness and who are rotting like corpses while they are still alive.

To call this movie entertaining would not be an accurate statement. In fact, I found it to be quite dull for the first half an hour or so. What was interesting was that I did find myself sympathizing with the girls even though they were murdering people and eating them. This was due to the fact that Parkinson portrays the girls as living this way in a very matter-of-fact type way and I found myself not even noticing the gore and cannibalism but instead was involved in the feelings of loneliness that the characters had of having to live a life of isolation due to their condition. Parkinson is obviously attempting to lay down some sort of social commentary and he succeeds in sharing with us the lifestyle of those who are affected with an illness or disability (perhaps AIDS or even drug abuse is the analogy). Needless to say, if you are expecting a rip-roaring feel-good bloodbath, you are in the wrong place. In fact the dead serious tone of the film reminded me of Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer and I think it even paid homage to Henry during a bathtub dismemberment.

Although at times the film was a little tedious, I think this was the intention. Some of the shots (especially outdoors) from cinematographer Jason Shepherd were very cool and the acting from all of the leads was convincing (particularly Beverley Wilson). This is due to the fact that everyone was treating this more like Coronation Street than Dawn Of The Dead which led to very unique film. The make-up effects were also well done with quite a bit of gut munching and dismemberment to satisfy the gore fans. There was also a noticeable absence of a typical score which added to the "normalcy" or the situation. My only complaint was that I wish that some things could have been explained a little better such as the origin of the condition. Overall, once you kind of "get" where the movie is coming from, the result is one of the more original zombie movies to come along in a while. Parkinson's previous movie I, Zombie had a similar premise and, like this one, was released on DVD by Fangoria. (Josh Pasnak, 1/22/06)

Directed By: Andrew Parkinson.
Written By: Andrew Parkinson.

Starring: Beverley Wilson, Antonia Beamish, Brendan Gregory, Anna Swift.