“Raiders of the Damned”
Movie #6: 31-Days of Horror Challenge
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In a post-apocalyptic world, a helicopter carrying a pair of scientists, humanity’s best hope for survival, is brought down by an army of highly intelligent rotting corpses. Dr. Lewis, whose sanity is, at best, questionable, puts together a team of misfit, broken, and disillusioned soldiers, the only ones capable of retrieving the scientists.
This is an interesting twist on the zombie genre, in which only the body rots, the brain remains intact. So we have an army of zombies, created by a biological weapon used at the end of World War III, which destroyed the world and forced the remaining humans underground.
The movie is very slow starting, taking its time to introduce each member of the rescue team and set up the story and backstory. I guess they deserve some credit for that. Some of the “science” in this story was quite bizarre, especially the bit about zombie sex, which ends up being one of the larger subplots. Really, it has the feel of an action/war film that happens to have zombies. And dismemberment, let’s not forget about that.
First listed on IMDb, and in nice large lettering on the cover of the DVD, is Richard Grieco, as Dr. Lewis, a twitchy, toy mouse petting, wack-a-do who seems to be in charge, at least until the soldiers go topside and face the zombie horde. His performance is … manic. I’m not sure if that was his perception of someone on the threshold of insanity, or if he was simply using the performance to mock actors in B-grade flicks. The rest of the cast give decent performances. There is one strong female character of note, the sword wielding, ass kicking Lt. Gena Kane, played by Zoe Quist.
I have a full appreciation for a movie which uses make up and simple camera effects. Unfortunately, it has crappy computer effects, too.
It certainly isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but don’t know that I’d necessarily recommend it.
