Very well executed

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Clearly this low budget, regional zombie film hasn't pleased everybody, but, honestly, what did they expect? Something of this nature is, more often than not, pretty crude, amateurishly acted, and downright silly. But that's part of the charm of these efforts. Filmed over a four year period, J.R. Bookwalter was given uncredited assistance by a certain major Hollywood director, and also works here with some of his associates. The gore is plentiful and often quite fun, and funny. A criticism I see here is that "The Dead Next Door" is boring, and sure, it's not the most exciting zombie story one will ever see. Bookwalter and company may not be that technically proficient, but one quality they undeniably possess is heart. That's what endears films like this to this viewer. In any event, any production like this that manages to get a shot of zombies trying to climb the fence to the White House lawn is worthy of *some* respect.Zombies are now over running the world, and a special "zombie squad" is created, consisting of jut jawed Raimi (physically portrayed by Pete Ferry, who's dubbed by somebody whose voice you'll immediately recognize), Mercer (Michael Grossi), Kuller (Jolie Jackunas), and Captain Kline (Floyd Ewing Jr.). They end up required to make the trek to a distant location where a serum devised by a Dr. Bow (Lester Clark) just may be the key to reversing zombie symptoms. In their company is a wack job scientist, played by Bogdan Pecic, who's clearly a nod to the memorable Dr. Logan of "Day of the Dead".As I said before, the acting may not be that competent, but like so much here, it is good for hearty laughs. The characters aren't that bright, though: witness what happens to Richards (Scott Spiegel). The story does have its comfortably familiar elements, such as a cult dwelling in the woods. This particular cult seeks to protect the zombies for their own demented reasons; Robert Kokai is good as their leader, Reverend Jones. A fair amount of the cast were also crew members, and it definitely looks like they had a good time making this. Naming some of the characters after famous people is rather an obvious thing to do, but some fans may get a kick out of that.Overall this is solidly entertaining - no more, and no less - for living dead cinema junkies.Seven out of 10.

Zombies are everywhere. So who are you going to call? The Zombie Squad! These lucky paramilitary units track down and kill zombies so we can live safely. Unfortunately, the biggest hazard of the job isn't death -- it's undeath.The creation of the film is just as interesting as the film itself. For example, producer and casting director Jolie Jackunas came on board early because she and Bookwalter had a mutual friend in Sam Raimi. Exactly how Bookwalter knew Raimi remains unclear, as Bookwalter is from Ohio and had no prior film experience. Jackunas had been involved with "Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except" (1985), a Raimi-Spiegel-Campbell adventure, so that makes sense. (Also in this Raimi mix, though lesser-known, was Josh Becker, the director on "Thou Shalt" who was also connected to "Xena" and other projects.)The movie was produced and shot over nearly four years, in Akron, Ohio. Although unsure of the exact figure, in an interview director J. R. Bookwalter estimated that the film cost $125,000 to produce. The low budget is evident, particularly because the cameras used were Super-8. But honestly, Bookwalter did more with $125,000 than others have done with 100 times as much.Perhaps this film is an acquired taste. Gregg Dumont at Killer Reviews is not a fan, saying that only a tiny percentage of people will enjoy it. Maybe he is right. Maybe not. If it helps, you can view it as a Sam Raimi peripheral project. Raimi produced it, Scott Spiegel appears in it and Bruce Campbell does voiceovers for two of the characters. So while this is the child of J. R. Bookwalter, Raimi and friends had their fingers all over this one.The plot is nothing we have not seen before and the acting merely average. However, the characters are great and really funny (particularly the doctor with the hat that says "Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken"). Some people might get turned off by the voiceovers, but sometimes that is necessary (and they have since been fixed on the Blu-ray). This is independent film-making at its finest.If you like "Return of the Living Dead", you will probably like this movie. It is not a very serious take on zombies, but they are completely serious with the makeup and special effects -- some of the best you will ever see in a low-budget film. The creatures, the blood and everything are amazing. In one scene, they behead a zombie -- not only is the headless corpse awesome, but then they top that by showing the head chew on and swallow a finger, having it slide out through the neck! You do not find effects of this quality even on the best horror films.Do not listen to Gregg Dumont -- give this one a chance. Not all zombie films can be big-budget George A. Romero blockbusters (although this film does pay homage to them in the opening scene). Some have to be low budget, and some have to be funny, and some have to take zombies less seriously. This is that film, and if you like things like "Cemetery Man", you might really enjoy the mood of this one.As far as the Blu-ray goes, the 2K scan seems somewhat silly because the original film was not a format that can be cleaned up all that well. (Again, it is the Super-8 home video format.) Still blurry even with the touch-ups, it has that grainy quality that made watching horror on VHS fun. The original voices are back, rather than the dubs from Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi. This is a bit odd for those used to the dub, but it is a definite improvement to the film's purity.There is an all-new audio commentary with three of the producers. They are very careful to only say "Master Cylinder" rather than the financier's real name. There is a second new commentary with makeup artist David Lange. A new tour of Akron. A new interview with Scott Spiegel. And many, many other features. All told, it would be hard to count how many hours of bonus material is on this 2-disc set from Tempe Entertainment.

It's not to bad, you can tell the movie is old just by the effects and the picture and the acting, but actually it wasn't all that bad. The zombies were more funny that scary, and it almost made me chuckle a few times because they act sort of funny, running around mumbling, the gore was good, I like when the guy got his throat bitten out, and when the one police officers fingers got bitten off reminded me of a scene from the remake of Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes" which was my favorite part in that movie, so it was kind of cool to see a similar scene in this movie. To be honest I'm not done watch the movie right now, and it seems nothing will really change my review on this movie cause it's almost over. But if you like horror movies, and zombies and gore, then check out this movie, I'm not got promise you'll like it because everybody's taste in movies in different, but all I know is I enjoyed it. So feel free to check this movie out.

it only gets a 1 out of ten because you cant select a zero! i have never felt compelled to comment on a film before but was so disappointed in this film that i had to register and say my piece.i first heard of the film years ago, lots of hype about it being a great little indie zombie film (i am a huge huge fan of the genre), then when i eventually got hold of a copy it was well packaged and the cover looked good......after the opening sentence i had already made up my mind that this film was complete and utter tripe but i still gave the movie a chance.i know that the budget was modest but $80.000 is what it cost sam raimi to make the evil dead (though tatty - a real classic) and he rented proper equipment and had some decent actors, and also showed some directorial flair.this movie was just completely classless and does little in homage to the greats such as carpenter, raimi and romero which it so shamelessly rips off from and it is pretty embarrassing for them to be noted as jr bookwalters inspiration for the film as this really isn't saying much.no wonder producer raimi wont put his name to this abomination.some elements of the film could have been good ideas, the original script for romeros day of the dead had an army of trained zombies but due to budgetary constraints had to be cut - a shame because it would have been executed infinitely better than in this film.in summary i was expecting to view a little known jem of a film but was left feeling annoyed that id been duped. if you want zombie classics, re-visit the dead trilogy(now quadrilogy)or evil dead films - don't waste your time and money on this.