Powerful

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

War Of The Dead is further proof that I'll watch any old tosh if it features the potentially awesome combo of Nazis and zombies. A US/Lithuanian/Italian co-production, this shoddy mess of a movie sees a platoon of American and Finnish soldiers come up against the results of a German 'anti-death' experiment: snarling super-zombies. What follows is a virtually plot less series of dull battle scenes between the living and the undead, all of it shot at night, most of it very hard to discern, and none of it in the slightest bit scary or exciting, despite the urgent music and frantic camera-work trying to convince otherwise.The only remotely interesting aspect about the whole thing—a strange clockwork device stolen by one of the soldiers—is subsequently ignored without any explanation of its relevance or purpose.According to IMDb's trivia, James Van Der Beek was originally slated to play Captain Stone. When Van Der Beek bails on a project, you know you're in trouble

In World War II, Finnish troops and American troops attempt to investigate a Nazi bunker that lies inside Germany.After spending some time with Wikipedia, I see that there was little historical support for the idea of American and Finnish troops to be operating together against the Germans. America was the ally of the Soviet Union. Finland had been fighting the Russians off and on for about 150 years. During most of World War II, the Finns were allied with the Nazis based in Norway and Germany against their longtime enemy, Russia.So, the setup of the film is nonsense.The 'action' scenes are boring or inept.As a zombie film (the bunker in Germany supposedly contained experiments to re-animate the dead), this is a bust. The main clue that a walking biped was a zombie was 'did we not already kill that one?' or words to that effect. A few zombies had glazed over eyes. The gloomy, heart wrenching threat one expects from the Zombie Apocalypse environment was absent.-----Scores-----Cinematography: 3/10 Dark. Poor camera angles. Colour palettes so reduced as to be only slightly different than greyscale.Sound: 4/10 Horrible accents. Background music was not an asset.Acting: 0/10 Terrible performances.Screenplay: 0/10 There was a screenplay? Where was the exposition of motivations? There was a lot of stilted dialog that generated confusion. The joint group just drifted from one disaster to the next. The film seemed more of an elimination derby of nameless characters that were impossible to care anything about.

During WWII the Germans develop an anti-death potion or something which not only revives the dead but lets them jump 30 feet into the air and that kind of thing. So if you were hoping for shambling Nazi zombies, like I must admit I was, then you're out of luck. After developing this war-winning technology they leave it in the woods for the Fins or Russians to find. Which seems pretty plausible.This movie is full of action sequences shot in such a way that all you can see is the person firing their gun. This is boring to watch and since none of the characters are gifted with a personality there's not a whole lot else to sustain your interest. I was really hoping the mechanical device would open to reveal a plot or something but sadly it didn't.

Don't be fooled by the title or the plot summary, both of which are typical of many low-rent sci-fi and horror vehicles that populate the genre market. War of the Dead is a surprisingly effective low-budget thriller. Though not the first film to combine Nazis and zombies, War of the Dead is perhaps the most effective. Direction is taut and rarely succumbs to camp, and a genuine sense of dread overlays the picture from beginning to end. Character development is paramount, and while the acting isn't always great it is generally competent. Special effects aren't necessarily cutting edge, but they are good enough and the zombies are effectively realized and quite threatening. Indeed, these zombies are rather unconventional examples of the species, and exhibit a certain degree of intelligence to go along with their enhanced strength and resiliency. And unlike many zombies, the ones in War of the Dead are fast and there's none of the traditional "zombie shuffle." Of course this isn't a perfect movie--the aforementioned lack of funds does make everything a little rough around the edges, and like many films of its kind the director makes the mistake of shooting many of the action scenes in the dark so that it's sometimes hard to discern just what is going on. But overall War of the Dead is a fine production, and one that genre fans would be well-advised to check out.