Gang of the Dead (2006)

[Flick James]

Wow, this was on cable last night, and I saw it and figured I had to check it out, I mean, the description said “rival gangs combat zombies in Los Angeles.”  How could I not?  I am ashamed to say I actually sat through this pile of crap, getting up only briefly to tend to my child for ten minutes and then catching the last five minutes.  I wish I could say it was bad in a good way, but alas no.  How big of a pile was this?  Let me count the ways.

The opening scene shows a bunch of homeless people gathered in what’s probably the Los Angeles River channel, all with the exact same cliché “homeless person makeup.”  I swear they all must have had the exact same pattern of dirt smears in the exact same amounts, like they were done on an assembly line.  Next, a large meteor, carrying the zombie disease of course, comes crashing down on the overpass in a really bad CGI nightmare, which was probably the most expensive bit in the film. 

I won’t say that the film did not attempt character-development, it was just that the dialogue was so bad that it just never happened.  The two rival gangs, one black and one Hispanic, used every gang movie cliché used since the early 90’s, but of course have to grudgingly team up to fight the zombie homeless people who emerged from the meteor crash.  Not only was the dialogue boring and terrible, but the sound was so bad that the soundtrack music bled over it so badly and in some cases you could barely make out every other word.  I couldn’t believe that.  I mean, cheesy CGI is one thing, but did you hire a 6-year-old to work the mixing board?

The ending is the icing on the cake.  After everyone is killed except the two girls, one a member of the black gang and one an undercover narc that was with the Hispanic gang, and it looks like all the zombies may have been eliminated, they emerge from the industrial warehouse to see a shower of CGI meteors pelt downtown Los Angeles, really just a shot of the L.A. skyline at night with god-awful CGI meteors raining down and you see the flash of the impacts.  Wow.  The final shot is the two girls (or maybe just one of them) screaming “Nooooooo!”

I just can’t believe I watched as much of it as I did.  I could watch They Live many times, but I’ll be passing on the this one should it come around again.

[Skull]

I have not seen it, but I did see the movie on netflix and said... hehe, nope...

Although I might if the flick if its was The Warriors (1979) meets Dawn of the Dead (1978)

[SPazzo]

Sounds like the best part was the description.  rival gangs combat zombies in Los Angeles.  That makes it sound great.

I'm now tempted to watch this.  By the way, did you see the cover?:
 

and compare that too:



I kinda noticed a similarity...

[Jim H]

Gangs of the Dead is at least watchable.  That makes it about a billion times better than most of the gangsta-type films.  Not great or anything, but watchable.