Foreverisacastironmess And there's your hook, it was the crazy Christian nut-job that brought about the supernatural angle when she cursed the poor innocent toddler with the force of her demented religious fervour - it's brilliant! Well no I can't lie, it's not, but it does fit the surreal tone of this picture, come on! Okay, so Rise of the Dead is a very low-grade and poor quality film, that's a given, but to me it's nowhere near dreadful. Budget constraints should be pretty obvious to anyone who watches the opening scene only, but when you consider what it had going against it budget-wise, and how it was made in the mid-2000's, the final result in my opinion isn't all that terrible. In its own modest and well-intentioned way I even find it a little sweet and endearing. It wears its flaws so honestly that I can't help but forgive them. Other 'better' low-budget horror movies that try to hard to hide all the shortcomings and have still looked cheaper and had much worse acting are a lot more intolerable than this. And for what they were the performances in this were hardly awful, I had no problem at all where the acting was concerned. I thought both lead characters were good, Stephen Seidel was so damn cute and managed to make his possessed act different then everyone else's at the end, and according to him when I communicated with him on his Youtube channel they had a blast making it. And Erin Wilk who I thought was very natural and cool also spoke on the commentary track of how everybody got along and got into a fun groove on the 22 day shoot and I can believe it, there is a kind of basic energy and enthusiasm to this movie. I think sometimes when there's a positive and productive atmosphere behind the making of a film it can translate a bit onto the final work, and it was nice to see some actors who weren't just going through the motions, but were trying to pull it all together. I love the downbeat tone and small-town feel of it, and also how it's actually so short that it's not even movie-length and seems more like an extended TV episode or something, it's a very quick watch and easy to get into. Of course I wish it could have gone on longer and had more much-needed development of its thin story, but it's very well-balanced and compact the way it is - it's slow and never exactly gets going all that much, but I really enjoy it, I find it a very watchable and compelling ghost horror story, and one that even shows a little originality at points. Specifically the unsettling and outrageous finale which depending on your point of view, features both male rape and paranormal incest! And I liked that scene, I thought it was daring and maybe even a little controversial. And rather than concentrating on the more perverse implications of the scene, I found it almost tender and quite moving, to me.. It's creepy and weird yes, but it does make sense for the story and provides a satisfying conclusion. The movie really should have been named "Ghost Baby", which is a little lame, but in the story only one dead person does indeed rise, and although the way the possessed act is very zombie-like, they're definitely not the undead and no more than one person ever becomes a murderous babbling fiend at a time. So ya know, don't go into this expecting a zombie picture and just try and like it for what it is, cos lord knows there's freaking legions of them out there, and many of them are of a far worse quality than this one is. It ain't brilliant or really anything close, but I think it's a decent, strong example of what can be done in terms of mood if nothing else, on an extremely low budget. All in all this twisted tale of the angry soul of a lost child who wants nothing more than to be with his mother is an interesting and different horror movie that's deserving of a little more respect and consideration than what it ended up with. Cheers, bye-bye!

bababear Laura is a waitress in a small town in Ohio. It's not bad enough that she's in a dead end job with no advancement prospects. One night a local man, a respected attorney, goes mad and attacks her.With the passage of time the attacks against Laura and her friends and family increase in frequency and intensity. Finally she learns the cause of these attacks: the child she gave up for adoption died in a tragic accident, and his vengeful spirit won't rest until his revenge is complete.OK. Awesome concept. Lots of promise. The Ohio locations are new to our eyes. So what went wrong?The script is, to be generous, untidy. And the direction simply cannot rise to the occasion. Scenes that should have been terrifying are simply puzzling. And the ending, with Laura pregnant and preparing to give birth again- presumably this time she'll keep the child, so he won't grow up to be a demon- is simply dumbfounding. Not profound, just profoundly dumb and anticlimactic.In a better world this screenplay would have fallen into the hands of a director like John Carpenter or Tobe Hooper who could reshape the story and bring coherence and a sense of menace. They could have used the same cast- I'm one of those nuts who thinks that with a strong strict an effective director can get a good performance out of almost anyone- and same locations. I'd be content seeing it remade on an equally small budget.The people behind the camera are far from untalented. Unfortunately, they simply bit off way more than they could chew. But I do commend them for making a workmanlike effort.

Nywildcat1 As I've stated in earlier reviews, all I look for in a low budget film is a good story line or at least writing that makes sense. I don't want to blame everything on the writer, since who know what happened behind the scenes, but you would think that at least over a 100 people read the script and could point out the errors.Here's the story line: An adopted baby dies by an accidental gunshot, and decides to take revenge on everyone in his quest to be reunited with his birth mother, by possessing the living and killing everyone that stands between him and his birth mother. Sound interesting? It was, until it went horribly awry.I have to commend real critics who are able to critique a movie without giving anything away ( Siskel and Ebert, I salute you), but I'm not yet at that level. So in order to properly express my thoughts, I have no choice but to reveal some spoilers.********************SPOILER ALERT BELOW******************************* The movie opens with a mother obviously possessed by something and murdering her husband (it's expressed previously that they had lost a young child). Next scene, a woman is attacked by someone else that also seems possessed, but the assailant is killed by the young woman's boyfriend. Boyfriend is held for questioning overnight (though she isn't). She gets attacked again in her home (after gratuitous nude scene), and the new assailant (again obviously possessed) is killed yet again by her recently released boyfriend. Cut to a scene in the police station that begins the nonsensical writing.The cop reveals that this is the third murder in connection with her. Laura, of course, raises an eyebrow and asks "third"? The cop then proceeds to tell her about the opening murder scene and says he did a background check on Laura and it turns out that the baby she gave up for adoption was the child of the mother from the opening scene. He found all this out with a phone call. Which would have been impossible for him to find out, as Laura's shocked response and non-recognition of the adoptive mother's name clearly points out. If the adoption had been an "open" one, she would have known who ultimately wound up with her baby (it is later revealed that the child was placed with foster parents first, who she also didn't know about. More on that later). In a "closed" adoption, the officer could have found out that Laura gave a child up for adoption, but he would never known to whom, as records in a closed adoption are sealed and can only be opened under extenuating circumstances, and even then that would be highly difficult. So there was no way he would be able to find out that information, let alone make a link to Laura.Laura, of course, starts investigating on her own, breaks into the adoption agency (which apparently doesn't have an alarm) and tracks down the original foster parents. A couple of religious fanatics that don't know who Laura is. Apparently Laura's child is taken away from them for being "too Christian", though exact reasons are never given. When the child is taken away from the foster mother, she curses him, which leads to the entire plot. But why curse the child? If the foster mother has this kind of power, why not curse the people who took the child away? Why not everyone who's against your religious convictions? It would have made more sense if she were a Satanist or something (to add to the supernatural element). Anyway, she also winds up getting killed.Moving on. Apparently this kid is really busy and possesses a lot of different people. Her own mother included (who was totally miscast. She was an incredibly beautiful woman who was obviously only a few years, if not the same age, as the lead and was probably hired on her looks). Now here's the rub: everyone who survives being possessed knows exactly who they were possessed by. This is incredibly evident when the original cop mentioned above was also possessed. After he attempts to kill Laura, he heads to the jail to release the boyfriend, saying he now realizes what's going on and he's not guilty. Ummm, if you now know what's going on, where's the reinforcements to protect Laura? I understand that you can't tell the rest of the police force what's going on (who would believe you), but you do nothing? If you have the ability to unseal adoption records with a single phone call, you can certainly try to do something to resolve the situation.Now here comes the sickest part of the movie, which, if the rest of the movie lived up to it's premise, this would have been brilliant. Laura figures out that the only thing that the spirit of her baby wants is to be reunited with it's birth mother (which is contradictory, since all it seemed it wanted to do was kill her throughout the entire film). Her boyfriend (who is not the original father) becomes possessed as well after being released from prison, and while attempting to kill her, Laura says something to the effect of "come to Mommy. Mommy loves you" which seems to calm him. What does she do next? Decide to have sex with her possessed boyfriend (thereby actually having sex with her son) in order to become pregnant again. Sick and incestuous and could've had a lot more impact if the rest of the film wasn't so poorly thought out.This movie had the potential to be a great little horror film, but turned out to be an example of when a great idea is poorly executed. I only wish that someone had the resolve to point out all the flaws in the script prior to filming. Still, it's worth a view if only to see what could've been.

Horrorible_Horror_Films For a crappy low budget movie, not bad. But it's still a crappy low budget movie. I appreciated the plot and story. This movie actually had one, most horror movies of this type usually barely even try. I also was actually impressed with the special effects, for the budget, they did a good job, didn't look stupid.This movie also had those two low-budget horror movie mainstays: Gore and tits! I liked the blood and guts gore, and I also liked the nudity. That is basically the whole point of any horror movie anyway. That is basically the whole point of any horror movie anyway. That is basically the whole point of any horror movie anyway.