Uriah43 While en route to Pancevo, Serbia to pick up a dangerous "prisoner" (played by Emilio Roso) some Interpol agents find themselves in the middle of a zombie outbreak and realize that their new mission is now just trying to stay alive. Anyway, for a low-budget, Serbian zombie movie this particular film wasn't too bad. The special effects were adequate, the action was brisk, the plot was decent and I liked the performance of Kristina Klebe (as "Agent Mina Milius") and to a lesser extent that of Ken Foree (as "Agent Mortimer Reyes") and the aforementioned Emilio Roso. But the script wasn't that good and I couldn't stand the role of the insane warrior known as "Armageddon" (Vukota Brajovic). Way too hokey. Be that as it may, while I am probably giving this movie a bit too much credit I must say that I have certainly seen worse zombie movies than this. Accordingly, I have rated this movie a little higher than most reviewers. Having said that however, I should also point out that I enjoy movies in this genre and I appreciate it when the director (in this case Milan Konjevic and Milan Todorovic) tries to make a straight zombie movie rather than something supposedly humorous—or even worse—a film that tries to be "so bad it's good". In any case, I can understand it if others don't share my opinion concerning this specific movie. Again, it may be something that only zombie fanatics can appreciate.

Leofwine_draca The good thing about zombie films is that they're inherently entertaining. Even the really poor ones are often unintentionally amusing, like Bruno Mattei's hopeless Italian efforts. So when it came to watching APOCALYPSE OF THE DEAD, a retitled version of the 2009 film ZONE OF THE DEAD, I was in high spirits. I knew that it was a cheap and cheerful B-movie, I wasn't expecting too much from it, and I was fully prepared to disengage my brain and have a good time.It's worth noting that this is Serbia's first zombie film, although don't let that excite you too much; as with much foreign fare these days, it's content to rip-off American content, inevitably in this case Romero's dead trilogy (which is referenced at numerous points in the narrative). In case the similarities weren't strong enough already, the producers also cast DAWN OF THE DEAD's Ken Foree in a leading role here. I have a lot of goodwill towards Foree for his role in that movie, so I was even more interested in watching this as the credits rolled.It's not really surprising that this film doesn't turn out to be very good at all. It's a classic B-movie in the sense that everything that takes place is familiar from other, better productions; one film that's content to rip-off rather than try its hand at something more original. The story of a zombie outbreak is told on the cheap, as a group of rather uninteresting characters barricade themselves inside a police station and try to figure out what to do about the ravenous creatures outside.Sadly, the predictable storyline is made worse by the two directors, who seem unable to give their film any suspense or real drive. Time and again they have long, drawn-out conversations take place between people while zombies approach in the background. Now, in an effective zombie film, everything would be about the potential menace and the need to get away as quickly as possible from the threat, but here the characters chat away as if they haven't got a care in the world. It makes for boring viewing.The performances are pretty much what you'd expect from an ultra-cheap film of this sort, the characterisation is half-hearted and unrealistic, and the joke-shop effects aren't really worth writing home about either. The film also feels rather restrained, despite one or two unpleasant moments, and even Foree himself isn't very good; he seems tired and subdued, and he isn't a patch on the menacing character he played in Romero's movie. You feel sorry for him, in a way, for wasting his time appearing in such instantly forgettable dreck.

Paul Andrews Zone of the Deadstarts as US interpol agent Mortimer Reyes (Ken Foree) prepares for his last assignment before retirement, he is to escort a prisoner (Emilio Rosso) to Belgrade with assistance from local rookie agent Mina Milius (Kristina Klebe) & his long term partner Dragan Belic (Miodrag Krstovic). While driving through the city of Pancevo the convoy is attacked by a horde of flesh eating zombies, neither alive or dead these creatures kill & devour their victims. The agent quickly realise what they are up against & decide to form an uneasy truce with their mysterious prisoner in order to survive the zombie hordes that infest Pancevo. They decide that their only hope for survival is to make it to the river & steal a boat to sail to safety but with no ammunition the odds are against them making it that far...Also known as Apocalypse of the Dead this Serbian, Italian & Spanish co-production was written & directed by Milan Konjevic & Milan Todorovic who must take the blame for making such a piece of crap, even as far as low budget European zombie films go Zone of the Dead is awful. Both technically & conceptually Zone of the Dead reeks, where do I even start? Zone of the Dead is probably one of those films that you need to endure yourself to truly appreciate how crap it is. The story is never properly explained, from the opening sequence with the skeletons to the random military train of toxic green gas that revive the dead (Return of the Living Dead anyone?) to some of the worst dialogue & moronic character decision making you are likely to see. There's a bizarre scene at the end in which it looks like several dozen zombies are sunbathing in perfect alignment (no, I have no idea what was going on) & instead of going around them Reyes decides to walk right down the middle when some screaming zombie in a gas mask comes along & wakes up his undead mates in a really quite surreal moment that made zero sense then & still makes zero sense when I think about it now. The dialogue is equally surreal, I think it's obvious that neither whoever wrote this or the actor's who had to recite it are native English speakers which leads to baffling line deliveries & silly facial expressions, it just doesn't sound like people talking & the phonetic broken English style the dialogue is delivered is just bizarre to listen to & watch. The only reason I am giving this crap two stars instead of one is one neat reference to the classic Dawn of the Dead (1978) in which a character says he feels they should lock themselves in a shopping mall but Ken Foree scoffs at the idea & says it work! Slightly amusing, nothing else. Also keep watching as the end credits come up, after a minute or two there's an ultra low budget reenactment of the opening sequence from the classic Italian splatter zombie film Zombie 2 (1979).Besides being a terribly written film Zone of the Dead fails to deliver the horror aspects too, whenever there are zombies on screen the camera shakes about violently in a way that I just hate. The zombies randomly change from slow shuffling ones to fast running hyper active ones & they all seem to roar like Lions. No, I don't know why. The blood & gore content is also disappointing, there's some blood splatter, some minor flesh eating, a few gory zombies (one has it's guts hanging out) & a decapitation but it's very quick & the effects are quite poor. Forget about any scares or suspense as this thing is a real chore to sit through, it drags & is so blandly filmed in boring locations that I can barely remember it & I only just finished watching it twenty minutes ago.The IMDb says that Zone of the Dead had a budget of about $1,700,000 which I think is total rubbish, there's no way a film this cheap looking & badly made cost that much. Filmed in Belgrade & Pancevo in Serbia. The acting is poor, most of the local Serbian actor's are forced to speak English which none of them seem particularly good at. The legendary Ken Foree needs a better agent & is wasted.Zone of the Dead is awful, there's nothing else I can say as it has just about every zombie cliché in the book, is badly made & acted & has no sort of coherent logical story to maintain your interest. Zone of the Dead is one of those terrible films that the only thing worse than watching it is watching it again...

KingLongshanks I really love zombie movies, the good ones and the bad ones. This one falls somewhere in the middle. Most zombie movies I see are terrible, and not worth watching once, let alone adding to the collection to watch in the future.I would say this is worth adding to a zombie movie collection. But if you aren't a zombie fan, then this movie is probably not for you.It has about as much drama as a Resident Evil video game, and the acting isn't much better. But it's far better than most of the zombie trash that comes out lately. I would say this movie just barely fits in to the top 50 zombie/flesh eating movies of all time.