Horror Movie Review: Gone With the Dead (2024)

Zombies… you hate ‘em, right?

Having well and truly lost their lustre many years ago, it’s hard to get too excited about any zombie film these days, let alone one that takes a more traditional path. Which is exactly what Gone with the Dead does, choosing to focus on the spread of a zombie virus around the US, a small group of friends trying to survive the chaos, and a couple of scientists attempt to find a cure.

It’s as dull as it sounds.

Directed by Justin W. Smith, Bobby McCallen, and Kino McFarland, Gone with the Dead isn’t a terrible film, and does a decent job of telling a straight-forward story and making the walking dead a focal point of it. Except the story it is trying to tell isn’t that interesting, the characters are quite unlikable, and the budget limits how much can be done with the dead. The biggest problem is the pacing though. Goodness is this film slow.

I think there was an attempt to make the spread of the virus around the US feel like something akin to ‘World War Z’, albeit on a much smaller scale. Unfortunately, it ends up feeling like a zombie infection occurring in a local town, a very small town. It quickly becomes clear that while it is a zombie film, the zombie is not the star, which is where two different groups of survivors come in.

Cue a lot of pointless and inane dialogue, repetitive and with very little oomph. I don’t think it’s completely the fault of the writing though as plenty of the actors turn in poor performances. There’s a real lack of energy from some, and far too many times when people just seem awkward on screen.

At over 90-minutes long, it’s far too long too. I’d say it wears out is welcome, but its such a dry watch, it’s hardly welcome at the start. Add in forgettable music, iffy sound in places, a lack of quality effects, and an overall strong sense of cheapness, and you can see why this is one to avoid. Although like the zombies in the film, that’s easy enough to do.