31 Movies of Halloween: Day 21

Day 21 - The Dead Next Door


What to say about the Dead Next Door? It's um...well, it's...I would have to say...hmm... Crap. The Dead Next Door is complete and utter crap.

Spectacular DVD cover, though.

I get that this film had a budget the size of a jar of pennies. I get that everybody that worked on this worked for free. I get that it was filmed on Super-8 stock, which is poor, amateur film that is usually relegated to old family home movies.


None of that is an excuse for poor writing and worse acting. Or maybe it's poor acting and worse writing.


The story tells of the aftermath of a chemical-based zombie outbreak that was birthed in Akron, Ohio.

Damn you and your zombalicious rubber.

There are government sponsored "Zombie Squads" that hunt and study zombies, looking for a cure. They run into a cult when they are looking for the notes to the original virus strain. The antidote they create make zombies with human traits that are super pissed to still be alive-ish (if they were injected pre-mortem) or exploded in an oozey mess (if already zombies). In the end, it's no good to be a human.


That's all you need to know about the movie. It was awful. And, since the film was partly financed and helped tremendously by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, I finally have a reason to be upset with them (I solely blame Raimi for Spiderman 3...well, Raimi and Fox).

Never thought I could get mad at this face.

Best Part:
For a crappy, low budget movie, the special effects were pretty good...I guess.

Super fake zombie head goes from this...

...to this!

Also, the fact that multiple characters were named for people heavily involved in the zombie/horror world (Campbell, Savini, Raimi, Romero, and King) was a neat homage.