Review: Confinement has long been a plot device of the horror genre, most particularly in the zombie genre, and it is hard to get more confining than a maximum security prison. This is the scene for Dead Men Walking, one of the latest from the folks over at the Asylum production company and the creation of director Peter Mervis and screenwriter Mike Watt.

Incidentally boys...I love the title.

Watt, of course, is well-know for his writing in genre magazines such as "Film Threat" and "Cinefantastique." You may know director Peter Mervis from knock-off films like When a Killer Calls and The Da Vinci Treasure, each of which sounds oddly familiar, and yet, just a little bit different.

Mervis and company, sadly, fail to tread on any particularly new ground with their attempt at the zombie genre either.

The film does start out solidly enough. Travis (Brandon Stacy) is forced to fight off a handful of zombies with noting more than a boomstick. After saving himself, however, he finds the local law enforcement officials are not sympathetic to his plight and he is sent up for several counts of murder. I liked the premise and as a result the film gets off to a pretty decent start.

Fast forward some undefined amount of time and Travis is in prison and showing himself to be a little worse for the wear. He's on his way to the infirmary when the lovely Samantha Beckett (Bay Bruner) of the CDC makes her entrance to investigate Travis's claims of a viral infection turning his alleged murder victims into monsters.

Well, needless to say we find Travis's claims to have merit and the result is about 45 minutes of blood-soaked, gut-chewing mayhem. Beckett allies herself with a con-man while the prison warden, his no-nonsense chief guard and the rest of the corrections officers try to hold the fort.

You could nitpick the particulars of this film to death. Murder trials don't happen over a weekend, so why does it take so long for Travis to turn? Why would the CDC send only one person to investigate a potential outbreak? Why do the prison guards all seem to be armed when we know that's not how prisons really operate? Why do they have star-shaped patches on their uniforms rather than badges? The real problems here though are the script and the acting.

No one is convincing in their roles. I know zombie films don't lend themselves to awards from the Academy, but we've seen quality acting in recent films like 28 Days Later and the re-make of Dawn of the Dead (which happen to be the two films this one is trying its hardest to be like). Combine that with a script that is either one long series of screams and cuss words or awful attempts at inspiration and attempts a political/social commentary that cannot possibly live up to Romero standards and you have a horror film no amount of gore can save.

That said, the gore in this film is the highpoint. You get a series of head shots that don't spare a drop of blood or an ounce of brain matter. There are several entrail extracting scenes that borrow a page from the Night of the Living Dead playbook. And the film doesn't get sentimental on us either. The warden had his wife and kids visiting him when the outbreak hit. Let's just say at least one of his progeny becomes a kiddie meal.

The film was backed by a solid metal score that reminds one of the prison riot in Natural Born Killers. I'm not a fan of that particular genre of music in general, but I felt it worked well here.

In all I would say Dead Man Walking is, at best, a zombie film that started off good but ran out of steam about half-way through. You'd be better served to pop in your DVD of the aforementioned 28 Days Later or the Dawn re-make. I hereby sentence Dead Man Walking to the bargain bin of your local video shop.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age