The Walking Deceased

The Walking Deceased
Directed by	Scott Dow
Produced by	Derek Lee Nixon Kurt Wehner Philip Marlatt Todd Slater Francis Casanova Tim Ogletree Dave Sheridan
Written by	Tim Ogletree
Starring	Tim Ogletree Joey Oglesby Dave Sheridan Troy Ogletree Sophie Taylor Ali Danielle Garcia Andrew Pozza Mason Dakota Galyon
Music by	Omer Ben-Zvi
Cinematography	Shaun Hart
Edited by	Brett Houston Jordan Harris
Production company	Aristar Entertainment Sheridanscope
Distributed by	ARC Entertainment
Release dates	March 15, 2015 (2015-03-15) (WalkerStalkerCon)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Walking Deceased, originally titled Walking with the Dead, is a 2015 spoof of zombie films directed by Scott Dow and written by Tim Ogletree. It stars Ogletree, Joey Oglesby, Dave Sheridan, Troy Ogletree, Sophie Taylor Ali, Danielle Garcia, Andrew Pozza, and Mason Dakota Galyon as survivors of a zombie apocalypse who attempt to locate a safe haven.

Plot

A reporter ignores safety to cover the chaos of a zombie outbreak; rather aliens or the government being to blame, this all started due to a sushi chef not washing his hands before preparing a meal, gloveless, for dumpster-diving homeless men. She falls victim along the riot control cops.

Twenty-nine days later, some zombies have taken up residence in a hospital; one named Romeo realizes his kind are slowly regaining humanity. He evades survivors Green Bay and Chicago, who meet moronic Sheriff Lincoln (Dave Sheridan), who has woken from a coma; his son Chris accidentally hit a baseball at his head. As a result, he misremembers his son's name as Carl. After learning only LinkedIn remains on computers, Lincoln decides to search for his family; Green Bay and Chicago wish him luck, explaining their group resides in the mall. Lincoln mistakes a child and her father for "clever zombies", killing them and taking their van. Romeo notices an attractive girl named Brooklyn with Green Bay and Chicago, falling for her. Elsewhere, Super Survivor is taking out zombies and looking for other uninfected.

Lincoln investigates his home, finding a note from his son; they've taken shelter at his wife's workplace, a strip club. He arrives to see Chris has continued running the establishment for survivors (but has gained a foul mouth and attitude). Due to the stupid patrons, a zombie infects Lincoln's wife Barbie; Chris kills her mercifully. They head to the mall, meeting the other survivors: Harlem (Brooklyn's deaf sister, whose thoughts appear as texts) and Darnell (who uses a toy crossbow as a weapon and talks about rumors, despite never meeting anyone else). Green Bay has a crush on Brooklyn, but is too stupid to realize she hates him; Harlem and Chris become mutually attracted. Romeo arrives, having unintentionally lead other zombies there; he saves Brooklyn, who finds him attractive. Accepting Romeo is not a threat, the group begins to get along.

Fighting over who's leader, Lincoln and Chicago decide to seek out "the farm", a haven free of zombies. They find the "Safe Haven" farm, owned by a sweet elderly couple, who welcome them warmly. The group initially believe they're hiding their daughter Isaac because she's a zombie waiting for a cure; they later meet her, uninfected, when she attacks Green Bay in her room, having mistook him for a rapist. Isaac explains her parents are old fashioned, never leave the property, and barely use the radio, so they don't know about the outbreak.

Isaac, Green Bay, Brooklyn, Chicago and Romeo get high on marijuana the next day, setting off fireworks that attract zombies. After Chris kills a zombie, Lincoln explains to the couple about the outbreak; however, this goes over their heads as they pay more attention to the drug use than the zombies, who they think are stoners. Harlem snaps at Darnell and Green Bay, revealing she can read lips and that they are idiots.

Green Bay and Isaac take out zombies that make to the house, using weapons and "mind-blowing" questions. Out in the field, the others waste ammunition to attract zombies. Given a gun, Darnell accidentally kills the Super Survivor, who followed the fireworks. Crushed with grief, Darnell ends up pinned by a zombie; Harlem shoots him in the head, rather pleased to be rid of him.

Brooklyn has Romeo bite her so they can be together, only to learn minutes later that a cure has been put in the water supply; she and Romeo spray water into their bite marks, curing them. Romeo admits that he finds Brooklyn attractive but bitchy. Using super soakers and the garden hose, the group spray the zombies with the cure; however, Lincoln still shoots live rounds at them until Chicago stops him.

Later, the survivors and the cured have a party, where Chris finally kisses a happy Harlem. Green Bay and Isaac head to her room for sex, only to hear the radio announce a meteor the size of Texas is heading to Earth.

Cast

• Tim Ogletree as Green Bay, a parody of Columbus from Zombieland.^[1]
• Joey Oglesby as Chicago, a parody of Tallahassee from Zombieland.^[1]
• Troy Ogletree as Romeo, a parody of R from Warm Bodies.^[1]
• Dave Sheridan as Sheriff Lincoln, a parody of Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead.^[2]
• Sophie Taylor Ali as Brooklyn, a parody of Wichita from Zombieland.
• Danielle Garcia as Harlem, a parody of Little Rock from Zombieland.
• Mason Dakota Galyon as Chris Lincoln, a parody of Carl Grimes from The Walking Dead.
• Andrew Pozza as Darnell, a parody of Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead.
• Jacqui Holland as Isaac

Production

Tim Ogletree joined the project when producer Derek Lee Nixon approached him with the idea of a zombie film spoof. Although reluctant to do another spoof film directly after Supernatural Activity, Nixon was able to convince him that they could turn around the spoof genre to make it more clever and be the first to lampoon The Walking Dead. The cast consists of Ogletree's brother and friends, an atmosphere he credited for making the shoot more enjoyable.^[3] Ogletree brought in director Scott Dow. Although they had collaborated on "business stuff", this was the first time they worked together on a film. Dow was fond of two scenes in particular when he read the script: an early scene in which a woman is killed, and a later scene with zombie strippers. Dow said that these scenes were very dark, but the absurd humor helped to mitigate it. He pushed for the film to be as dark as possible, as he wanted to appeal to fans of zombie films, which he knew he could not do without an MPAA "R" rating.^[4]

Dave Sheridan was cast three days before production began. Making sure that there was a camaraderie on the set was important to him, as he believes that it translates in better chemistry in the film. Due to his age and experience, Sheridan had a mentor-like role on the set.^[5] Sheridan was already a fan of The Walking Dead before joining the project. One of Sheridan's friends, a collector, bought one of the hats worn by Andrew Lincoln's character Rick Grimes on the TV series. Sheridan borrowed the hat to use it on the set of The Walking Deceased.^[2] Sheridan said the film was always meant to be more of a parody than a spoof and cited iZombie as proof that zombies in popular culture had "jumped the shark".^[6] Responding to criticism of horror spoofs, Sheridan said that the film focuses primarily on character development instead of throwaway pop culture references. Sheridan also cited the cast's propensity to improvise as another way that the film was different than traditional spoofs.^[2] Filming took place in San Antonio, Texas.^[7]

Release

The Walking Deceased premiered at WalkerStalkerCon on March 15, 2015.^[8] ARC Entertainment released it theatrically on March 20, 2015.^[9]

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 0% of 10 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 2.7/10.^[10] Metacritic rated it 9/100 based on four reviews.^[11] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter called it a "lame satire of zombie movies, whose shelf life expired even before it was made".^[12] Ethan Alter of Film Journal International wrote, "Believe it or not, this witless spoof has even less brainpower than the gray-matter-starved creatures it's ridiculing."^[1] Martin Tsai of the Los Angeles Times described it as "a good-natured spoof" that parodies films too obscure for people who are not hardcore fans of the genre.^[13] Ken W. Hanley of Fangoria rated it 2.5/4 stars and wrote that although the film has many gags that fail, it is still better than studio-funded spoofs.^[14] Jim Kiest of the San Antonio Express-News wrote, "[S]ince the filmmakers didn’t figure out how to make separating zombies from their brains funny, but did get the blood-spurting special effects right, there are stretches when this is just another low-budget horror movie."^[15] Nick Schager of The Village Voice wrote, "There's no more disposable type of comedy than the genre spoof, and no greater example of its general creative worthlessness than The Walking Deceased".^[16] Cary Darling of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote, "Less a send-up of The Walking Dead than a misfired potshot at various zombie productions from Dawn of the Dead to Warm Bodies, it's a slop bucket of lazy writing and uninspired jokes."^[17] Kiko Martínez of the San Antonio Current called it "a flick with zero laughs and no creative drive whatsoever".^[18] Drew Tinnin of Dread Central rated it 2.5/5 stars and called it "pretty forgettable" but charming.^[19] Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine rated it 0.5/5 stars and called it a misogynistic and homophobic film that appeals to "bro" subculture.^[20] Matt Fowler of IGN rated it 4/10 and said that spoofs do not have a place in modern society due to the proliferation of online humor and memes.^[21]

Soundtrack

1. Grantham Coleman - "Jak n Jil"
2. Josh Lippi - "Sirens"
3. FRNKNSTN (Pavel Gitnik) - "NODIB"
4. Kevorkian Death Cycle - "The Promise"
5. Dana Jean Phoenix - "Summer Breakup"
6. Catete Rococo - "Baile De Tinieblas"
7. The Palmer Squares - "No Foam in the Cup"
8. Music by Azlan - "Eradicate"
9. Grantham Coleman - "Bad"
10. Josh Lippi - "Tear Me Down"
11. The Great American Novel - "Anthem for Beer Cans"
12. The Great American Novel - "Bushwick Nights"
13. Troy Ogletree - "Made for This"

References

External links

• The Walking Deceased at the Internet Movie Database