The Dead Hate the Living! (2000)

Story Synopsis: A group of budding independent filmmakers break into an abandoned hospital in order to shoot a horror film there. While exploring the building's basement, they find a strange coffin-like device with a corpse inside. Using both the corpse & the device as props in their film, they accidentally open a portal to a demonic netherworld which places the entire hospital in a temporal trap & unleashes an army of zombies. As the creatures ruthlessly slaughter their way through the crew, the survivors must rely on their filmmaking skills in order to close the portal.Film Analysis: In the 1970s, genre filmmaker Benjamin (Bob) Clark made a film called Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, in which a group of actors travel to a cemetery island in order to perform a satanic ritual purely for the fun of it, only to discover too late that their half-hearted approach to devil worship actually works, unleashing an army of zombies which then proceed to eliminate the entire group. Decades later, Clark decided to mount a remake of his own film, but shortly after shooting began, ended up being killed in a car accident. With the prospects of a remake at this point looking rather unlikely, the best way to revisit the material is a low-budget flick known as The Dead Hate the Living!This film is an uncredited remake of Clark's cult flick, written & directed by Dave Parker, a massive genre fan who would later be involved with a certain video game adaptation directed by a certain German director which would be ridiculed by virtually everyone in the horror world (for anyone who doesn't know that, I'm not going to make it that easy for you – do your research!). The only difference between TDHTL & CSPWDT is the location, nature of the zombie plague & competence of the humans involved.As much as I hate to pan a film made by a fellow genre fan, I must point out the flaws (& there are quite a few of them here) in this film. Parker's script assumes that the viewers are massive zombie fans (which I'm one of), leaving the cause of the zombies' aggression unclear (all we get is a line spoken by one of the zombies about how the dead hate the living, which is very unsatisfactory as a piece of exposition). In fact, very little in the film makes sense. The hero of the piece, a budding film director, makes some really stupid filmmaking decisions, here deciding to break into a hospital in order to illegally shoot a film there without first scouring the place to clear out any unwanted squatters, then having the stupidity to use a real corpse as a film prop in his film, only to receive some massive karmic retribution by placing him & his crew into a temporal trap. Other than that, the characters are an okay bunch.The other problem is that anyone who isn't familiar with 1980s' horror films or doesn't even watch any horror films would be unfamiliar with the references shown here. There are nods to John Carpenter (my favourite director), Jack Nicholson, Sam Raimi, David Warbeck (an actor who starred in one of the early 1980s' most legendary Italian zombie films, The Beyond) & Lucio Fulci. These references are quite clever but cannot in themselves elevate what is essentially a routine zombie film.That said, the acting is quite good. The cast give well-rounded performances & get into their roles with a relish that doesn't outstrip their talent. The film's best scene is where two of the survivors decide to infiltrate the zombies by using their makeup expertise to disguise themselves as the undead & mingle with them in order to rescue a fellow survivor. The ending where the hero & his only surviving crew – a female props buyer & love interest – kill the zombies' leader but fail to close the zombie dimension, instead entering it in order to survive, is quite bleak.

... As a yawn - a very big yawn I must be getting old because I have trouble watching two horror films in a row . I'd previously just seen SEVERED which is also known to this reviewer as 28 BADLY DIRECTED TRIFFIDS LATER and had difficulty in staying awake watching THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING . This probably sums up the problem with the movie in that it's fairly inoffensive and unmemorable so makes little impression on its intended market . It's obviously produced to tie in with the SCREAM franchise but that series was far from being the witty post modernist genius some claim it to be so right away you're being influenced by something that wasn't very good to begin with which leads to ZZZZZZZZZZ

Maybe it's because I've seen too many overrated and disappointing wannabe-artistic horror titles lately, but I hugely enjoyed this low-budgeted zombie-splatter flick. "The Dead hate the Living" is unpretentious and enthusiast horror entertainment; obviously scripted and directed by a guy who's obsessed with gory genre classics from the past. By no means this will ever be regarded as a masterpiece but the makers probably couldn't care less about that! They all really wanted to make a movie that brings homage to their childhood favorites and you should try to look at it like this as well. The story handles about a clique of young horror rookies that break into an abandoned hospital to shoot their own independent movie. Naturally this ominous location hides a couple of dark secrets and, through a portal in the catacombs, zombies start to showing up. These living dead are led by a deranged doctor (looking an awful lot like Rob Zombie) who wishes to exterminate all forms of life ever since his beloved wife died of cancer. As you can tell, the plot is all but original and features every possible cliché this genre can suffer from. But if you're not being too skeptical, there's not a dull moment throughout the entire movie. The gore and splatter only kicks in 45 minutes into the movie, but even before this, the story is pure fun with an incredible amount of inside jokes and references towards the oeuvres of Fulci, Romero, Savini, Carpenter, Raimi and others. The digital effects are lousy, but the good old-fashioned gory make-up effects make up for them. We have torn off heads, severed limbs and ripped out intestines. Enjoy!

I picked this movie up out of a bargain bin at the local video store for a rather ridiculously low sum. Maybe it was the Tom Savini ambiguously worded recommendation on the front cover that influenced the purchase. I thought, well, it IS cheap..... how bad can it be? Much as I hate to admit it, I still felt cheated. A good basic premise, the movie within the movie angle. And one that is totally wasted. So many others have weighed in with their opinions, and have dissected the movie quite adequately, so I don't feel the need to reiterate what they have already said so very well. But what I will say is this. I understand that the movie was made to be intentionally bad. I understood most all of the homage references to all the old masters of the horror genre. I understood all that. But when you decide to go down that road with a movie, (making a movie to be enjoyed as camp, that is) it kinda helps if the movie is at least a little bit fun here and there on SOME level. But when the movie lets it all ride on that premise, it would be nice if there was SOMETHING you could hang your hat on. But there is nothing here to redeem it, really. One good line, ( I DID like the line about the director "....if he plays his cards right, a small but obsessive group of people will someday know who he is.") and one mildly amusing scene (In the store....why the purchase of a box of condoms AND a tube of hemorroidal ointment?). And that's just about it. It's not enough. Not by half. It has got to be really discouraging deliberately setting your sights THAT low, and STILL managing to shoot your self in the foot. And if it's not, well, it damned well should be.* 1/2 stars out of ten