Not what I was expecting, but still fully kept my attention.

Shadows of the Dead is an interesting movie. Let me start off by pointing out that IMDB categorizes this movie as Horror and Drama. Drama, very much so, horror, very minimal. I consider it as a tragic love story. I mean, to quote John's last line, "All great love stories end tragically."

Throughout the whole movie, I felt it came off as a very low budget, student film but kept my interest.

As with any zombie film, when the victim only gets bitten you know he's going to became infected and become a zombie himself. The approach that is taken with Shadows of the Dead is an interesting one. For one, we don't get to see the inital attack on John and we only see the original zombie in the first 15 minutes or so of the film. What this movie does is show us the progession of a live human being very slowly becoming the undead, a zombie, and how it affects him mentally and physically. This concept is definitely intriguing and makes it a very interesting character study. A couple of reviewers have called this film a "thinking-man's horror movie," and I'd have to agree. It's very much a character-driven story and has great character development, something of which that doesn't exist in any usual B-horror movies. I think the character-driven story and the character development really makes this movie stand out.

I want to clear up the meaning of the title. From reading other comments, some people either don't understand the title for this film or they feel the title doesn't fit. The meaning of the title is this:

When someone becomes a zombie via a bite, they become a shadow of their former selves so in conjunction to this, zombies are the shadows of the dead. They're the undead, only shadows to death.

Some movies have analytical titles and Shadows of the Dead is one of them.

The use of the narrative, of John narrating the movie, I thought was done quite well and was fairly effective. In the movie business, there's this saying that goes something like this: "a character narrating can either make or break a movie." With Shadows of the Dead, I thought it kind of made the movie. With it being a character study, John's narrative gives us the chance to get inside his head and really understand him more and his plight. Another great aspect to John's narrative is it really amplifies the use of the sympathetic and tragic character. With Jennifer it's the same, just not as amplified as much since there's not a narrative from her.

As a zombie movie fan, Shadows of the Dead is a great departure from the usual fare and I liked that. It doesn't hit you over the head with over-the-top deaths; there's a well-edited, very artistic, tasteful sex scene; and you don't get foul language every five or ten minutes or so. Also, it's one of those movies that make you think, at least I think so. I mean, everyone questions death, their own eventual death in particular. Considering some of the dialogue and Jennifer's morals, this movie brings those kind of questions to the forefront of one's mind.





I absolutely adore movies. Even bad ones. A good, bad movie you must admit is great. -Roddy McDowall