Dorm of the Dead (2006)

At Arkham University, campus snobs Clare and Julie (Jackey Hall and "Miss Howard Stern" Andrea Ownbey) have a score to settle with goth chicks Sarah and Allison (Ciara Richards and Adrianna Eder). And when Amy (Tiffany Shepis) accidentally unleashes a campus zombie epidemic, Clare picks Sarah as the perfect candidate to join the walking dead. But Clare and Julie may end up on tonight's menu. Product Description

It does not get much worse than this

Synopsis: Clare (Jackey Hall) and Julie (Andrea Ownbey), the campus snobs of Arkham University, are attempting to seek their own brand of revenge on goth girl Sarah (Ciara Richards) and her friend Allison (Adrianna Eder). When the campus is overrun by zombies, the snobs see a good opportunity to get back at their black-clad enemies. Unfortunately, things may not go as smoothly as Clare & Julie want and they might be the zombies' prey instead. . .

Review: This is about as bad as a zombie flick can get these days. Other than the attractive females that like to take their clothes off, there isn't a single positive element to this stinkfest. It's not funny, it's not scary, it's just horrible. The story, if there is one, makes little sense at all. The script (if there actually was one and it wasn't just a bunch of idiots running around speaking in 90s clichés) is offensively bad, and it's only worsened by sincerely THE worst acting I've ever seen in my life (no exaggeration). I mean, these people make walking look difficult. They make Keanu Reeves look like Laurence Olivier. As the film progresses to the actual 'zombie invasion' (which, strangely, wasn't the first ten minutes when zombies were wandering all over campus), it only gets worse and worse. The direction during 'action' (for lack of a better word) scenes is almost unwatchable. Hell, even during the still shots, the camerawork is pathetic. By the end, it's a grueling experience to get through and I, with my very high tolerance for total crap, barely made it through. This is, without a doubt, one of the worst films I have ever seen and will probably ever see. Avoid at all costs.

Obligatory Zombie Elements:

Cause of Outbreak: The spread of blood of a zombie brought back to the states by some idiot professor. . . or something.

Zombie Characteristics: They're mostly slow, shambling, etc., except for the occasional one with superhuman strength and kung fu abilities.

Zombie Effects: Apparently powdered sugar and ketchup = Zombie faces. Not even remotely terrifying or realistic.

Violence/Gore: There may be quite a bit of zombie violence, but the gore is just ridiculously bad and some of the worst I've ever seen. If strawberry syrup and Fruit Roll-Ups are disgusting gore to you, then this is the film for you.

Sex/Nudity: The film spends the first ten or so minutes acting like softcore porn, but that ends abruptly and the rest of the film is spent mostly clothed.

- - -

Final Verdict: 1/10. Truly, truly painful.

Recommended? I would not wish this curse upon anyone.

-AP3- November 6, 2008

A hopelessly inept film with the worst acting I've ever seen

I'm pretty sure this whole movie idea started out as some dude's bright idea for getting girls to take their tops off for him. I guess he got in over his head and had to actually film something, and so Dorm of the Dead was born. From what I can tell, I'm guessing the casting was done via a newspaper ad that read something like this: "Actors and actresses wanted. No experience necessary. In fact, if you have even the tiniest of acting bones in your body, don't bother showing up. Females should be comfortable exposing their breasts in front of a geek holding a camera." You may think (as I did) that you've seen bad acting before, but you're in no way qualified to speak about bad acting until you see the acting in Dorm of the Dead. The only thing worse than the acting is the directing. Take, for example, the big classroom scene in which one of the girls keeps mocking the professor - as the director cuts back and forth between the two, not only is the audio-visual quality discernibly different, it's pretty clear to me that the girl is in a completely different location.

The film starts out with a guy making out with a couple of zombie girls he happens to meet after having gotten nothing for all the trouble of sneaking into his girlfriend's dorm room. In his defense, though, the zombie makeup and lighting are so bad that it's actually possible he didn't know these girls were zombies. Then we join best friends Allison (Adrianna Eder, who at least makes up for her utter lack of acting skills by being cute) and Goth girl Sarah (Ciara Richards) as they make their way to class, where their weird professor suddenly starts talking about zombies and whips out a vial of zombie blood he collected in Haiti. Super bitch Claire (Jackey Hall, the worst actress on the planet) decides then and there to steal the zombie blood and pour it down Sarah's throat while she sleeps - how she knows that her enemy is suddenly forced to move to the attic of Arkham Hall because her mother's tuition check bounced about thirty stories high, I don't know. It's all downhill from there, although the filmmakers do manage to make Ciara Richards look fairly creepy as she slowly succumbs to her hunger for "something different."

I do have to say that Dorm of the Dead has a pretty rocking soundtrack, but unfortunately it's not loud enough to drown out any of the horrible dialogue. At least the film is barely an hour long, so your suffering is somewhat limited. It would have been even shorter if the director hadn't thrown in a "host" to tell us how scary the story is supposed to be (yeah, right) and regale us with his "horrifying laugh" at the beginning and end. I've seen many a bad movie in my time, but Dorm of the Dead has to be the most atrociously inept film I've ever seen (and yet it's still better than Caress of the Vampire 2). July 6, 2008

The Dorm Wasn't The Only Thing That Was Dead

One of the first rules for a good movie is that the movie must be at least one hour and twenty-five minutes long. This movie was just over one hour. Oh, it also stunk. The acting could have been better, but I have seen worse. The dead people looked as if all they needed was a week's sleep and a trip to a salon or maybe even a saloon. I loved the way it began, but it wend downhill after that. I think a better story could have been written around the first two victims and the "goth" girl. The prima-dona was a bit too sterotypical. The story was not the worst, but the acting and special affects did not live up to the story. I have seen worse, but this movie was one of the better of the worst. Don't buy. Don't rent. Wait for someone to throw theirs out and rummage through their garbage. January 27, 2008

terrible

I agree with every thing reb2014 said the movie is horrible...the acting sucks, and looks like this mess was shot with a camcorder.....I should have known it was bad when I ordered it off here, and never seen it at the store...no story line....no plot, just a hot mess....and the music didn't even fit.....horrible, save your money....rent Dead In The Water(2007)...much better November 9, 2007

A review from Zombie-Nation!

Where do I start?

1) ACTING: The acting was REALLY BAD...Ciara Richards was the only one who could really sorta act, and she shouldn't worry about writing that oscar speech for quite a while...

2) ZOMBIES: The zombies were "Romero shufflers." Every once in a while, a zombie would urprise someone and disarm a hero by knocking the gun from his hand or something totally out of character for a zombie.

3) THE CAUSE: Apparently, the college professor had travelled to Haiti a few years ago and was attacked by a zombie there. He killed the zombie and took some of its blood back to the states. (Don't know HOW that got past airport security!) So he injects the blood into a female student he's banging on the side (who wanted him to leave his wife for her) apparently hoping for some kind of control over her. She dies and becomes a zombie and proceeds to make more zombies, 'cause he's got her locked up in the school basement / parking garage and, amazingly enough, people do just so happen to go down there. And later, a rich bitch character steals the blood and gives it to her classroom enemy, Sarah, causing her to become a part-time zombie. (don't ask) Sarah has black out and such and becomes a zombie here and there. Kinda like a werewolf, I suppose...

4) SOUNDTRACK: There were a few good songs, but the majority of it was heavy metal techno music that I just can't stand.

5) SPECIAL EFFECTS: ABYSMAL. This movie looks like it was filmed with a camcorder. Nobody seems to know how to line up shots of the actors, so the lighting is correct. The zombies were so-so, consisting of white / gray face make up with minor facial applications and the biggest insult was the make up on the Haiti zombie. That particular zombie looked like a black guy wearing white face make up. Haiti zombies (to me) were more mystical and magic and while they did kill, they didn't really eat people. The one in this movie did (go figure). Victims of the zombies were covered with the latest bag of "innerds" from the local butcher shop. Zombies in this movie happen to like foreplay (?) and when you get bit by a zombie, it looks like a hand full of red food colored cole slaw is thrown onto the ground, to look like gore.

6) NUDITY / SEX: This was the only thing this movie really had going for it, and it was so-so and disappointing. Someone just happened to be filming a lesbian porn movie at the school before the zombies attacked and even that was disappointing.

The DVD case had some artwork taken from other zombie ventures, as I have seen some of it before. Is that legal? Also, it had quotes of praise from Joblo.com, Arrowinthehead.com and even Howard Stern himself. Perhaps they viewed a different movie, because I don't see how anyone could recommend this. This isn't even worth a rental. Avoid at all costs. This movie was made by Under The Bed Films and that's EXACTLY where the movie needs to be...under your bed, never to be seen again.

RATING: 1 out of 5 October 31, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...