9/24/25

Blood Capsule #331

THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING (2000)

By hazy memory recall, I think I read about this flick in Fangoria before eventually renting it at Blockbuster.  I wasn't bowled over by it, so I approached this rewatch with some trepidation.  I had forgotten that it was a Full Moon production.  Thankfully, it has a little more oomph to it than, say, Ragdoll.  The premise centers around a low-budget horror movie being shot at an abandoned hospital.  The crew gets decorous mileage out of the spooky set.  The question is, do I credit The Dead Hate the Living for having hair-raising Spirit Halloween visuals or do I credit the movie in The Dead Hate the Living?  Either way, everything looks scrumptious.  Back to the plot...our raggle-taggle band of budding auteurs unwittingly open a portal to another dimension.  Of sorts.  All you need to know is that the characters contend with zombies.  Said zombies are lead by the ghoulish Mr. Eibon, a bargain basement Rob Zombie that might have been a mad scientist in a former life.

I realize that my synopsis sounds like guesswork, but The Dead Hate the Living is "style over substance."  To be exact, it's all style, no substance.  That isn't necessarily a deal-breaker.  I love the neon lighting, in part, because it's excessive.  The script?  I love a little less.  It takes an interminable 50 minutes to get to the main event monsters.  I will say, I really dug the late Matthew McGrory (a.k.a. Tiny in House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects) as Gaunt, even if I didn't learn his name until the end credits.  I remember reading interviews with him, and he seemed like a cool dude.  Well, I'm sad now.  Great.  I'll wrap it up by recommending The Dead Hate the Living if you don't mind lower-tier Full Moon.  Also, it reminded me of 1997's The Convent, which is better by leaps and bounds.  So take that however you want.



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