Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Michael Ledo In 1590 Spanish conquistadors using LED lamps discover a cave filled with gold, only to be killed by the malnourished dead. Centuries later John Barnes (Ross Kelly) is celebrating his birthday by driving a VW buggy in the desert and sleeping in a tent, kicking out his former girlfriend (Audrey Anderson) who I thought was hotter than his wife (Stefani Marchesi with a zit). Needless to say someone in the group arouses the underfed third world dead and they never think about running the bones over with their vehicles. The gold and boulders seemed Hollywood light. I really couldn't imagine that girl lifting that huge rock over her head that easily.The film was low budget and SyFy quality with badly written characters who were uninteresting.Guide: No sex or nudity. Brief language, some blood splatter.
david-byrne Like with most American films, this one is corny, narrow and stupid. That might be OK for American audiences who think Saddam was behind 911, but not for educated people. The plot was bug infested and the acting mediocre at best. The script was about as bad as it gets with maybe the exception of Bette Midler in her blasphemous movie The Thorn. I felt sorry for the actors. Whoever wrote the script should have taken a vacation and hired some high school kids who would have done a better job. The effects were nonsense, as was the hero who said he used "Physics 101" to create a Tesla coil. The people who made this film obviously know next to nothing about electronics, or for that matter physics. I gave it two stars because there was one scene where you might get a bit of a fright and it only cost me $1.99 at the local supermarket. If you value what time you have left on earth, don't watch this movie.
bigdarvick It wasn't as awful as lets say, Hide and Creep, but it was close. By the way, Hide and Creep is the worst movie of all time!! Not even as good or as campy as Plan 9 from Outer Space--don't rent it, ever! Special effects department on Army either didn't have much money or they fell a sleep on the job. Interesting skeletons, but really really bad acting. (The skeletons hissed like cats.) Weren't enough naked women running around either to justify the $1.07 rental cost. The guy who played the "professor" was just terrible. Really an amateur. He must've been an investor that demanded a part. This movie may have been good if they only had a new cast, new director, new special effects, new writers, new producers, so on and so forth. Just skip renting it--not even worth the buck at RedBox.
jake4875 I don't know why Army of the Dead works; it just does. It doesn't do anything particularly well, and its story is filled with so many historic inaccuracies that it's almost laughable, but who cares. Army of the Dead is one of those things that horror fans spend weeks longing for, a good cheesy horror flick that doesn't take itself too seriously and still manages to deliver some laughs and entertainment
whether it means to or not.In the film, a group of ex-college students all go out on some sort of off-roding expedition as a birthday present to some dude
not my idea of a good time, but some people get a bone for that stuff. Turns out the good professor has an ulterior motive for dragging all of his ex-students out into the Mexican desert, miles away from civilization. He's got half a treasure map in his possession
a treasure map that will lead him to Anasazi gold in Mexico
despite the fact that none of the Anasazi ever lived in Mexico. Anyways, the genius professor meets up with a group of white dudes who have the other half of the map
and then they go into a cave full of Anasazi treasure
sadly, when they touch the gold they awaken an army of the dead. The army of the dead is led by the ghost of Vasco Da Gama for some reason
even though he never set foot in North America, and his creepy, skeleton ass leads a horde of Army of Darkness-style skeletons across the empty canyons and hills to take their revenge on the greedy intruders
which just happen to include the professor's unknowing graduates who are warming themselves next to a fire with bottles of tequila, lots of them. Will they survive the night or be shot to death with flaming arrows and ripped apart by swords? Joseph Conti does an alright job of directing and he appears to have figured out a way to work past an obviously measly budget
rent a bunch of cars and drive around the wilderness. Then have your actors camp out underneath the stars, get drunk, and have relationship problems. It's not the most exciting thing in the world, but Conti works with what he has very well. Within the confines of a small budget and some poor special effects, Conti manages to create a fairly interesting film with a serious tone and some moments of solid storytelling, which, though factually inaccurate in a laughable manner, still manages to keep the film from sinking into the realm of straight to DVD garbage.The acting in the film is typical low-budget garbage and no one really stands out as anything special. The characters walk around and deliver their lines as if acting is something new to them, but no one ever gets bad enough to ruin the film.The most compelling aspect of the film is its low-rent special effects. Normally I hate cheap CGI, but for some reason, it actually worked in this film. The special effects are very reminiscent of the skeleton work in Army of Darkness and there are quite a few of them. Sometimes there is some telling doubling and synchronization of the army of skeletons, but for the most part, when they are by themselves, they look pretty cool. The CGI gore even had a nice level of cheese factor as it sprayed nicely. It still looks fake as hell, but the kind of fake that seems to have some effort behind it.Army of the Dead isn't anything truly groundbreaking but it is a nice diversion from the piles and piles of truly horrible garbage that get foisted upon the horror-loving public. It does a few things well, and avoids doing anything truly terrible
besides not knowing that Vasco Da Gama never made it to North America.Final Synopsis: If you're Jonson' for some horror, Army of the Dead will do in a pinch. It's not the type of movie anyone is going to buy, but it is good for a few laughs. Give it a rent if you got nothing else better to do than watch the ghost of Vasco Da Gama cut down college kids.Points Lost: -1 for some skeleton doubling and synchronization in the CGI department, -1 for some bad acting, -1 for some filler scenes of cars driving, -1 for being laughably inaccurate in the history department Lesson Learned: Never follow anyone out into the desert. When sleeping with a scandalous slut in the vicinity, always look under the sleeping bag before you crawl into bed.Burning Question: How hard is to look up Vasco Da Gama and find out he never came to North America? That's almost unforgivably lazy.Army of the Dead 6/10