The year is 1941, and the world is at war. Captain Martin Stone (Andrew Tiernan) leads an elite unit of American soldiers that has been dispatched to assist a Finnish task force in their fight against the Russians. The Finnish soldiers are led by Captain Niemi (Jouko Ahola) and Lieutenant Laasko (Mikko Leppilampi), and are joined by Australian documentarian Selzman (Mark Wingett) and his assistant (Andreas Wilson). Their mission is to destroy a Russian bunker. However, what they don’t know is that this bunker was the location of Nazi anti-death experiments.

As the solders make their way through the woods, they come under attack from some Russian soldiers and return fire. They managed to stop these forces, but lose half of their own team in the process. However, just as they start to relax a bit, the Russians they just killed start coming back to life and start attacking them again.

The soldiers continue to fight off the undead as they make their way deeper into enemy territory, where Russian soldier Kolya (Samuel Vauramo) helps guide them and fight their new common enemy. However, with each new attack, the team loses more soldiers as they are bitten and join the ranks of the undead. And Captain Stone soon suspects that Captain Niemi was not being completely honest about the true nature of their mission.

This film is in the record books as the most expensive film to ever be shot in Lithuania, and that is certainly evident on screen. The initial battle scene is quite impressive and is up to par with some I’ve seen in big budget Hollywood films. There was obviously a lot of work put into the fight sequences for this film, but sometimes this comes off a little too choreographed. There were a few scenes where it felt like I was watching one of those Universal Studios Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular shows.

War of the Dead is pretty much non-stop action, going from one fight scene to the next, which at times gives the film a video game feel. It’s like they enter the new level, the Captain yells “aim for their heads”. Then, once all the zombies are cleared they get to the big boss zombie that they must defeat before moving on to the next level.

With all that concentration on the action scenes, they seem to have neglected the other aspects of he film. What this movie excels at in action, it lacks in writing and originality. Pretty much every action movie cliche in the book is used here—right down to the top-down slow motion shot of someone falling backwards while flailing towards the camera, with an operatic score in the background. In another scene the captain wants to rescue a young woman, yelling “We are not leaving her here!”, and another soldier replies “It’s not your wife, Stone!”, assuring him that he can get over his dead wife.

As someone who watches a lot of zombie-related films and TV shows, I found the behavior of the undead to be very inconsistent in this film. Sometimes they were mindless zombies just meandering, moaning and eating, but other times, they were like super-soldiers who had all of their faculties. We see them climbing ladders, hand-to-hand combat and leaping from trees. In one of the big boss zombie fights, the zombie takes a break from hand-to-hand combat to hide and do one of those corner of the ring jump from the ropes wrestling moves.

The overall look of War of the Dead started off great. It was bright, crisp and clear, but as the movie progressed, it got a little too dark, and was difficult to see what was going on. However, the special effects remained quite impressive throughout the film. Except for one final shot, all of the explosions, gunfire and blood looked quite natural.

I was really impressed with the audio track on this Blu-ray—it successfully captures every word, growl, shot and explosion. The use of the surround channel was also great—not only is it used to envelop you in the on-screen action, but also allows you to hear things that are happening off-camera.

What’s Included:

Film (1:25:59)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.35:1
• English DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DD 5.1
• English SDH subtitles

DVD:

• 16×9 / Widescreen 2.35:1
• English DD 5.1, English 2.0 Stereo
• English SDH subtitles

Extras:

• Trailer (2:05)

Final Thoughts:

The film quality itself was quite impressive. A lot of money was spent making this film and that is clear in the final picture. While it features impressive action and fight sequences, more work should have been done on the script and acting. (The actor playing the Captain Stone has the worst American accent!)

There were no extras at all on the Blu-ray or DVD except for the trailer. I would have loved to have seen some behind the scenes featurettes or audio commentary.

While I was entertained by the action, I can’t recommend a blind buy—even for zombie fans. However, I would suggest checking this film out by renting War of the Dead.