The Running Dead - Decent, but cheap, zombie film

Okay, so there's more zombie films out there at the moment than the zombies themselves in a George A Romero movie and I'm guessing I've seen most of them. In fact, there are probably some much higher budget ones that are worse than this.  I seem to remember that the first time I watched 'The Running Dead' I enjoyed it enough to buy it afterwards on DVD.  Since then I've watched it twice more in the space of a few years because I couldn't remember the plot.  Now I've seen it again, I realise I probably overrated it a bit originally.

Okay, it's not the new 1979 'Dawn of the Dead,' but, considering zombies are getting pretty tired these days, anything that vaguely breathes even a little bit of life into a rotting corpse of a genre is worth a little look.

'The Running Dead' is definitely a 'low budget' affair.  The story is set a year after your average zombie apocalypse blah, blah, blah and two human survivors seek refuge on a - supposedly - zombie-free island. Of course there are a few zombies (or `walkers' as they call them here) who make in into their little paradise, plus the local human inhabitants have some secrets up their sleeves.

The first you should know is that this film is pretty cheap. You don't see an awful lot of the undead at the best of times, which means that gore is also kept to a minimal for most of the film (the `pay-offs' all come in the last twenty minutes or so).  And, when you do see the zombies, they're about as well made-up as a seventies home movie horror film.  However, what the film lacks in gore it makes up for by its general gloomy atmosphere and great use of scenery on the island (you really get a feel for the place). Plus, for a low-budgeter, the actors all turn in pretty good performances, although I doubt you'll ever have seen any of them in any other production (before or after this).  If I had to compare Dead Season to another zombie film, I'd say it shared a few traits with 'Day of the Dead (1985)' as it shares a lot of the same story beats.

If you can stomach yet another zombie film, I'd keep in mind that this was made on quite a shoestring and give it a go - just be VERY forgiving.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that