Goal of the Dead - A film of two halves (literally)

It’s always hard to take a film seriously when its whole premise is based – loosely – on playing off another film’s title.  It takes the ‘...of the Dead’ label and applies it to what’s supposed to be France’s answer to Shaun of the Dead.

It’s about a high-profile football team, travelling to a smaller club’s home ground in rural France, but – guess what – a zombie outbreak happens.  Cue everyone running for their life.

For a start it’s not as funny as Shaun of the Dead.  Although that’s not to say it’s totally dull.  There are some good gags here and there, but the film is stretched across nearly two hours and there’s not enough humour in there to really call it a ‘comedy.’

It has horror though.  It can get pretty gruesome here and there, almost as if France has fused Shaun of the Dead with a 28 Days Later type feel. 

And it’s set over ‘two halves’ – just like your football match.  The first half of the film is basically all ‘scene-setting.’ We get to know the characters etc.  Then, on the second half, all hell breaks loose (which is probably what you’re watching the film for in the first place!).  So, if you’re only after the gore, you could probably skip the entire first half and still understand the film and every character’s motivation perfectly.

So, if you’re looking for basically a French zombie film that’s high on gore then you could do worse than this.  I saw it more as a straight horror than a horror-comedy hybrid.  However, we’ve already had ‘La Horde’ which is also just a straight ‘infected’ style French zombie film which does the gore, the tension and the action a lot better.

Fans of football may like to see the ‘beautiful’ game included in a zombie movie, but otherwise this will probably be more remembered as a ‘one trick’ film that goes on a little too long.  It’s not bad, just doesn’t cover enough new ground to make it that good, either.  Plus I didn’t approve of the final ‘action’ scene and how it was played out.  It just didn’t work for me.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights