“Detention of the Dead” is the latest high school horror/comedy that’s been released in a six month span. With a tag line like “When There is No Room in Hell The Dead Go To Detention”, I had to check this film out, Even though, it’s starting to become overkill with horror/comedies being set in a high school setting.
The film is about a bunch of teenagers, who end up in detention and can’t get along with each other. They include a lovesick nerd (Jacob Zachar), a Goth girl (Alexa Nikolas), a snobbish cheerleader (Chirsta B. Allen), her boyfriend (Jayson Blair) that likes to bully people for fun, a stoner (Justin Chon) that’s high and unintelligent football jock (Max Alder). Their day in detention takes a turn for the worse, when they find out that hoards of zombies have taken over the halls of their school. This makes it a much worse experience for them than it already is. Now, they must band together and put all of their personal differences to make it out alive before the zombie take over the school.
Going into this film, I wasn’t too keen about watching another horror/comedy that takes place in high school in short time span, considering that I’ve recently watched “Bad Kids Go to Hell” and the fact that I’m interested in watching Lloyd Kaufman’s upcoming “Return to Nuke Em’ High Vol 1”. I really wasn’t excited about “Detention of the Dead” going in, but I have to say that this was a better film than “Bad Kids Go to Hell”.
One of the main reasons was Alex Craig Mann’s direction. I liked, the way that he’s able to balance all of the horror and comedy elements and make them effective. You had some moments in the film that were downright bloody and moments where you laughing at some of the film’s funnier scenes. It made this enjoyable, as he able to make both of the aspects work well that it works both on a horror and comedy level. The other thing that I liked was that Mann does a good job directing his cast. The acting here was pretty good. He able to get his cast to make their characters have personality in their performances through various quirks and chemistry that the cast has. It made me interested in the characters and it also helped with some of the film’s humor. The acting really helped make this film fun to watch.
The screenplay written by Craig and Rob Rinow (also wrote the play, which the film is based on) does a very good job in creating an entertaining and fun screenplay. One of the reasons that made this film fun, the way that the writers blend elements of films like “The Breakfast Club”, “Night of the Living Dead” and “Shaun of the Dead” into the film’s story. It made the story funny and entertaining instead of dull and lifelessness for ninety minutes. It also made sure that it kept you interested in both the characters development and the story aspects of the film. The other thing that Craig and Rinow did well was to make the characters interesting. This could have been easily a high school clichéd film with the typical characters and boring action. What the writers did here was to counteract that by creating funny scenes that have laughs to it and action that is bloody and intense that it covers up those facts. Never did I get a sense that these characters were from other films or the action was boring. When that combination of clichéd characters and action work in horror/comedies then you’re going to end up having a good time, which I did watching this film.
I had a very good time with “Detention of the Dead”. It’s one of those films, where you’re going to have a fun time whether or not you like the zombie genre. It’s got blood and very effective humor that will keep you entertained.
Review Rating: Four Stars.
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