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Deadlands 2: Trapped (2008)
Made as a follow up to the original “Deadlands: The Rising” from 2006, “Deadlands 2 isn’t directly in conjunction of the original story (outside of the zombies) in kind of the same way that Romero’s zombie films are in the same world but really aren’t connected story wise. The film does a reboot for the sequel as the film starts out without mention of the characters from the first film. Although at first I was a bit disappointed by this, it was clear that this film wanted to go in a different direction and tell a different story which was fine with me.
“Deadlands 2" starts out with Government officials contemplating some sort of a crisis situation, which basically consists of the idea that zombies are killing people. This isn’t specifically mentioned at first, but is explained later on in the movie. I won’t give it away here, but I wasn’t expecting the zombie outbreak to be because of the reason given in the film and I enjoyed the explanation. It makes the movie different from a lot of other zombie movies out there by taking the purpose in a different direction. Although I can’t say for sure I’m thinking director Gary Ugarek was attempting to make this movie centered more around politics in our current climate just like he was doing in the first film. In the review I wrote back in 2006 for “Deadlands” I said that it was pretty clear that Ugarek was inspired quite a bit by George Romero and that continues here with the political undertones the film takes on. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion considering the film then could be a lot more than another pointless independent zombie film.
The most impressive thing about “Deadlands 2" can’t be discovered unless you’ve seen the first film. Although the original film was a good one to me, it’s clear that Ugarek has improved over leaps and bounds with his filmmaking. “Deadlands 2" is quicker, more slick, with some impressive cinematography. There are some artistic shots in the film, which I was laughing at (in a good way) at times. Considering the majority of the movie is shot in an actual movie theater it’s going to draw comparisons to “Demons” but the movie is actually nothing like that at all. It’s still a great shooting location and that’s something I give Gary credit for in making both of these films. There’s always a ton of great locations and I give him credit for attempting to make a zombie film that’s not in the middle of nowhere or shot on someone he’s knows farm. These are suburban areas that are recognizable to people and surely will give the film more effect because of it.
The acting in the film isn’t anything to write home about, but there are decent parts and bad parts. For the most part the cast can handle everything that’s given to them, but the deeper more emotional stuff seemed to not come off as good as the rest. This is something to be expected as these aren’t actors that have been doing this for years. Ugarek manages to use the script to their advantage however not giving them too much to handle for their entire run on screen.
My issue with this film is in the ending. Although it’s nothing that ruined it for me, I have to say it was kind of frustrating. I don’t’ want to give it away here, but the ending for the film felt a little lackluster and incomplete for my liking. There was something like that done in the original “Deadlands” which I excused because I thought it was setup for a sequel. Then in finding out that this wasn’t a direct sequel, I didn’t get it. But after watching this film and seeing the ending, I really didn’t understand why it was done that way outside of trying not to overexpose the small budget of the film.
Either way I would say that “Deadlands 2" is something that fans of independent zombie flicks are going to want to check out. Everyone else out there who is skeptical of these at this point can rest easy, it’s not nearly as bad as a lot of these out there. It’s actually a good attempt to put together a low budget zombie flick and doesn’t bore you whatsoever during the running time. Even if I do have an issue with the ending I think that there is plenty of good stuff here for people to see. RECOMMENDED.
Rating - **1/2
-Ed Demko
