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Living Dead Lock Up (2005)

Living Dead
Lock Up

Living Dead Lock Up is not the best film I've ever seen.  In fact, it's not even a great no budget film.  But in spite of it's technical problems and poorly written script, it does also have several positive attributes. 

Starting  with the negative, there was almost no budget .  However, I've seen no budget movies that were pretty good, so you can't really blame the budget for everything.  The location didn't feel real.  The zombie makeup was pretty bad and for a zombie movie, there wasn't much zombie content.  There were a lot of spots where the video skipped and stuttered.  The editing was bad.  The audio levels and background noise made things feel even more amateur.  Some of the acting was good, but some was crap.  However, I think the biggest problem with the movie was the script.  

The idea for the story was pretty damn cool!  A guy gets locked up in a jail infested with zombies.  It sounds great!  Unfortunately, the script didn't flow well at all.  The dialog was pretty bad and it seemed to jump ahead assuming that since you've seen so many zombie movies before, you can just fill in the blanks.  When you add in the poor location choices, it makes the movie even more difficult to follow (and this should not be a difficult movie to follow).

So what was good about this movie?  The basic story idea was awesome.  If there had been a steady flow in the storyline, this could have been adapted into a great script.  The lead actor, Mario Xavier, seems like he would be a very good actor if someone else were writing for him and directing him.  His mannerisms and his delivery remind me a lot of Jack Black (who I think is great).    With the combination of the script that he wrote and his directing choices, his acting came off as more amateur than I think it should have.  Natalie Morales, the female lead, is hot.  She doesn't show any skin, but she's hot anyway.  You could argue that the use of digital effects helped to hide the low budget, but I find that cheap digital effects are usually overused.  Their use in this movie could go either way depending on your opinion of digital effects in general.  Surprisingly, the music for the movie was pretty well written!  It wasn't recorded or mixed well (it sounds like the whole thing was done on a toy store keyboard), but if the recording had been more professional, the music writing itself was actually better than usual for no budget movies.  Although the script was the weak point for me, it at least didn't drone on and on with too much dialog.  In fact, the writers seemed to go in the opposite direction with too little explanation of what's happening.  At least that keeps things moving.

The behind the scenes were great!  It really gave a feel for the people making the movie and what they went through to make the movie happen.  I believe it was  the behind the scenes, bloopers, outtakes and interviews that most made me want to see what these guys do next.  Overall, I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone who doesn't like films without a professional gloss...but then again, if you don't like films without a professional gloss, what are you doing on this site!

Gore-o-meter rating: 1 out of 5 (they do at least try for gore)

Skin-o-meter: 0 out of 5 (the very attractive Natalie Morales is unfortunately clothed through the whole movie )