Zombie movies are fun. There’s something about someone destroying a zombie’s brain which is incredibly satisfying. Dead Rising: Watchtower, a film adaptation of the popular Dead Rising console series is no different.
However, this could be its downfall. Games turned movies generally aren’t that great. Look at Doom, or Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and even Resident Evil. No matter how big the budget, the films just don’t do classic games justice.
Saying that, Dead Rising: Watchtower does a very good job of keeping to what we’ve seen in the games universe. There is something very familiar about the whole zombie nation.
The story is set in the fictional city of East Mission, Oregon. News blogger Chase Carter, played by Jesse Metcalfe is on the scene with his trusty cameragirl Jordan (Keegan Connor Tracey) to find the latest scoop on an evacuation issue. We’re very quickly introduced to Crystal (Meghan Ory) who becomes a love interest for Carter. From here all hell breaks loose with people becoming zombies even after their daily shot of Zombrex. Zombrex, for those of you who are new to the series is a drug to keep infected civilians from turning. It needs to be taken once a day to prevent this from happening.
The film plays a huge tribute to the games. There are custom made weapons, crazy blood thirsty biker gangs and even the annooying countdown to destruction timer, which we all hated from the games.
There are some decent humourous scenes, especially from the news presenters, but humour in this film seems to fall slightly flat. There were instances where I felt the humour was forced. However, Dead Rising: Watchtower does have some form of entertainment, and I did enjoy watching it through to the end.
For a zombie movie Watchtower looks good. Director Zach Lipovsky does an excellent job turning a fictional city into a living nightmare. He is known for his VFX work and directed Leprechaun: Origins.
Dead Rising: Watchtower will definitely hit home with fans of the game. For a stand-alone zombie move I’m not too sure. Nothing is new. It has stayed faithful to the video game series and I think that is an important achievement. Like I said at the start, look at Doom. No video game movie can be as bad as that… right?
