Shadow: Dead Riot (2006) Reviews

• Almost laughably bad

  paully732006-03-06

  You wouldn't think this could go so badly. An execution in a prison goes horribly wrong and the dude explodes but not before having completed some odd ritual. Twenty years later, the same place is now a womens correctional facility....cue zombies coming back to life and rampaging the ladies. Actually , sounds okish, huh? Well, if you've got a bunch of mates over and have opened a few beers, you might get a kick out of the terrible acting, dialogue & SFX. I didn't really think they made films like this anymore, it must have been filmed on a shoe-string budget, although some of the choreography in the fight seems isn't too bad. Even for a die hard zombie film fan this holds little appeal as its only in the last 30 minutes that they actually appear. You have to sit through an hour of pre-amble, setting up decidedly one-dimensional characters who you know are just gonna get ravaged anyhow. Of note are the lengthy shower scenes (w00t) and the zombie baby (Brain dead anyone?)

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• Hugely entertaining grindhouse-style horror schlock

  Woodyanders2010-03-07

  Evil voodoo-practicing serial killer Shadow (deliciously essayed with lip-smacking villainous hammy brio by Tony Todd) gets executed for murdering pregnant women. Twenty years later the prison he was put to death at has been turned into an experimental women's penitentiary. Tough and fiercely autonomous new inmate Solitaire (nicely played with admirable seriousness and intensity by Carla Greene) has some kind of link with Shadow. When Shadow and his lethal shambling zombie minions are resurrected, it's up to Solitaire to stop them. Director Derek Wan and writer Michael Gingold whip up a suitably outrageous and hence immensely enjoyable homage to vintage 70's exploitation fare that blends elements of grisly zombie horror, scuzzy chicks-in-chains flicks, lively chopsocky, and groovy blaxploitation into an extremely nutty and energetic go-for-broke tacky'n'wacky whole: Among the choice cheesy low-rent cinema stuff to relish herein are plentiful gloriously excessive blood-spilling gore, a pleasing smattering of tasty distaff nudity (which naturally includes the inevitable group shower scene), brutal catfights, wild martial arts, gnarly CGI effects, hideous rot-faced flesh-eating ghouls, and even a nasty killer mutant baby who takes a gruesome bite out of one his own mother's breasts (ouch!). This movie further benefits from game acting by a fun cast, with stand-out contributions from Nina Hodoruk as bleeding heart liberal Warden Danvers, Michael Quinlin as mad, lecherous dirtbag Dr. Swan, Cat Miller as the sweet, pregnant Emily, Andrea Langi as mean, predatory lesbian guard Elsa Thorne, Tatianna Butler as fearsome top con Mondo, adorable soft-core starlet Misty Mundae as the mousy, browbeaten Crystal, Ruby Larocca as the scrappy Rage, and Anna Curtis as twitchy junkie Meth. Popping up in cool bits are veteran zombie thespians Captain Haggerty (the big fat ghoul at the very start of Lucio Fulci's "Zombie") and Bill Hinzman (the cemetery zombie in George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead") as two of Shadow's undead followers. Wan's slick cinematography gives the picture an impressive polished look. Vernon Reid's funky'n'moody score does the rousing trick. A total trashy blast.

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• Brain Dead meets Ricky-O in great fun Lesbian Prison / Kung Fu / Zombie movie !!!

  donjon2006-05-02

  If you are fond of over the top, camp experiences like Brain Dead or Ricky-O (Story of Ricky), then you should enjoy this. It is totally ridiculous and a not even close to being a good film, but that doesn't stop it being loads of fun. I saw this at a horror festival with a really appreciative audience (which definitely helped it out), and the audience was in hysterics throughout and there was regular applause too. OK, some people walked out as well, but that is to be expected with films like this. There is good gore, loads of tits, terrible dialogue ("I see you're going to be a handful....maybe 2 handfulls"), bad acting, (with a couple of half decent performances thrown in too), zombie babies, shower scenes, mad professor type doctors, bad kung fu, female body builders and probably loads more that I have forgotten. Quite clearly a "so bad it's good" classic. Can't wait to get the DVD.

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• Low budget women and zombies in prison

  The_Void2009-04-07

  The Women in Prison genre was once saturated by the sleazy films of the likes of Jess Franco and Joe D'Amato; but has all but died out since then and all we are left is the residue; which includes Shadow: Dead Riot. The film is something of a coming together of the aforementioned Women in Prison genre and the zombie genre; although by only giving fleeting glimpses of both, it fails to really nail down either one, and what we are left is a rather silly mess; although it is a sporadically entertaining mess. The film begins with execution of a prison inmate who goes by the name of Shadow. Shadow is apparently a mass murderer with voodoo powers (and just to give you an idea of the overall quality of the film; he's played by Tony Todd in a ridiculous wig!). Anyway, Shadow is killed and his death triggers some sort of curse on the prison. Years later; the prison has become a woman's prison and is welcoming a new arrival in the form of a chick called Solitaire. Solitaire apparently has some link with Shadow and her arrival triggers his second coming... The film is obviously very low rent and anyone going into it is liable to know that; so it would be a bit pointless to say that the acting is atrociously wooden and ridiculous. My main reason for seeing this film was undoubtedly the presence of soft porn star Misty Mundae. She's bad in this film even by her own low acting standards; and her role is made even more disappointing by the fact that she's not in it for long. The only other name on the cast list likely to be recognised by horror fans belongs to the aforementioned Tony Todd...who picks up his pay cheque. The plot is always silly and ridiculous; but there are a couple of good ideas in there that keep things interesting. There are plenty of coincidences and plot holes too...so, as is often the case with films like this, it's best to turn your brain off before the film starts. The central plot involving the new prison inmates is actually one of the less interesting parts of the film, however, which brings it down. All in all, this is a decent way to kill ninety minutes and while film critics won't be impressed; if you like low budget trash, you might like this.

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• Enjoy it for what it is.

  TdSmth52013-10-06

  A serial killer/voodoo practitioner is executed in jail. But something happens and he explodes instead. His blood flows through prison and turns the inmates into zombies. The warden orders all shot and they bury them in the yard. Years later the jail is now for females only. Some supposedly tough chick called Solitaire is incarcerated. She doesn't want to deal with anyone, but trouble finds her nonetheless. We meet the usual jail characters. The nice but clueless warden, her gorgeous enforcer, the baddest inmate of them all, her gang, and her servant (the lovely Erin Brown), a pregnant nice girl, the evil Dr who experiments on the girls by injecting them with someone's mysterious and powerful blood. Things quickly turn violent between Solitaire and the bad muscular girl. But Solitaire also starts having visions about the voodoo guy. And whenever blood flows, the earth will suck it up, and people too end up disappearing. The pregnant girl gives birth to some monster baby. And voodoo guy is resurrected together with his army of zombies. That will lead to the eventual confrontation between Solitaire and voodoo guy. Shadow: Dead Riot was somewhat of a revelation. Trailers of it looked quite awful, but it's a surprisingly good movie. It's not perfect or even good all around. In fact it's like two movies made by two different sets of people. One movies looks good, is well-acted, well-lit. The other looks cheap, is poorly acted, and boring. When this movie is good, it's very good, it has a bit of the 70s look and feel to it and music by Vernon Reid. The action and fight scenes are outstanding, performances are good, the zombie aspect is also well done with lots of attention to detail, stunts are superb and there's some gore and a bit of nudity. The problems though include the main character and the lead actress, poor acting by some actors, the cheap CGI effects, the lighting in some sets, the live sound with pronounced echo. Usually movies that combine different genres altogether don't work at all. But Shadow does. It's a women-in-prison movie with lots of fights inspired by the precision of martial arts, with zombies, and the supernatural. All of these aspects work very well. And I'm more than willing to overlook the negative aspects, after all this isn't a A-level or even B-movie. It's a C+ movie that dared to be different. I wish there had been more emphasis on the women-in-prison theme, more nudity, more gore, more of Andrea Langi, Ruby Larocca and Erin Brown. Shadow was produced by the same team that produced Flesh for the Beast, another excellent C level horror movie that I'm very fond of and that is overall more consistent than Shadow. Here they had to compromise a bit more but they also took more chances and tried to make an ambitious movie with few resources. If you give Shadow a fair chance you won't be disappointed.

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