The Horror Show
Battle of the Damned (2013)
Directed by Christopher Hatton
When I first stumbled across the movie title “Battle of the Damned” I thought to myself, “Oh Christ, not another B Rated Zombie Movie.” There are so many of them that if the titles don’t come with user ratings on different movie sites of 5 or higher, I simply shake my head and move on. Looking at the cover art though, I spotted a familiar face and said, “Wait a minute, is that Dolph Lundgren?” I grabbed my phone and headed to IMDB and confirmed that yes, our leading man in Battle of The Damned was in fact, Dolph Lundgren.
Now stop for a second here, I know what you’re probably thinking. A Lundgren zombie movie? Give me a break. And yeah, I expected about as much out of this movie as I would any testosterone seeping action flick, but against my better judgment I decided to press play and watch. Immediately you’re greeted with an aesthetically pleasing cinematography, so you know the budget wasn’t terrible for the film. The “damned” a.k.a. zombies in this flick are relentless, fast moving, killing machines and the initial cast of characters are the (who’d have guessed) unstoppable action heroes, here to save the day.
I’m going to now tell you that 15 minutes into this movie, I still had only a very vague sense of what the hell was happening. A super rich man hires a soldier to rescue his daughter from a “hot zone” of zombie infestation. We soon meet this girl, or rather, rescue her, and take her back to a safe area that Lundgren’s character, Max Gatling, has been hiding out in. The billionaire’s daughter, and our mission objective, goes by the Name of Jude (played by Melanie Zanetti). Even after Gatling joins Jude in her return to her base and we meet an entire group of survivors, I still have no idea what’s going on. There is such a lack of storytelling in this film that I found the film to be either rushed to completion or crunched in order to fit more action sequences. I’m gonna go with crunched to fit more action sequences and tropey machismo.
Back at Jude’s home base, we meet the leader of her group, an odd British man name Duke and his rag tag team of survivors holed up in a mansion. Among the survivors is Jude’s boyfriend Reese who got on my nerves almost instantly. That was the other thing I absolutely could not stand about this movie, the blatant lack of creativity in character design. We had the hero, Max Gatling. The rebel girl, Jude. The nerdy guy, Reese. The slutty girl, Anna. The older hyper intelligent leader/bad guy, Duke. The bodyguard that knows martial arts (and sigh, is Asian) named Elvis. Yes, I understand I stated earlier that I did not expect much out of this movie, but I at least expected the writing to be decent. Often times with either foreign films, indie releases, etc we get bad acting, bad cinematography or bad special effects but at least we have, underneath it all, a good writer with wonderful character development. That is not the case with this film.
Yes, we eventually find out how the “zombie apocalypse” happened, but, why is it contained to one city and why are there patrols keeping the survivors that are trapped in this mansion inside of this city? Why spend all of your billionaire dollars to get your daughter out but not her friends? And I think probably the most important question is, why are there zombie killing robots that speak German roaming the city streets?
I’m going to admit, these robots are pretty badass. But no matter how badass something is, I still don’t understand the why behind it other than simply accepting that this movie is an action flick that says the F word a bunch with awesome looking zombies savagely running through the city. Our group of survivors, now lead by Gatling, all band together and make a rush to get out of the city before it gets fire bombed. Fortunately I have never experienced fire-bombing in real life, but I’d imagine that once it starts, it doesn’t take the span of several hours to spread so that there is enough time to build SUPER ZOMBIE KILLING ROBOTS in a junkyard. Anyone care to elaborate on the science behind that for me? (Insert eye roll here.)
The story in itself, when painfully pieced together between unnecessary conversations, action sequences, and zombie feasting, is not a bad story. Had the plot been better executed, this movie would have been more enjoyable and I’d find myself encouraging people to watch it. The only reason I have at this time to encourage people to watch Battle of The Damned is because it’s a Dolph Lundgren zombie movie and who doesn’t want to say that they’ve seen a Dolph Lundgren zombie movie? The effects are done well, the zombies look great and the gore isn’t cheesy. The acting isn’t terrible but the characters make me want to punch them over and over until my knuckles bleed and the robots are pretty neat-o.
If you’re looking for character development, unpredictable plot twists, a storyline to remember and a movie you’d watch twice: go find a different movie.
If you’re looking for a movie to watch while you’re drunk, sleepy, bored, or just to watch another damn zombie movie, then look no further. And now that I think of it, you could probably make a fun drinking game out of this movie.
Stevie Kopas, Associate Editor HMS
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