Day 47: The Quick And The Undead

The Quick And The Undead

More like the Long and the Painful to watch

Westerns and zombies. That sounds fun right? Plenty of possibilities in two genres rich with good movies. Maybe a mixture of Shane and Night of the Living Dead? Or how about 3:10 to Yuma and 28 Days Later? Those ideas would involve some creativity and thought. Both are absent from The Quick and the Undead. I put more effort into this opening paragraph then they did for this movie.

The Quick and the Undead follows the story of zombie bounty hunter, Ryn (no, I didn't misspell that) Baskin. Apparently, 80 years ago, there was some sort of zombie plague that decimated the western United States and the government is paying bounties in exchange for killing the undead. Ryn is double-crossed by his helper Hans and is shot by a rival bounty hunters. He somehow survives a bullet, getting his pinkie cut off, and being bitten by a zombie, catches up to Hans and finds out that the bounty hunters are headed towards Union City. Ryn eventually (thankfully) kills Hans and heads into Union City, which is zombie central. Will Ryn gain revenge on those that crossed him or will the zombies get him first?

Can I have the next dance?

I'm not going to sugar-coat it; this movie sucks. IT SUCKS! IT BLOWS! IT SANTORUMS! There are so many things wrong with it I almost don't know where to begin. Ryn may be the worst zombie hunter in the history of zombie movies. He lures zombies out with bits of bloody meat and stands about 10 feet away while he shoots them with a slow reloading rifle. He misses plenty of close range shots and doesn't bother hiding. He has some sort of immunity towards he zombie bite, but instead of getting his life-saving blood to the government, he just dicks around ghost towns in clothes more suited for a Ministry concert. He gets shot twice in the movie and gets his pinkie cut off, but still manages to get around just fine. There is barely a story and what little story exists is completely terrible. Why bother risking your life killing zombies when you can just go to a cemetery, dig up some bodies and take their pinkies. It would be safer and easier, don't you think?

Judging by the locations, I'd say this movie cost about $100 to make. It's mostly shot outdoors and the one big scene in “Union City” looks like the theater department of your local community college. The acting ranges from passable to insultingly bad. I want to smash Hans in the face every time he spoke, and I suppose that's the point, but it was to the point where I wanted to turn the movie off. Ryn is supposed to be a Clint Eastwood-type, but his character is so inept, it's an insult to Clint Eastwood. It's even an insult to Clint Eastwood's stunt double. The makeup for the zombies is decent and there is some blood, so I guess I should be thankful for that. I'm pretty sure there's one scene where a bounty hunter gets eaten and shouts “Choke on 'em” ala Captain Rhodes from Day of the Dead. I really hope I just imagined that because I wouldn't want to associate a good zombie movie with this.

Jump. For the love of God, please jump!

I still think mixing westerns and zombie movies could be a good idea, but The Quick and the Undead made me question it's potential. They managed to do just about everything wrong in this movie. Bad story, bad dialogue, bad acting, and the absence of logic made this a painful and unpleasant watch. At least there were actual flesh-eating zombies in this movie. Plain and simple, unless you want to torture yourself, don't waste your time on The Quick and the Undead.

1.5/10