Search - Prison of the Dead on DVD

Not a bad little film to pass the time

05/13/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Well...I was quite surprised by the film to be honest. I am a big zombie movie fan and this was a nice distraction. It is very campy and even a little bit silly at times, but there are some out and out good scenes here too. Don't expect Romero, but all in all the film holds together and the zombies look creepy."

Save your money for bail

Brian Rosenberger | 10/12/2000

(2 out of 5 stars)

"What happens when former high school friends turned occult researchers reunite for a classmate's funeral? What happens when an outside party shows up with their own plans? What happens when corpses rise and start killing everyone in their path? I dunno but I'd like to see it. At least I thought I would till I sat through Prison of the Dead. The friends arrive at the Hawthorne funeral home, only the corpse on display isn't dead, yet. It's just a prank planned by Kristoff and the corpse, Calvin. Kristoff explains to Allie, Michelle, and Rory that only death could reunite them. He adds his father plans to offer one million dollars to the finder of the "Talon Key" as a publicity stunt for his newspaper. The key is believed to be somewhere on the grounds of the funeral home, the former Blood Prison, hence the film's title. They play with an Ouija board and Allie starts speaking Latin. Possession can cause that which is a sure-fire catalyst for the dead to rise. They do- three executioners ready to... what else, execute. Meanwhile, Phil, Cat and Jeff arrive to scare our game players. God knows this film could use a scare or two. It seems that Kristoff was caught exploring Phil's girlfriend's nether regions and he holds a grudge. Jeff is sent to fetch the truck and loses his head in the process. The dead are walking, slowly, but walking all the same. Rory and Michelle pair off to do some exploring of their own. The body count really starts here but nothing really memorable. It turns out the Kristoff and Phil are also partners in crime. Call it a plot twist. It left me uninspired. More people are possessed and/or die. The "Talon key" is found but by now you'll be echoing my sentiments. "I paid for this?""

DEATH ROW

Michael Butts | Martinsburg, WV USA | 04/02/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Poorly done zombie flick that never scares up any scares, and has some preposterous gaps in credibility and editing. Where in the world did the blood come from that brought the executioners back? Why was the most despicable character in the movie the only one who survived? What was this thing about Bill being hired to beat up Christoph? Huh?....no one in the cast can be accused of acting; you may recognize Samuel Page from "The Brotherhood", but the rest of the cast is pretty unknown and will probably stay that way.
Directors should also realize by now that watching zombies move slow mo in their death walks is about as exciting as (one of the characters in this movie says: An episode of Baywatch Nights).
Ho hum."

Just Saw this on TV

Michael | 07/16/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I just saw this movie on the SciFi Channel. The name and description my dish network gave to describe the movie mislead me into believing it would be something I'd like. This movie is lacking in many areas.The story has no flow to it. Things just seem to happen at random. The initial awakening of the zombies, for example, made no sense to me. Maybe I missed something, or possibly a part was cut to make the movie fit into the television timeslot, but it seemed really random. Some blood drops from a statue of a dog or a gargoyle or something like that onto the ground. The dirt then begins to move and three zombies come out from under it, with no reason given for the blood to have been there in the first place. There's plenty of other things that are odd and don't quite fit in well, but I won't mention them because I don't want to give away the story.The special effects in this movie are also a bit short of amazing. The zombies look terrible and the scenes in which humans are possessed by the souls of witches are quite bad as well. Various other small things, like the glowing red eyes of the undead look horribly fake.This movie is not completely terrible, considering the fact I actually watched the whole thing. The initial idea for the story seems to be pretty good, but the final script is definitely flawed. I thought the sets used in the film were really cool, and the death scenes were pretty neat as well. I've seen plenty of horror movies that are much better than this, but I've also seen a ton of them that are much, much worse. As a movie in general, The Prison of the Dead is sub-par at best. But when compared to other horror movies, especially recent ones, this movie isn't too bad."