Living Dead

DIRECTED BY Brad Case
REVIEWED BY Mario Dominick

The latest short film from Blood and Guts Productions sounds like it should be a zombie movie, but there’s actually not a single zombie-related element in it at all.

Living Dead is the story of a young woman caught up in an abusive relationship. She consults with a male friend on what she should do about her situation. One night she gets home and runs into the wrath of her abusive husband. He beats her and screams at her. Bloodied up and bruised, she goes into the bathroom to clean herself up. While looking in the mirror, she realizes what it is she needs to do to remedy her problem. She makes herself up to look pretty again and look seductive. This turns out to be her ultimate weapon against her abusive spouse, who is totally unaware of the gory and brutal fate that’s in store for him.

Living Dead is a horror short that empowers a woman in the way many rape-revenge films of the past have done. While many of those films have been criticized as being exploitative in the past, they all give powers to their female leads showing what a woman can be capable of when she’s been hurt one too many times. Living Dead features brilliant and intense performances and the female lead convincingly goes from being a scared and abused housewife to a revenge-seeking killer. People looking for something other than zombies from a film with “Living Dead” in a title should be pleasantly surprised with the story and message conveyed from Blood and Guts Productions’ most recent short.

Blood and Guts’ DVD of Living Dead includes a behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes, outtakes, a couple music videos, a teaser, and trailer.

Visit B&G at www.bloodgutsproductions.com to order your copies of this and Pipe Wrench.