Horror Movie Review: Granny of the Dead (2015)

A Welsh comedy horror called Granny of the Dead. It will surely conjure up an idea from most of just what to expect before even hitting play. Low budget, varying degrees of acting, hit and miss jokes, an incoherent story and more.

All of that is true but all of that surprisingly works. Giving Granny of the Dead charm and when it gets its right, it can be really enjoyable. Unfortunately when it gets it wrong, it commits the worst crime in horror by being mind-numbingly boring.

Clearly inspired by Shaun of the Dead, Writer/Director Tudley James shows promise with some of the ideas within Granny of the Dead but fumbles through many others.

It stars Marcus Carroll as Ed, a young man who makes the extremely unfortunate discovery that his grandmother has been turned into a zombie. A slow-moving but snarling and flesh-eating monster. He escapes her wrinkled claws and barricades himself in his bedroom whereupon he calls up his friends to warn them.

It turns out that the zombie plague is spreading but seems to be confined to just the elderly for now. Will Ed and his friends be able to save the middle-class Welsh streets from the elderly walking dead?

Being a zombie horror, there really aren’t any surprises here. The amusement of zombies with canes and walkers dries up fairly quickly leaving the comedy to come from the cast. With lots of energy and some authentic sounding dialogue, they do well even if no-one puts in a really memorable performance.

Most of the laughs come from reactions and a running gag of Ed forgetting about important people in his life will get a few chuckles.

Amongst the humour (which is hit and miss) we also get sporadic kills that flings the gore about happily. Tight angles and up close visuals makes the violence seem all the more gritty but also helps hide any limitations.

All of this is fine but the pacing is so off that these moments flash up and then we get nothing but repeated conversations and repeated sequences of the dead. Padding to extend the run time but offering nothing of substance so inevitably proving to be mind-numbingly boring.