I saw "The Dead Matter" over the weekend at Cleveland's Capitol Theater as part of the Twelve Hours of Terror horror movie marathon. WARNING: This does contain some spoilers.
"The Dead Matter" is co-written and directed by Midnight Syndicate's Edward Douglas, and produced here in Ohio. Locations in Mansfield, Cleveland, and other locations within the Buckeye State make this a truly homemade project, and that proved to be a real treat. The film mixes a cast of screen veterans including Tom Savini, "Babylon 5's" Jason Carter, and "Lost's" Andrew Divoff with newcomers to decent enough effect, and local television personality "Big Chuck" Schodowski makes a cameo appearance as the CEO of a genetics research lab that makes diet pills, among other things.
The film opens in a German town plagued by zombies, which are apparently controlled by a vampire called Vellich, who does this with a scarab-shaped amulet comprised of a glowing purple crystal. Vampire hunter McCallister (Carter) and his sidekick, Mark (Brian Van Camp), get the amulet away from him, but are unable to kill their quarry. Vellich kills Mark, who manages to hide the amulet before the vampire can reclaim it.
Later, four friends come to the spot where Mark was killed — which, not-so-coincidentally, is the exact same place the amulet must be destroyed at — to perform a seance. Aspiring witch Gretchen, played by actress Sean Serino, wants to make contact with the spirit of her dead brother, and she has enlisted her boyfriend Mike (Tom Nagel), fellow witch Jill (C.B. Spencer), and doubting scientist Frank (Christopher Robichaud) to help her do it. They find the amulet, and inadvertently reanimate the murdered Mark, who follows Gretchen around like a puppy and becomes the object of her obsession — she thinks Mark can help her talk to the spirit of her brother, and gives her hope that he, too, can be brought back.
Before long, Vellich comes into conflict with local vampire lord Sebed (Savini), who is running a vampiric drug cartel and addicting the undead to some kind of narcotic. Both want the amulet for different reasons that really aren't made clear in the story. And eventually, McCallister returns to finish the job he started back in Germany.
The movie falls apart in several places, most notably in its choice of casting. Actress Sean Serino simply is not convincing as a bereaved sister, acting more like a happy new-age-hippy than someone consumed with guilt and grief. For someone who is supposed to be motivated by sorrow, I'm sure not feeling it from Ms. Serino. Her interactions with Zombie Mark play off like a girl and her new pet, with the running joke of zombie-stench as the reanimated body decays being worn a little thin.
The other weak point is in the story. There is no backstory given to the scarab amulet, which acts as the film's MacGuffin (the thing that drives the plot but which the audience doesn't generally care about, as it can be anything from a lighter, as in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train", to documents, to lost childhood innocence, as was the case in Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane"). It obviously controls zombies, something Serino's Gretchen discovers to her delight and the dismay of Spencer's Jill. But besides that, why is it so important? Why do the vampires want to control zombies in the first place that they're willing to kill each other to have it? Who made it and why? It's something of a minor plot point, and perhaps doesn't matter so much, but I would have liked to know, especially since the bloody thing eventually fuses itself to Gretchen's chest and possesses her with the spirit of, well, something. We're not given the luxury of knowing exactly what. And why is a tiny circle of rune-covered stones in Ohio the only location that an Egyptian-style amulet can be destroyed? I got the impression, both from watching the movie and from talking with co-writer Tony Demci (who was in attendance), that the film's creators neither knew or cared; so why should we? But *I* still cared, and I felt slightly insulted by that attitude.
Still, if you look past the glaring plot holes and regard "The Dead Matter" as the escapist fare it is, it turns out to be a fairly decent effort on the part of Douglas and Demci. That they were able to get Savini, Carter, and Divoff to be in it left me rather impressed. (Demci joked to people who asked that they held the actors' families hostage.) The production quality is also quite high for such a small-budgeted, locally produced film. It has the look and feel of something you'd see on the Sci-Fi Channel, which isn't necessarily a compliment, but in this case it is. CGI is used sparingly enough so as not to detract from the movie, and conventional makeup and simulated gore thankfully carries the bulk of the SFX load. Midnight Syndicate's music provides a soundtrack that really fits the movie, which shouldn't be surprising considering that the production was obviously to promote the band itself.
Overall, I give "The Dead Matter" a C+.
