Shadow: Dead Riot
Shadow: Dead Riot
| 28 March 2006 (USA)
Shadow: Dead Riot Trailers

Evil voodoo-practicing serial killer Shadow gets executed for murdering pregnant women. Twenty years later the prison Shadow was put to death at has been turned into an experimental women's penitentiary. Tough and fiercely autonomous new inmate Solitaire has some kind of link with Shadow. When Shadow and his lethal shambling zombie minions are resurrected, it's up to Solitaire to stop them.

Reviews
ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.
Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?
Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Woodyanders Evil voodoo-practicing serial killer Shadow (deliciously essayed with lip-smacking villainous hammy brio by Tony Todd) gets executed for murdering pregnant women. Twenty years later the prison he was put to death at has been turned into an experimental women's penitentiary. Tough and fiercely autonomous new inmate Solitaire (nicely played with admirable seriousness and intensity by Carla Greene) has some kind of link with Shadow. When Shadow and his lethal shambling zombie minions are resurrected, it's up to Solitaire to stop them. Director Derek Wan and writer Michael Gingold whip up a suitably outrageous and hence immensely enjoyable homage to vintage 70's exploitation fare that blends elements of grisly zombie horror, scuzzy chicks-in-chains flicks, lively chopsocky, and groovy blaxploitation into an extremely nutty and energetic go-for-broke tacky'n'wacky whole: Among the choice cheesy low-rent cinema stuff to relish herein are plentiful gloriously excessive blood-spilling gore, a pleasing smattering of tasty distaff nudity (which naturally includes the inevitable group shower scene), brutal catfights, wild martial arts, gnarly CGI effects, hideous rot-faced flesh-eating ghouls, and even a nasty killer mutant baby who takes a gruesome bite out of one his own mother's breasts (ouch!). This movie further benefits from game acting by a fun cast, with stand-out contributions from Nina Hodoruk as bleeding heart liberal Warden Danvers, Michael Quinlin as mad, lecherous dirtbag Dr. Swan, Cat Miller as the sweet, pregnant Emily, Andrea Langi as mean, predatory lesbian guard Elsa Thorne, Tatianna Butler as fearsome top con Mondo, adorable soft-core starlet Misty Mundae as the mousy, browbeaten Crystal, Ruby Larocca as the scrappy Rage, and Anna Curtis as twitchy junkie Meth. Popping up in cool bits are veteran zombie thespians Captain Haggerty (the big fat ghoul at the very start of Lucio Fulci's "Zombie") and Bill Hinzman (the cemetery zombie in George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead") as two of Shadow's undead followers. Wan's slick cinematography gives the picture an impressive polished look. Vernon Reid's funky'n'moody score does the rousing trick. A total trashy blast.
lovecraft231 Solitaire (Carla Green) goes to an all female prison. Too bad for her (and everyone else) that a notorious serial killer known as Shadow (Tony Todd) is about to come back-along with some zombies. Also, it seems that Solitaire and Shadow are somehow connected."Shadow: Dead Riot" is really three kinds of movies crammed into one as an tribute to old school exploitation: Gory Kung-Fu flicks ("Story of Ricky"), Women in Prison flicks ("The Big Bird Cage") and Italian zombie flicks ("Burial Ground.") While it looks great on paper, it sadly doesn't add up. This is partly due to the fact that none of these elements feel like they go far enough. Sure, there's decent gore gags, martial arts mayhem, and lesbian action, but it all feels somewhat restrained, as if the people behind it felt nervous about going too far.Also problematic is the acting. Erin Brown actually does a pretty good job (I would have liked to see more of her character), and Tony Todd is decent enough (even though he looks too much like an evil version of Lee "Scratch" Perry-not exactly something that will strike fear into men's hearts), but everybody else seems unrehearsed or bored, spewing forth terrible dialog and bad one liners. Finally, some of the tributes and references to past European horror movies like "Cannibal Holocaust" and "Burial Ground" are too obvious (though it's nice to see a horror movie that doesn't reference "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Phantasm" for a change.) "Shadow: Dead Riot" is a movie that could have been a really fun tribute to the Exploitation movies of old. Sadly, it's refusal to go that extra mile ends up giving off that "sizzle without the steak" feeling. If you want to see a great tribute to old school Grindhouse movies, you'd be better off watching "Grindhouse."
kosmasp Or even D-movie? I like me a really low-to-no budget movie from time to time. Because they don't take themselves serious. This is the case here too, but still I couldn't enjoy the movie. Yes I knew the budget was tight and that there would not be so much money at hand, but seeing they could hire a martial Arts expert, for the fight scenes, makes you wonder why they didn't also spend money on a funnier script (w/o every cliché in the book)! Although the tone of the movie is not to be serious, the main actress does take her job a bit too seriously, which contradicts the whole thing and feels stupid. So while there is one or two original things here, the overall feeling, for me was "boring"!
donjon If you are fond of over the top, camp experiences like Brain Dead or Ricky-O (Story of Ricky), then you should enjoy this. It is totally ridiculous and a not even close to being a good film, but that doesn't stop it being loads of fun.I saw this at a horror festival with a really appreciative audience (which definitely helped it out), and the audience was in hysterics throughout and there was regular applause too. OK, some people walked out as well, but that is to be expected with films like this.There is good gore, loads of tits, terrible dialogue ("I see you're going to be a handful....maybe 2 handfulls"), bad acting, (with a couple of half decent performances thrown in too), zombie babies, shower scenes, mad professor type doctors, bad kung fu, female body builders and probably loads more that I have forgotten.Quite clearly a "so bad it's good" classic. Can't wait to get the DVD.