Night of the Living Deb Review
Night of the Living Deb follows a man and woman who wake up after a one night stand into a zombie apocalypse. To darkly comedic effect, the two attempt to survive and escape their zombie-ridden town. They first must find some common ground, for despite their brief intimacy the night before, they can't seem to get on the same page.
The overly cartoonish behavior of the cast, particularly our female lead, was a bit too much to swallow at times. The awkward delivery made you cringe rather than giggle. However, the wide, dead-eyed stare of the private security leader with his dry delivery was a particular highlight for me. Unfortunately, his role was rather small and still surrounded my moments of awkward directing.
Some of the effects shots felt completely unnecessary, primarily because of how poorly done they were. Shaun of the Dead is proof enough that if you are going to do a low budget horror comedy, keep the scale of the effects to a controllable level. To the contrary, Deb just fails to live by this important rule and shows its budget rather than rising above it.
There are definitely some moments that fail to make any sense, particularly in execution of a scene. The "creative" kills are poorly conceived and performed most of the time, and it makes you roll your eyes despite its intention of getting a laugh or a gasp. The film doesn't particularly bring anything different to the genre, and to that I mean the ever-growing sub genre of zombie comedies. It does introduce an ironic element to the zombies themselves, but, if this review didn't scare you away from watching it yourselves, I won't spoil it here.
Deb isn't an effective film at what it's attempting to do; it tends to be annoying when it's trying to be funny, and it tends to be dull when it tries to be intense. Despite this fact, it wasn't completely devoid of entertainment value, but it is most definitely on the lower tier of zombie comedies.
Horror Qualifier: 7/10
Horror Quality: 4/10
Film Quality: 2/10