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Dead Sands




Dead Sands, 2013

After a strange new virus begins sweeping through Bahrain, a group of young people find themselves on the run from zombies. They travel through the night, searching for a safe haven and dealing with conflict within the group.

Dogged by many hallmarks of low-budget horror, this one is really best suited for an affable group watch.

There are some low budget films that just inexplicably get you rooting for them, and this ended up being one of them. I think that it comes from a film having just the right number of strange touches. In this case, that would be the seemingly random switching between English and Arabic (the film is kindly subtitled in whichever language is not currently being spoken), overt but somewhat ineffectual nods to iconic zombie films, and characters like the long-tressed Wolf (Bu Idrees Mughal) who may or may not be a hairdresser.

One of the people I was watching this film with--who is generally not a big fan of horror movies--expressed her surprise at how proactive the female characters were, and said that this was not what she expected from a horror movie. And while everyone in this film is, to a certain degree, kind of as dumb as a rock, she’s not wrong. The characters are all about on an equal level in terms of amount of story they’re given. There was group consensus that the best character by far was Samara (Miraya Varma), who not only has great hair, but also spends the whole movie talking about how much she loves being selfish, only to give a big speech at the end where she asks, “Do you think I like being this way?” Yes, Samara. We think you love it.

In terms of “so bad it’s good” stuff, this one has plenty on that front. The acting ranges from okay to pretty bad. (One actress seems to have all of her scenes filmed in isolation and feels incredibly disconnected from the whole film). The special effects are about 95% people looking up at the camera and opening their mouths to disgorge a mouthful of fake blood. There is one surprisingly competent gunshot to the head, weirdly not of any of the actual zombies. (And whether this is intentional or not, I find it very funny).

The only aspect of the movie that was bad in a not fun way was the audio. There’s a lot of shouting, and in many scenes you feel like you’re listening to the dialogue over a telephone call. The subtitles help, but the sound is the biggest impediment to enjoying the film.

Bonus points for the bizarre yet intriguing post-credits sequence that had our entire group asking “Who is Marion?!?!?!” and googling Bahranian folklore.