Knights of the Damned, 2017

    On a quest from their king to slay a dragon, a squadron, (Platoon? Troupe?) a DOZEN knights are reduced to three, and push on, tracking the beast across the lands.

    Along the way, they hear tales of ‘Furies,’ dead people who have risen back up to attack the living. The trio of knights’ mission takes a detour and they choose to rid the king’s land of this new plague.

    End synopsis.

    To get it out there straightaway, this is NOT a horror movie. It is ‘Game of Thrones’ / King Arthur-style fantasy/adventure… With Zombies. (But also with dragons, Amazonian-like warrior women, a power-mad prince, and, some reason, mermaid sirens. Sure, why not?)

    The zombie storyline appears very shortly after the knights encounter the dragon, which is a really good thing because, well, the dragon CGI is pretty bad.

    To be fair, though, ‘pretty bad’ is really where this movie hovers all the way though. 

    To this point, I could very easily knock its acting, its poor dialog, its shaky hand-held camera shots, its completely unnecessary scenes, its unconvincing, 2-dimensional characters, a multitude of anachronisms, et cetera, et cetera, but as a zombie movie, I would rather give it mercy and keep my review to the zombie bits.

Lots of 'zombie chest kicking!'

 

   Actually, I was a little excited for a Medieval knights versus the undead film. Not all that many Zombie apocalypses set back in time like that, (I mean, with the glaring exception of Game of Thrones.)

So, I did appreciate that.

As for the zombies themselves, or ‘Furies’ as the villagers called them, they were not consistent to The Rules of Romero aside from a) being dead, and b) the transfer of zombism by bites. 

    With the exception of the biting, there was no real evidence of the dead eating the living, and the zombies were dispatched in multiple ways, not just head shots. 

    The Zombies were inconsistent to themselves, too, denying any form of classification. 

    At some times, these Furies would be staggering around all Romero-esque, at others, they would run. Some used swords or axes, (and properly!) One even cleared a fence in a smooth Parkour fashion.

    So, the dragon was just a plot device with only a few actually minutes of screen time, the big mouth local at the bar added nothing to the film, and the entire mermaids scene should’ve been left on the editing room floor. But these things weren’t edited out. It seems like they were intentionally tossed in to add a few more fantasy elements to an otherwise flat storyline. And then, the whole affair just ground to a halt with a cliffhanger ‘ending,’ and a 'to be continued.' 

    (The conclusion sequel came out a year later under the name ‘The Dark Kingdom.’)

    Now the really hard thing for me to write… I kind’ve liked it.

    Oh, I will freely admit it was NOT a good movie, and its placement here in a zombie movie reviews page is contestable, but it I found it to be silly fun that went well with a late night and a few beers. 

    The ZMR, (my Zombie Movie Rubric,) however, is a sober and unemotional rating scale that often robs me of my subjectivity! Held up to its unflinching scrutiny, Knights of the Damned got itself a whopping 1.66 out of a possible 4.0 points.    

    This does NOT earn the film much of a recommendation.

    But here is a YouTube trailer for your own consideration: KNIGHTS OF THE DAMNED

    Be warned, the trailer shows some scenes that were not in the film. I can only assume they are from the sequel.

So, yeah, a low-scorer, but I do not regret watching it… 

    I do think I will take a pass on it’s sequel, though.