Deadlocked, (2020)

 

A small, eclectic group of people, (including a cop and his perp in custody, a runaway, an aspiring actor, and a mechanical engineer,) all board the same elevator car just as strange things begin happening in the building.

And then, their elevator gets stuck.

Nothing new or groundbreaking here. Simply another zombie outbreak movie. But there is some good news! The undead in Deadlocked adhere fairly closely to the Rules of Romero: they are dead, stopped only by a brain hit, Zombism transference is through bodily fluids, the dead eat living flesh, and of course, slow and shambolic! Thank you for some canon. Oh sure, they are angry and growl, but this is forgivable if only due to the cool, herky-jerky, spasmodic manner in the dead walked. 

And the not so good? Well, the zombies aren’t the only thing moving slowly. The story crawls. What should be exciting moments are drawn out by flashbacks, (or even hallucinations!) rendering the film's flow, well, just boring.

But then again, the entire story is 1. Stuck in elevator, 2. Zombie Outbreak, 3. Escape elevator & Zombies… Now stretch it out to a feature film length. I guess some slower scenes are necessary... I just wish they didn't break up the action with them!

Nothing too original, fairly good undead, (despite a few inconsistencies in their behavior,) decent enough acting and clearly a bag of nickels-budget affair, so kudos for achieving what was done here. However, but with the entire cast being ’20 to 30 something-year-old, fit & good-looking, white people,’ I was certain this was a Canadian film school project. Maybe I am being overly analytical.

But my Zombie Movie Rubric is more objective than I, so, I ran Deadlocked through its gauntlet and got a bit of a surprise. Deadlocked earned itself a ZMR score of a solid 1.8 out of a possible 4 stars. This translates to a ‘just enough to scratch that Undead itch’ type of film.

YouTube Trailer, here: DEADLOCKED