 | Movie title: All Souls Day: Dia de los Muertos Starring: Jeffrey Combs...Thomas White, Danny Trejo....Vargas Diaz, Marisa Ramirez ....Alicia Barena, David Keith....Sheriff Blanco (adult Ricky White) Directed by: Jeremy Kasten
Written by: Mark A. Altman
Genre: horror
Year: 2005
Country: USA
Language: english/spanish
Runtime: 88 mins
Media: DVD
Imdb:
Rating: 4
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During a Day of the Dead celebration, the dead come to life to prey upon the living.
Another of the SciFi Channel "original" movies which can only mean low low budget, awkward mix of CGI and practical effects and nudity (only on the DVD version). Beyond Man with a Screaming Brain every SciFi original strikes me as a half finished idea, even the frightening in its level of cheesiness Alien Apocalypse which Campbell also stars in.
The premise actually has the decent beginings of a horror concept. In a small rural Mexican town on All Souls day the ghost/zombies of the wrongfully killed (by Pimp master Trejo) townsfolk rise up to get revenge, unless of course you sacrifice a mexican woman on the eve of All Souls day. The film becomes disjointed in its jump from 1890s to 1950s to 2000. Not to mention stupid plot holes to tie things together. The girl set for sacrifice kills herself before the ceremony so the cultists need another mexican woman... Apparently there are none in the MEXICAN TOWN full of people (yeah that means men women and children). So lets go after the hero's hispanic girlfriend... Just pitiful really.
This film would probably have landed a 2 out of 10 if it weren't for a few simple factors.
1. Jeffrey Combs. Even in a cameo appearance this guy raises the bar of any film he's in an extra notch. He's cast perfectly as the uptight Father of a nuclear family traveling through Mexico in the mid-fifties.
2. Danny Trejo as an 1890's mexican pimp or what I assume the character was meant to be. Again the casting is just superb and natural Danny is great in the roll.
And thats about it. The whiny dork kid from Eurotrip, Travis Wester, is the "hero" in this film. You'll be annoyed by his mile a minute quips by about four seconds of his screen time. Marisa Ramirez, plays his hotter than he could possibly ever hope to get hispanic girlfriend. I only mention her mainly because of the title of her next film... ready?
Itty Bitty Titty Committee
I kid you not. Look it up on IMDB.
I can't really recommend this film to anyone other than B-grade cheese lovers or Jeffrey Combs and Danny Trejo fans. Myself being in the later category its still a tough film to get through but is much more tolerable than most SciFi originals.
