Film Review: STALLED (2013)

 STALLED (2013) UK 1hr 24mins

Director: Christian James



"I didn't mean to smash your head in with the toilet seat or stab you in the mouth with a screwdriver but you tried to eat me ... and you stole my trousers." - W.C

"You shouldn't have bothered to try to save me." - Heather

"Brrrraaaiiiinnnnssss!!" - Zombies

It is Christmas Eve night and the office party is in full swing... but not for some. A disgruntled maintenance operative is still on the clock and makes his way into the ladies toilet to fix some faulty wiring. Not wanting to be caught loitering in the ladies he ducks into a cubicle when he hears two drunken female employees enter. One complains of a delivery driver getting overly fruity under the mistletoe and reveals a bite mark on her chest. This, for some reason makes her colleague horny and they start to get it on. Our guy in the cubicle can't believe his luck as he peeps through the door but gets the shock of his life when the girl with the bite attacks her frisky friend and begins to devour her flesh. She spots the maintenance guy and as a pool of blood flows under the door, the undead ghoul crawls towards him pulling his trousers off in the process. Before he knows what is going on he is smashing her brains out on the toilet seat and hopping over into the next stall as hordes of zombie party goers bust into the ladies. In the chaos our man, simply known as W.C (Dan Palmer), doesn't realise another survivor has shut herself in the third cubicle down. Calling herself Evie, she and W.C start to get to know each other under these extreme circumstances and try to formulate a plan of escape whilst an usual relationship begins to blossom. Can W.C and Evie ever hope to escape these flesh eating horrors and live happily ever after??



STALLED has a pretty unique plot and some great ideas for an independent low budget zombie movie as it takes place almost entirely in a women's lavatory. It is full of immature but non twatty gags and great splattery practical gore FX, however deep down it is a heartfelt love story that tackles popularity and body image. The fact that this is happening at Christmas is a little bit of a side story but it makes for some great zombies! We here at Brain Bites pay great attention to the undead, in fact I can (and do) rate zombie movies purely on the quality of the ghouls. If I were to do this with STALLED then it would potentially get top marks. We are finally back to shambling zombies, after the last four reviews have been the fast ones it comes as a blessed relief! We are back to shuffling, groaning, pasty blue living dead who mindlessly wander around searching for brains, hallelujah!! Here we have a wonderful array of characters from motor cycle zombie, Jesus Christ zombie, sexy Mrs. Claus zombie, Santa zombie and even an elf. Their make up is very DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) -esque and the messy practical FX smack of the same era with an obvious love for the slapstick and splatter of movies like THE EVIL DEAD (1981). There are some great exploding heads, icky eye trauma and inventive executions. With the exception of the large amount of extras as the zombies (probably featuring a lot of the crew) the cast of living characters is pretty small. Dan Palmer who plays lead character W.C also wrote the story and screenplay for the movie, with Tamaryn Payne as Evie, Antonia Bernath as Heather and Mark Holden as Jeff from I.T. Some of the acting is a little wooden but Palmer carries this along in style. He kind of reminds me of Rainn Wilson as Dwight in the US version of THE OFFICE ending up like a cross between Ash Williams and John McClane. Considering the film is mostly him reacting to a disembodied voice he really does an amazing job and you end up routing for the guy. It has a great balance of humour from start to finish with a heart wrenching twist. Very cleverly done, using resources wisely and effectively. It is has some flaws and is certainly not a master piece but it is insanely fun and one that fans of classic 80's horror movies will enjoy. As much as I did love the zombies in this it would be unfair to give it full marks but still I score STALLED a solid 3.5 brains out of 5.



STALLED is currently available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime or available to purchase on Blu Ray or DVD.

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