Film Review: DEAD RISING: ENDGAME (2016)

 DEAD RISING: ENDGAME (2016) USA 1hr 36mins

Director: Pat Williams

"Since when do Z's move that fast!!" - Garth

"The virus will wipe us all out." - Dr. Rand

DEAD RISING: ENDGAME (2016) is a direct sequel to  DEAD RISING: WATCHTOWER (2015) and is again set in between DEAD RISING 2 & 3 in terms of the video game but I'm really not sure of it's relevance to the video games this time around. There certainly isn't that style of the video game shooter camera POV's like there was in the first one at all. It does however follow on WATCHTOWERs story, so reporter Chase Carter (Jesse Metcalfe) is back and is as determined as ever. Sneaking around the ruins of East Mission trying to uncover more plans by corrupt military leader, General Lyons (Dennis Haysbert). This time Chase has stumbled upon some kind of human trafficking ring that involves human test subjects being given to mad scientist Dr. Rand (Billy Zane) who as well as working on a cure is also trying to create new strains of the zombie virus that will mean the military will stay in control. As well as this Chase is still trying to find his missing partner Jordan (Keegan Connor Tracy) who went missing at the end of WATCHTOWER after she discovered and failed to prevent the start of Project Watchtower. With Project Watchtower now complete a further plan to eliminate the infected has morphed into Project Afterlife. Chase now has a small team with him consisting of gung-ho zombie killer Garth (Patrick Sabongui), on/off girlfriend Sandra (Marie Avgeropoulos), his producer Jill (Jessica Harmon) and a recent Phenotrans defector called George Hancock (Ian Tracey) who go back into the quarantine zone in East Mission to stop Project Afterlife before millions are killed, expose the military and hopefully find Jordan too!

It was announced soon after DEAD RISING: WATCHTOWER (2015) that a sequel will be hot on it's heels and to be fair, given that WATCHTOWER was quite fun I was keen for ENDGAME, in theory it should be pretty awesome right? Getting a different director in rather than sticking with Zach Lipovsky who did WATCHTOWER was possibly their first mistake but I guess that all depends on if Lipovsky wanted to do another one as well as availability.  In terms of big action sequences it hits just as hard as WATCHTOWER. It is missing one of the main elements that we enjoyed from the first movie though and that is the huge and instantaneous zombie presence. I guess it was inevitable really, as they had concentrated a lot more on the zombies in the first one this element would be slightly neglected this time around as Chase battles with a more human problem but I would argue that this can still be done whilst keeping with the lively zombie content. There are a few zombies at the start of the movie but not on the grand scale we are used to, this does pick up more but we don't get the big hordes until about three quarters of the way into the movie. This is disappointing for sure, but there are many big action fight sequences they're just not as fun without the zombies. Expanding Chases team invites more characters to the fold which isn't always a good thing either. These guys seem more cocky, annoying and the kind of stereo typical paint-by-numbers types who are there to play their role and bring little else to the mix. I was excited to see Billy Zanes name in the opening titles as I do quite like him. However, I'm guessing their budget didn't stretch too far when it came to casting as his screen time is as minimal as it can get and he has very little to do. It was glaringly obvious that the character of Hancock had an ulterior motive from the start. It was just a shame that his "endgame" became a total flop.

Going back to the zombies. When they did appear they still looked cool. You could tell that some time had passed since the last encounter with them as they were showing signs of decay. Missing out the zombie clown this time we get  a small scene in an underground carpark with a zombie bride but very little effort has gone into individually characterizing them as much as they did in WATCHTOWER. Due to experiments on the undead and humans that have since disappeared some of the zombies were a bit different. So staying true to the old school aesthetic of the shambling style zombies was seemingly deemed too 2015 for this movie as they started to bring in your faster more self aware zombie. These zombies are easy to pick out as most of them seem to be bald and are wearing prisoner inmate overalls.  I get a weird kind of Nosferatu vibe off them that I'm really not sure about. Despite this I quite like this different element and at least they bothered to come up with a story as to why this is happening. Once these guys start to show up the body count does start to increase and we finally get some zombie action!!

The inventive weapons are still in abundance and we are treated to an 'A-Team' inspired weapons montage which is always fun! The gore is on par with WATCHTOWER as one bad guy gets stabbed repeatedly in the groin, a few zombies meet a grisly end with flares and there is a cool kill near the end where they kind of recreate the helicopter blade scene from DAY OF THE DEAD (1985) which is effective but a little bit too computer generated. DEAD RISING : ENDGAME (2016) certainly does pick up where WATCHTOWER left off and with a runtime of about 90 minutes doesn't overstay its welcome but it is another one that doesn't bring anything new or different to the genre. It kind of runs out of steam as well as ideas making the finale a bit of a wet lettuce. I am thankful that they have, so far, not decided to attempt another in this series. They were fun whilst they lasted but somethings just don't have the legs to continue. Out of the two movies I prefer DEAD RISING: WATCHTOWER (2015) to this as it has that more interesting zombie presence. I score DEAD RISING: ENDGAME (2016) 2.5 brains out of 5.

DEAD RISING: ENDGAME (2016) is available to steam and is on DVD and Blu ray as well as in a box set with DEAD RISING: WATCHTOWER (2015).