Fantasia 2017 Review: DEAD SHACK, Mixed Results Hamper Canadian Zom-Com From Breakout Success

Jason is joining his best friend Colin and his family on a weekend getaway to a cabin in the woods. Along for the ride is Colin’s sister Summer, their dad Roger and his girlfriend Tina. Jason and Colin could not be more opposite from each other. Jason is quiet and awkward, failing repeatedly to impress Summer. Colin on the other hand has a mouth on him and we could go as far as calling him a brat. Stocked up on a cornucopia of alcohol the responsible adults get down to some hard partying so the kids head out to explore.

 

Through the woods they come upon the house of Neighbour (Lauren Holly) and they spy on her feeding some bros to creatures that live in her house. When she discovers that they are outside the kids rush back to the cabin hoping that an adult can handle the situation. With Roger and Tina thoroughly out of commission it is up to the kids to sort this deadly situation out, any way they can. 

 

At the start of Dead Shack the laughs come quick and often. A lot of it is dad jokes from Roger and the banter between him and his son Colin. Now this presents a problem because you have a zombie film that promises to whiff of Goonies and Night of the Living Dead and as previously stated a large chunk (ha ha, Chunk) of those laughs come from a character who is not meant to be the centre of attention. Soon enough, the incapacitated Roger and locked away in a closet for his own safety and everything entertaining about Dead Shack gets locked up with him. 

 

When I watched Dead Shack for the first time my immediate reaction was that I liked but I did not love it, and oh did I want to love it. If you had seen the promo video for the project’s crowd-sourcing campaign there was an excellent exchange of banter between the kids as they kitted out to take on the zombies. Who got what weapon, protection and what nots. It showed real promise. Yet, a scene like that was not part of the finished product. Instead all we got was an old school A-Team like montage of grabbing weapons, helmets and shoving nails into things. 

 

Desperate for an answer I came to this realization that everything I like in Dead Shack centered around Roger. What we had here was a role reversal of responsibility. It is Roger and Tina who get drunk off their tits and provide the comic relief and the kids have to be the Debbie Downers and go back to the house and fight the zombies. And because the material that kids are given doesn’t hold up to it it ran the risk of losing me. Upon a second viewing, having prepared myself, I searched for and found enough humor and entertainment in those non-Roger moments to bring me back around. 

 

When the humor disappears and the zombie action moves in to replace it the production does a really good job with the gore and the violence. The computer aided visuals do not take away from the practical effects that the team put together. I suppose that Lauren Holly is too small to even fire blanks out of her shotgun so if I am going to be a dick about muzzles flashes that is where I am going to be one. 

 

When Donovan Stinson was not stealing the scenes with his material the kids are good in their roles. Matthew Nelson-Mahood as Jason is acceptably meek and timid. Lizzie Boys is great as a strong female lead, a no nonsense girl, that gets right to the point and gets the job done. Gabriel LaBelle achieves frat boy douche bag status at such a young age. I hope this role does not scar him for life, heh. 

 

I should also find out how the production managed to sign on Lauren Holly. She makes a strong case for decking out all single middle-aged women in riot gear. There were a couple awkward ADR moments there when they decided they had to add dialogue from her when the faceshield on her riot helmet was down. It was simply awkward filler. 

 

Dead Shack is not what I would call a disappointment but I feel that it does not deliver on its promises. Director Peter Ricq and his writers have made a good start into feature length horror and comedy films. Learning about the balance of energy and character focus from this one they can work on that and within a couple more films could be hailed as the next great team of horror comedies.