Thr33 Days Dead was released in 2014 after years of development. It was writen and directed by John M. Ware as he also stars in the film as well. I recently got the chance to watch the film and here are my thoughts of Thr33 Days Dead.
Before I mention the plot, I have to bring up the production. Now I know that independent filmmakers have a budget and limited space and equipment. I am watching this in my eyes of the year 2020 as this film was released in 2014, but I had to put my eyes of 2014 on and I spotted many production issues. The sound was in a high or low pitch from multiple scenes that I can count as I believe the sound mixing could have been fixed. I even thought at times that my Macbook’s sound was adjusting itself because I had studio headphones on while I was watching Thr33 Days Dead.
I also want to talk about the pacing. The outstanding number of jump cuts and transitions became an eye sore and was distracting. Especially the scene where they were trying to get away from a small horde of zombies in the forest. They succeeded on getting away, but the sequence of them killing the zombies could have been edited much better. It makes WWE’s directing of camera cuts during those The Shield brawls on Raw and Smackdown in that same year look like a masterpiece compared to this and there are times that I do not like WWE’s camera cuts. But one scene that had a small detail that I liked is when they were at the town when they were about to enter a store. A shooter was shooting down zombies while the three main characters were trying to enter that store before the shooter alerted them. This all happened on a split screen to the style of 24 and I am a huge fan of 24 so I liked that.
The plot is pretty straight forwards. Three childhood friends Jeff, Justin, and Patrick are out fishing, only to discover that the zombie apoclapyse has started. All three of them go from the fishing lake, to the city to realize that it is also overrun by the dead. During their adventure, they meet Valerie and Pete to continue their adventure and to protect themselves from the dead that are overtaking the areas. There are some scenes that were funny, some that had a small bit of tension, and some that are hard to watch. But the film ends on a cliffhanger and before that cliffhanger happens, it’s final sequence is similar to the final few minutes of Night of the Living Dead.
There was so much that I believe could have been either fixed, cut, or straight out avoided during the post production process. I think it is okay for independent filmmakers to have at least a few not so good movies in order to have a good learning experience. The project was ambitious as I can tell that the cast really did try to act out their scenes. Also, the number of extras for an independent film to this scale is something I took notice as not a lot of independent horror films has this many extras. It is good that they were extras and not just people digitally added in during post production too. Let me put it like this, All the ingredients were there, and the pot was ready. But the problem with those ingredients, is that blending them well together in order for the meal to turn out right did not happen because those ingredients were left on the pot for hours which sums up Thr33 Days Dead.
To give more context, The SyFy mini series Town of The Living Dead that showed the behind the scenes footage of the making of the movie and I believe that is the most interesting aspect of the entire thing. I also enjoyed the making of the film far better than the film itself. Especially the making of the boat explosion, the zombie baby that was born, and the many ways they had to get their tools and props for this film. I have never made a film before and I did not want to be too harsh because as I said before, everyone did their best effort for Thr33 Days Dead. But I could not skip the many flaws that I have seen. Also, former WWE Superstar Luke Gallows made a cameo in the film!
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