Siege of the Dead (Rammbock) review (DVD) ★★★

Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Michael Fuith, Theo Trebs, Emily Cox, Steffen Munster, Sebastian Achilles, Ingrid Beerbaum, Carsten Behrendt, Melanie Berke, Sabrina Caramanna, Mila Gach, Harald Geil | Written by Benjamin Hessler
UK Certification 15 | UK RRP £9.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 59 minutes | Directed by Marvin Kren

Marketed as the first ever German zombie film to be released in the UK - which probably isn't the case if you look hard enough - Siege of the Dead, or Rammbock as it's known in its native Deutschland, is a nifty little movie that ends before it really has time to be fully fleshed out, if you'll excuse the pun. Thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end, it rather devastatingly concludes after just an hour, leaving you with the same kind of unpleasant feeling as a tasty treat with a bitter aftertaste.

It's not your typical apocalyptic film of the living dead as it chooses to keep things small in scale, rather than depict a doomsday that is far too colossal and destructive for its budget. A wise decision that you would be right in thinking is commons sense, but it's truly surprising just how many low-budget films make the mistake of being overly ambitious for the cash flow and therefore fail miserably.

Siege of the Dead boasts a strong cast as it tells the plighted story of civilians trapped in an apartment building - specifically a middle-aged man and teenage boy - when the mystery-shrouded zombie outbreak takes place and prevents their escape on the ground. Like Dawn of the Dead's iconic Pennsylvania shopping mall, the safe haven quickly becomes a desperate bastion as the residents gather their wits in a mighty effort to survive, all while the number of undead constantly increases and they strive to break into the building.

As you can convey from its certificate, the film is not high on gore and instead paints what can be imagined as a realistic portrait of the human condition in such a situation, and so it instead relies on suspense and tension to shock and jolt you, which it succeeds at. Rather than being your traditional all-out blood and guts, flesh-eater of a horror film, it's an intelligent and psychologically-driven piece which, in this age of countless carbon copy vampire and zombie movies, is a breath of fresh air.

Since its running time exceeds 45 minutes, Siege of the Dead is very much a feature-length film, I just wish it was 20-30 minutes longer. If that was the case, we could have had zombie magic on our hands and then, like the cover art says, Romero may well indeed be proud of this German effort.

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