Dead Hate the Living, The

The Dead Hate the Living is an American independent film of the zombie horror genre. It was written and directed by Dave Parker and distributed through Elephant Films and Full Moon Entertainment. It premiered in the direct-to-video market on February 8th, 2000.

Plot
Okay. So we start the party off with a guy named Eibon. Eibon is basically an anorexic looking version of Rob Zombie. Eibon is talking into a video recorder about his experiments, which he seems to feel are something of a success. He has discovered a way to bring the dead back to life. As Eibon is chatting along, one of his experiments breaks out of a containment cell and attacks him. The camera equipment is knocked askew and we are led to believe that the good doctor is now zombie chow.

Flash forward a month later. We find the extremely curvy yet adequately brainless doctor Sarah Ross examining a corpse in the morgue. As she peruses the yellowing bugger, she speaks into the micro-recorder uttering some of the most un-convincing forensic tech-talk I have ever heard. She makes the mistake of turning around and thus averting her gaze from said corpse. No sooner does she turn around than the candy-coated corpsicle is gone. He of course pops up behind her and slits her throat open with a foreign object. The zombie takes the lovely mortician and hoists her up onto the examining table where he proceeds to hump her. Bodily fluids are exchanged and the doc comes back to life just in time to engage in a little nighttime fireside necro-coitus. Then we hear someone shout the words, “CUT!”

Now we find out that it's really just a b-rated movie being filmed in an abandoned facility. The zombie is actually a wannabe Brando named Eric and Doctor Sarah is actually Shelly Poe, the sister of the film's director David. The three chat for a bit until David and Shelly’s other sibling, Nina, stumbles in. Apparently Nina was meant to play the part of Sarah. She's pretty pissed off about it and does her level best to ostracize everyone involved in the film's production.

It’s about this time that we meet the rest of the crew. There's Paul, David's best friend. Paul is the FX guru who harbors a bizarre lust for Shelly. There’s also Marcus, another FX maven who spends more time acting like a twitchy virgin then an actual human being capable of 80 heartbeats per minute. And of course, what would cinema be if we didn’t have the token black Jamaican pot-smoking cameraman? Finally, we have Topaz. Topaz is a bad ass Goth-girl wannabe who harbors the feminine version of a boner for director David Poe.

Some time passes and Shelly and Eric wander into an unexplored section of the facility. This is actually the empty laboratory of Doctor Eibon. They find the videotape but believe that the footage is actually just part of David’s movie stock. The rest of the gang gathers downstairs and they find a large iron coffin propped up against a wall. David is exuberant and wants to use it as part of his set. They open the coffin and out falls the cold corpse of Eibon himself. Needless to say, the group is freaked out. David gets the zany idea of using the corpse as a prop for his film. Shelly is so appalled by this idea that she quits the project. She storms out of the room and Marcus chases after her.

Meanwhile, David begins filming again. He directs actor Eric to the coffin and has him open it while spouting a bunch of gibberish from a nearly non-existent script. He fucks with the coffin mechanics and a great purple light brings Eibon back to life. The zombie Eibon grabs Eric and pulls him into the portal within the coffin. He is expelled minutes later in a wash of blood. Eibon emerges fully from the coffin's otherworldly rift with two of his zombie heavies in tow. Their names are Gaunt and Maggot. The Scoobies beat feet and get the hell out of Dodge. Eibon sends his zombies after them.

At this point, we learn a little bit more about the good doctor. Apparently he was once a normal sod married to a young woman named Ellie. Ellie had contracted cancer and Eibon was unable to save her. He instead turned towards his science in an effort to bring her back to life. Let’s just say it only partially worked. Now while we let Eibon continue with his melodramatic flashback lets turn back to the Scoobies.

Gaunt ambles down a hallway chasing Paul and Chas the pot-smoking director of photography. They try to escape through a doorway but Fat ass cuts them off. Maggot rips Chas's head off and Paul is forced to use Chas's headless body to deflect the axe wielding Tall guy.

Now while all this is going one, Eibon uses his coffin-device to turn Eric into a zombie. David’s sister Nina stumbles into the lab looking for her brother. Instead she is confronted by Eric and Fat Ass. Fatty twists her head off as if he were cracking open a 40. Ironically enough, Nina was fated to lose her head as part of David's movie. While Eibon cozies up to the bleeding head, Eric shambles to another part of the facility.

He comes upon Shelly who for some reason hasn’t gathered enough sense to get the hell out of town. Shelly doesn't realize that he is dead since he is supposed to be in zombie makeup anyway. Eric attacks her and takes to her face like Monistat to a yeast infection.

Meanwhile, David and Topaz have locked themselves up in one of the other lab rooms. They find the zombified remains of good ole Ellie Eibon. Ellie's zombie drones on about how the dead hate the living. Topaz gets tired of this nonsense and pops her like a puss filled zit. They run out into the hall where they find Marcus. The three race around a bit until they find their path cut off by Gaunt and Maggot. Marcus tries to run interference, but Fat Ass plows his fist through the kid’s solar plexus. Marcus' death is not in vain however as David and Topaz gain the chance to get away.

At this point the two run into Paul. Paul has discovered that when they first activated the coffin device it somehow shunted the entire building into another world. Even if they were to escape from the lab they would be stuck in an alien dimension. They meet back up at the set where they find Eibon and a new host of zombies. A big ole donnybrook ensues and blood and snot are flying everywhere. The boys do pretty well, but Topaz gets nabbed and taken back to Eibon's private lab.

David and Paul retreat to another part of the facility to plot out a course of action. They use some of Paul's FX equipment to make themselves look like zombies. This is where typical cinematic zombie lore changes. Apparently a zombie can’t sniff out its own like your typical Romero zombie. David and Paul successfully negotiate a maze of zombies as if they were zombies themselves. They find Eibon's lab and try to rescue Topaz.

Paul lures Gaunt, Maggot and a few others into an adjoining corridor where he sets them on fire. However, Paul wasn’t counting on the return of Shelly. Shelly in the meantime had been turned into a zombie-whore by the now undead Eric. Shelly rips a huge chunk of flesh out of Paul's neck and he dies soon after.

Meanwhile, David uses a gun he found to take care of Eibon. The last of the zombies are defeated and the two lovers are free to finally leave the facility.

Oops. That's right... they’re no longer on Earth are they? As David and Topaz open the doors to the outside, they find themselves on the edge of a vast purple mountaintop in some weird macabre death dimension.