Dead Rising: Watchtower is a straight-to-streaming service (because that’s a thing now) zombie film based on Capcom’s Dead Rising video game series. The original game is the first of its kind, a trailblazer for the open world horror genre. It takes place in an infested shopping mall akin to Dawn of the Dead. Dead Rising 2 introduced a weapons mechanic to combine and create unique tools of slaughter, something Watchtower touches on. The guy on the poster up there is holding the signature weapon the main character from Dead Rising 3 uses, but unfortunately it doesn’t last long in the movie.

In fact, Watchtower seems to bank solely on the nostalgia of the series it’s based off of. If I were unfamiliar with the games, I’m sure Watchtower wouldn’t impress me at all. The only thing entertaining about it was keeping it under constant scrutiny for any nods to the video games. Sure, Rob Riggle (21 Jump Street, Step Brothers) has an extended cameo bringing Dead Rising‘s playable character Frank West to life, but even he got annoying as the film went on. The biggest disappointment was the lack of psychopaths, the absurd and deadly bosses that made the games great. All we get is a small gang of bikers OOOH HOW ZANY! They even set one of the side characters up perfectly to become a dangerous, crazed lunatic for the final act. A single mother loses her child to the infection early on and is revealed to be slowly losing her grip on reality. Making her the movie’s “Final Boss” would have been a nice touch.

In conclusion, Dead Rising: Watchtower feels right at home in the sense that it deserves to be nothing more than a Crackle original. The cast is as forgettable as the plot and the action scenes don’t stand out from the blood-saturated crowd. This marks the second poorly conceived film this MASSACRE MARATHON with Epic Meal TIme’s Harley Morenstein sneaking his way on camera (the first being Tusk). Hollywood just needs to either go balls out and give him a starring role or banish him back to YouTube entirely. It’s not nice to tease The Manster like that!

2 duct taped together motorized landscaping tools from the shed out back out of 5

★★☆☆☆