Dead Rising: Watchtower Trailer Promises Tongue-In-Cheek Zombie Fun

By David Wharton | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

The runaway success of AMC’s The Walking Dead has made zombies hotter than ever, so much so that the pop culture landscape is positively flooded with the undead. Now Sony’s streaming service Crackle is looking to get a piece of the action with Dead Rising: Watchtower, a new movie based on Capcom’s popular video game franchise. The first trailer for the Dead Rising flick has clawed its way out of the earth, and you can get a first look below.

Watchtower centers on a zombie outbreak after a government vaccine fails to stop a dangerous infection. The script was written by Tim Carter (Mortal Kombat: Legacy) and directed by Zach Lipovsky (Leprechaun: Origins). The Daily Show’s Rob Riggle stars as photojournalist Frank West, the protagonist of the original 2006 Dead Rising game. As such, you would assume he’d be right in the midst of the blood-soaked action, so it’s kind of strange that we only see him on a news program in the trailer. Instead we see most of the zombie-killing action involving Jesse Metcalfe (John Tucker Must Die), Virginia Madsen (Sideways), Dennis Haysbert (Wreck it Ralph), and Meghan Ory (Vampire High).

The Dead Rising franchise is currently three entries deep, with Dead Rising 3 having released for the Xbox One in November 2013. The series has evolved in various ways over the years, but the basic premise is the same: players get dropped into an open-world setting overrun with zombies and have to survive using their wits and any weapons they can scrounge up or steal. One of the trademarks of the franchise is the ability to create “combo weapons” cobbled together from whatever you can find in the game world. They vary from the straightforward — a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it — to the straight-up ridiculous — a kayak paddle with chainsaws strapped to either end. Thankfully, it looks like Watchtower will be embracing this element of the games.

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Another major recurring element from the games is that the zombies aren’t the only threat. The series’ boss battles pit players against “psychopaths” — human survivors who are using the chaos as an excuse to turn homicidal. One of the original game’s more memorable psychopaths was a clown, and it looks like Watchtower will at least be tipping their hat to the games’ assorted crazy assholes. Just look at these silly fucks:

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Dead Rising: Watchtower looks to be silly, gory, over-the-top fun, and that’s really all you could ask from a Dead Rising movie. It will premiere on Crackle on March 27, and will make its way to other digital platforms and Blu-ray/DVD at some point later on.

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