Boy Bands + Zombies - Music = Dead 7

     I thought it was a joke when I first heard it, but there was going to be a movie starring members of boy bands.  It was going to be on SyFy on April Fools Day, and this is the same network that green-lit the Sharknado trilogy. Even better than that, it was going to be a western... written by Nick Cater from The Backstreet Boys.  It was not the highest of cinematic fare, but I loved seeing the 90's pinups (BSB, N*SYNC, 98 Degrees, O-Town) fighting zombies. There was also the interesting (and somehow perfect casting of bay boy A.J. McLean as the head zombie's crazy henchman. What can I say, I'm easily amused.

Here are 10 important things I learned from watching Dead 7:

Chris Kirkpatrick sans eye
(Photo courtesy of Mashable)

10. Chris Kirkpatrick is still the last one picked. The N*SYNC guy played the town sheriff, not a member of the 7, and he somehow managed to lose an eye to the evil zombie queen, Apocolypta.

9. Jeff Timmons (98 Degrees) still looks dam good covered in dirt. He may be the hottest member of the 98. But what confused me greatly about Jeff's place  in general in this movie is his motive. Something terrible caused a rift between Jeff's character Billy and his brother Jack (Nick Carter) before the zombie apocalypse, and it had to do with "can't make up my mind" Daisy Jane. This was a fairly big plot point that was never explained. More importantly, where are people still getting hair gel after the zombie apocalypse?

8. Joey Fatone (N*SYNC) will never be a mustache guy. He can absolutely be a goatee guy, or  a  5 o'clock shadow guy, but his Yosemite Sam 'stache makes him look like a civil war general.

7. Nobody in the costume department knows what a ninja looks like. Erik-Michael Estrada's (O-Town) character was a ninja with a man bun, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shell, two swords, cargo pants, and sneakers.

The Men of Dead 7 (Photo from of Zap2It)
Jeff, Chris, Howie, Nick, A.J., Erik, Joey

6. Faced with too many Latinos in the cast, Howie Dorough (BSB) became The Vaquero and Erik-Michael became the ninja known as Kimodo. Somehow A.J. McLean (BSB) looks like a bloody clown.

5. Zombie henchmen look a lot like... a vampire slayer. Compare A.J. (as Johnny Vermillion, not his early 2000's solo alter ego Johnny Suede) on the left with with the first vampire slayer Sineya (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Maybe there was something missing from the very confusing exposition about all of the vampires being wiped off the earth before "the plague"? Maybe A.J. was actually a vampire, or more likely, an insane clown posse fan (a.k.a. Juggalo).

     Both characters talked in a similar manner, mostly growling. Sineya the slayer's words translated to the following:
"I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute... Alone." 
     Sounds like a zombie to me. Also important to note, evil zombie queen Apocolypta had a Jamaican accent when she spoke, sometimes. What was that all about?

4. O-Town sticks together. Almost the entire band appeared in the movie. Erik was one of the 7, Jacob Underwood was in a card game with Joey, and Dan Miller was holding it down as a bartender. Even Trevor Penick made a cameo as another more legitimate sheriff than Chris Kirkpatrick. Who was missing? Everyone's favorite teen heartthrob and occasional diva  Ashley Parker Angel. (I once waited three hours at the mall to meet him, only to be told I could take a photo of Ashley but couldn't be in the photo...)

3. Nobody likes the guys that flunked out of O-Town. Yes, during the groundbreaking reality series Making the Band, there were about 8 guys going through training to eventually form O-Town. The guys that were not chosen (and Ikaika Kahoano, who quit for some ridiculous reason) formed a group called LMNT. They were not cool enough to be be involved in this movie. Also important to note, Matthew Morrison (the teacher from Glee) was briefly in this boy band.

2. All the women left in the world are regarded as whores. Literally some of the guys end up in a whorehouse. All of the other women (the zombie queen, caught-between-two-brothers Daisy Jane and tribal priestess and guide Sirene (Lauren Kitt Carter) all are dressed similar to Laura Croft. I take that back, Laura Croft is dresses classier than all of these women as she raids tombs. At least the women were all wearing sensible and flat soled boots when they were running, no stilettos in sight.

1. Zombies are called copperheads????
I've got nothing to offer on this one. I am not sure why they were called copperheads. In conclusion,  SPOILER: Sirene is the only one who survived so my moral of the story is that men should not be left in charge of a post-apocalyptic world. (DROPS MIC).