By Brent McKnight | 8 years ago

In the event of a zombie apocalypse there’s some debate on whether or not having a dog with you is a positive or a negative. Depending on your stance, dogs can either save your life (by alerting you to zombies), or get you killed (by alerting zombies of your presence). But this issue is always approached from the human perspective, with little to no consideration of the problems dogs face when the dead start to walk.

That is until now. Play Dead, a Kickstarter-funded horror short from Andres and Diego Meza Valdes, examines the life of dogs after the world goes to hell.

Immune to the undead epidemic, the post-zombie world presents a whole slew of new troubles for our four-legged friends. Not only are the roaming corpses to contend with, but there’s the constant search for food, tricky canine romances, apocalypse survivors who want to turn Fido into dinner, and perhaps the most horrific problem, cats. It’s hard out there for a pup.

There are some truly great moments in Play Dead. A survivor, one who spends his final days partying rather than scrounging to stay alive, fishes for zombies, using a finger as bait. An Australian Shepherd, still connected to her zombie owner by a retractable leash, leads her former master around town, occasionally stopping to share a meal.

Made for $6000, the 18-minute Play Dead is a slick little genre production with a great concept. The gore and the action are both sound, and even though it takes a bit to get going, there’s not a lot of structure, and a groan-worthy 28 Days Later reference, this is adorable, clever, and a lot of fun.

One note: both of my dogs, and the dog I’m currently dog-sitting, got weirded out a couple of times over the course of Play Dead.