‘Shadow: Dead Riot’ has two screenwriters credited for its creation, Michael Gingold and Richard Siegel, who obviously came up with this concept while they were high on angel dust lined blunts.  I know this as a fact because I know somebody who thinks they know somebody who may have seen somebody who has a vague recollection of maybe actually being there while they were coming up with the idea.

Mike:  (inhale) Dude, let’s write a movie man.  A zombie movie man!
Rich: (exhale) Yeah dude, and lets set in a woman’s prison so they’re can be like titties and showers and shit like that dude!
Mike: Oh snap! That’s like brilliant!  But then, then, then, let’s put lot’s of like Kung Fu action in it too dude!
Rich:  Oh hell Yeah!  But make it Matrix style Kung Fu dude!  I’m talking running on walls type shit!
Mike:  But check it.  This right here is gonna set it off!
Rich:  What you got for me man?  Pass that on.
Mike:  My bad.  Let’s put that killer baby in it.  You know… the one from ‘It’s Alive’?
Rich:  Oh HELL NO!  And let’s make it zombie too!
Mike: (solemn) Rich, we may very well be the most brilliant sons of bitches ever in the history of everything. 
Rich: Word.

Rumor has it they wrote it that night in about a half hour and emailed it off.  When they came too the next morning and read what they had written they frantically tried to recall the e-mails but it was too late, a bidding war had already begun for the rights for ‘Shadow: Dead Riot’.

Tony Todd is serial killer ‘Shadow’ who is about to be executed, and in solitary has filed his teeth into razors and has performed some kind of wacky ritual that upon his imminent demise turns the inmates of the prison into flesh eating zombies.  The Warden eventually kills them all and secretly puts them in a mass grave in the front lawn.  Years later this joint is now a prison for women and gets a new super angry inmate who calls herself Solitaire.  Solitaire’s mom was killed by Shadow during his rampage twenty years earlier, though Solitaire didn’t know this yet because she was too busy killing up some other dudes on the outside who she THOUGHT had killed her mother, which is why she’s in prison now.  That would qualify as a big ol’ ‘My Bad’ right there.  In this prison, Shadow’s dead vibe is strong with Solitaire and now she knows the truth. 

A set of bizarre circumstances occur, not the least bizarre was the woman who gave birth in the yard of the prison and had the afterbirth flow down into Shadow’s grave, and next thing you know the prison is overrun with zombies.  But ultimately it will all come down to the battle between the newly revived Shadow and the walking on walls kung fu master Solitaire.  Shadow quizzes Solitaire as to why she gave herself that name.  I was thinking maybe because she likes to be alone?  Oh no.  Solitaire replies “Because I like seeing Red on Black!”  Because Shadow is like a black guy and his blood is red you know?  Now YOU tell ME that that those cats weren’t high.

‘Shadow: Dead Riot’ is just your typical zombie, kung fu, women in prison, killer baby movie is all.  If you go into this movie and take it serious just a little bit, then you’re lost and may as well hit eject on the DVD player.  This is about as ridiculous a movie that I have seen, ever.  Tony Todd, who I am a great admirer of, does nothing to lessen my admiration here as he carries his overacting to the nth degree which was necessary to compensate for actress Carla Greene, who has been blessed with possibly the planets prettiest, smoothest, brownest skin, but was fairly comatose throughout most of these proceedings.  So tell me what do you want?  Nudity?  Check.  Gore?  Check.  Kung fu?  Check.  Sadistic Lesbian Guards?  Check.  A female body builder who can kick your ass?  Check.  A Killer baby biting off its birth mothers breast and have a mixture of blood and breast milk splash on the floor?  Check.  A story that is logical and makes sense?  Can’t help you there.  Go rent ‘Mr. Bean’s Holiday’ if your snobbish ass wants to see some shit that makes sense.

The most disturbing thing about this movie was that it has the schlock actress Misty Mundae in it and I RECOGNIZED her as Misty Mundae.  I seriously have to start watching better movies.  Damn.