first blood.

Caught this little gem t'other day and thought I'd share.

I'll try not to give too much away because it's actually worth seeing.

Enjoy.

Rammbock (AKA Siege of The Dead. 2010).
Dir: Marvin Kren.
Cast: Michael Fuith, Anka Graczyk, Theo Trebs, Sebastian Achilles, Carsten Behrendt , Melanie Berke, Emily Cox, Mila Gach, Harald Geil and Jörn Hentschel.

The morosely miserable Michael (the sensible jumpered Fuith, looking like cartoon dog Droopy made flesh) has recently (and unceremoniously) been dumped by his long-term girlfriend Gabi (moonfaced Graczyk whom you may recognise from Das letzte Versteck or then again, you may not) via a phone-call.

Bitch.

Arriving in Berlin and using the frankly feeble excuse of having to give her the house keys back as a reason to see her (and hopefully win her back) Michael is surprised to find not his true love at home but a fat sweaty builder and his young YTS apprentice Harper (Trebs from the enchanting Lilly the Witch: The Dragon and the Magic Book), who are incredibly busy moving stuff around and painting doors.

Well Harper is.

His bouncy boss appears to be trying to have sex with a radiator.

Must be a German thing I guess.

"Hello? French polishers? You might just be able to save my life..."

Michael nervously asks if either of them have seen Gabi or know her whereabouts garnering only a groovy non-committal shoulder shrug from Harper and a loud grunt from the big man followed by him tearing the radiator from the wall and trying to brain his poor assistant with it.

Yup, definitely a German thing.

Managing to wrestle the deadly decorator out of the front door and down the stairs, michael and Harper hastily barricade themselves inside Gabi's apartment just as the whole world outside seems to go to hell in a helmet.

Running to the window to see the cause of the commotion the hapless pair can only look on in horror as the building is suddenly surrounded by hordes of foaming mouthed mentalists with only one thing on their mutated minds.

Man meat.

"Oh no! Here come the Bin men!"

Finding a radio, Michael and Harper sit in shock as they listen to the news reports. It seems that this isn't an isolated occurrence and all of Germany is affected by this sudden outbreak of munchy filled madness.

Reaching for his phone to try and call Gabi, Michael notices it's not in his pocket.

suddenly there's a ringing from outside the front door. 

After much deliberation and armed only with a makeshift slingshot and a pair of rubber gloves our heroes attempt to reclaim their only link to the outside world.

And Michael's only way of contacting Gabi.

"Shiiiiiiimmmmooooooooo!"

After much sneaking and shiftiness our dou manage to locate Michael's phone but not before the entire apartment is overrun by blood hungry freaks, leaving Harper and Michael trapped in the bedroom with only a wardrobe, rabbit hutch and a drinks cabinet to keep the door jammed shut.

But at least they can phone home now and tell their loved ones that they'll be late home for tea so it's not all bad.

Sticking the phone out of the window to try and get a signal, Michael notices the group of surviving neighbours across the courtyard all gazing from their balconies, desperate for information and maybe even a glimmer of hope that someone, anyone can help.

"It's Julian Assange, he says he's shagging your mum".

With food and medicines in short supply and the infected hordes moving ever nearer the survivors know they can’t remain in their homes indefinitely.

So Michael, still obsessed with Gabi's safety, hatches a plan to escape the besieged bedroom,rescue his true love and find a way of reaching the other survivors before it's too late.

Rick Melton must have been busy.

First up, please don't be put off by Revolver Entertainment's bloody abysmal, lowest common denominator re-branding/retitling of Rammbock (they must have spent all their cash on the upcoming release of A Serbian Film, it's got a booklet and everything) as Siege of The Dead, with it's photo-shopped publicity still zombie and non appearing helicopter gunships, burning buildings and the slightly important fact that the 'infected' in the movie aren't actually dead because if you do you'll be missing a really effective little movie.

I say little because having a running time of just over 60 minutes, I can't decide whether to class it as director Marvin Kren's debut short feature or his forth (albeit longer) short film.

Saying that tho' he manages to fit more action, scares, giggles and pathos into it's meagre running time than most film's twice it's length.

Or three times it's budget.

Blessed with a fantastic cast and superb pacing, particularly during the film's second half, Kren adds just enough touches of his own to the proceedings to lift it above yer normal running zombie straight to DVD fare and puts most of the UK (and US) undead output to shame.

Plus it has one of the funniest bear suit moments I've ever seen.

Up the arse from an undead Wendy Richards....every man's dream.

And whilst Rammbock doesn't re-invent the genre or stray too far from the 'under seige' formula, what it does achieve with it's tiny budget, cast and running time is nothing short of marvellous.

So basically, if you only see one subtitled film distributed by Revolver in the next few months make sure it's this one.

Right, I'd better get back to watching shite and typing laugh now....feeling all funny here.