It’s probably fair to say that James Van Der Beek’s movie career, either side of the late, lamented Dawson’s Creek, hasn’t set the world alight. Varsity Blues was ok, The Rules Of Attraction ruled but was seen by about fourteen people, and he was last seen in The Plague, which ended up in Kim Newman’s Video Dungeon (albeit as a breakout). Dawson wouldn’t be happy.
But we’re quietly confident about Van Der Beek’s latest. It’s called Stone’s War, but much more telling is the movie’s original title… War Of The Dead. Yes, folks, it seems like Ver Beek has signed up to a zombie war movie! What could possibly go wrong?
Directed by Marko Makilaakso, a Finnish director of music videos and the like who, rather confusingly, appears to go under the name Mark Hillvalley, Stone’s War concerns a WWII unit comprising Finnish and American soldiers who run into trouble when they attack an enemy bunker and are driven back into a nearby forest. Once there, they’re slightly surprised to find themselves attacked by the same soldiers that they’d just killed… as the soldiers delve deeper and unlock a horrifying secret, can Van Der Beek’s heroic Captain Martin Stone save the day?
Although the movie’s press release conspicuously avoids the word ‘zombie’, we’re hopeful that Stone’s War will contain more than its fair share of brain-chewing, flesh-munching undead scum. Empire, as you know, has a soft spot for all things zombie (we still live in hope that some Hollywood type will read one of our endless plugs for IRA Zombies and take a chance on us), and provided that this doesn’t come down with a fit of the worthies, Stone’s War could be just the ticket for resurrecting Dawson’s big-screen career. Who says the dead can’t come back to life?