Backstreet Boys’ New Movie ‘Dead 7’ Is A Hit For Fans Of 90s Boy Bands And A Miss For Everyone Else
Backstreet Boys, one of the most beloved boy bands of the 90s and a constant in every nostalgia playlist on Spotify, has recently spilled the beans on their next step as a band. According to Music Times, the Backstreet Boys are going to follow Mariah Carey and Britney Spears’ examples by trying for a residency in Las Vegas.
Before making any real commitment to the idea, the Backstreet Boys agreed to do a short-term run just to see how it all panned out. Nick Carter spoke on the deal with Live Nation and the group’s possible residency in Las Vegas.
“We have a deal with Live Nation, the touring company, and we just signed a nine-show deal to do a test run in Vegas with a residency, so that’s definitely going to happen, but we’re going to do a trial run first. It would definitely have to be a very big and spectacular show. Thankfully, we have a good catalog so we can perform all of our hits. That could take up a lot of the show.”
The grown-up Backstreet Boys are back; Will their trial Las Vegas residency be all right? https://t.co/4tCFte8xFd pic.twitter.com/O9BfSIO4hr
— CNN (@CNN) April 10, 2016
Apart from the residency, the Backstreet Boys are working on a new album and also have big plans for a world tour.
Music is not the only thing on the band’s agenda, as they’ve recently found themselves starring in the science fiction horror spoof Dead 7. According to the Los Angeles Times, the film stars members of the Backstreet Boys in a posse, which also has members of 98 Degrees, O-Town, and N’SYNC.
What We Learn From BSB Songs: #Dead7 Edition @skulleeroz @nickcarter @theasylumcc https://t.co/pUx1ORNJbI pic.twitter.com/cTvwnvvu6d
— The Dark Side (@TheDarkSideBSB) April 8, 2016
According to the Los Angeles Times, the movie runs along similar lines as the previous movie Sharknado. And as it turns out, there’s a very good reason why the members of Backstreet Boys have a prominent role in the film: the screenplay was written by the Backstreet Boys’ own Nick Carter, who also stars in it. Backstreet Boys contemporaries like O-Town’s Erik-Michael Estrada and 98 Degree’s Jeff Timmons also join the cast as a part of Nick Carter’s posse.
The premise of the plot revolves around an epidemic that has turned the population of the world into zombies. The impending chaos joins the motley cast of would-be heroes on a quest to stop the villainous Apocalypta, played by Debra Wilson.
Boy bands and zombies collide in #Dead7 https://t.co/krwywBZxcG pic.twitter.com/l2SxMoFIPW
— Las Vegas Weekly (@lasvegasweekly) April 6, 2016
The movie is not meant to be taken as a serious affair, and according to the Los Angeles Times, that much is apparent in the thin plot, awkward dialogue, and clumsy action. But that doesn’t mean the Backstreet Boys’ new movie is necessarily a bad one, just that it follows the usual tenets of a spoof movie.
The movie is likely to be enjoyed by those who were teens in the 90s, as they would get a kick out of spotting and trying to recognize their favorite 90s boy band members, be it a Backstreet Boy or an N’SYNC member. It seems that another selling point of the film is that the former boy band members seem really into their roles and evidently had a lot of fun filming the movie. The combination of these elements will most likely make Dead 7 enjoyable for former 90s teenagers to watch.
Even better, the characters the boy band members play in the movie are direct nods to the way they used to dress at the height of their fame, which means that there will be a lot of cheesy looking costumes and props like headbands and baseball caps worn backward. Even the zombies appear to be in the right age group to appeal to for former boy band fans.
That being said, it seems like the movie falls flat for viewers who aren’t particularly interested in playing “spot the former celebrity” with the cast.
A reviewer from Collider said that the “amusement over the boy bands vs zombies concept wears off about 10 minutes after the hypercolorized, bargain-bin Sin City style character introductions” while a reviewer from Variety thought that the whole film was an awkward attempt to drum up interest in the Backstreet Boys’ new song.
“Ultimately, the whole thing feels like little more than an excuse to queue up the song, ‘In the End,’ which Carter and company croon over the closing credits. Frankly, it’s a payoff that can’t come soon enough.”
According to Us Magazine, the song “In the End,” for which Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, O-Town, and N’SYNC all collaborated, is a power pop ballad by the boy bands that dropped on Monday, March 28.
The song perfectly captures everything about the boy bands that made teenagers go crazy back in the 90s. From the nasal vocals and breathy riffs to the cheesy lyrics, the song made for a spectacular throwback to those heady days of the 90s when boy groups reigned supreme.
[Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for H&M]
