Looking at Dead Air without watching it, one has to ask: "What is L.A. Law's Corbin Bernsen doing directing a zombie movie?" Sadly, by the end of the movie, the question remains unanswered.
Dead Air is a part of 2009's hot new zombie trend: radio stations and zombie outbreaks. Bruce McDonald's Pontypool is the other half of this equation. The two share nothing more than the premise of a radio DJ reacting to a viral outbreak outside the radio station. Dead Air starts at a basketball game where a viral gas is released into the air system. The gas infects the attendees essentially turning them into zombies, though this is never actually seen. Instead it plays out on radio.
Bernsen brought in horror movie vets Bill Moseley and Patricia Tallman to play the radio DJ and his ex-wife/producer, respectively, and added Big's David Moscow and Joshua Feinman as the show's sidekick and engineer. Looking at the small numbers tells any self-respecting horror fan a key thing: 4 characters equals a small body count. That creates a challenge to the filmmaking crew. The characters either have to engage an audience to care about their survival, or the movie has to be extremely tense to acheive any scares. Dead Air accomplishes neither.
While Tallman is mentioned as Moseley's ex-wife, their past relationship is never really explored or exploited. In fact, it's Moseley's current wife and daughter, who aren't seen for the first half of the movie, that are mentioned instead. In fact, not much in known about any of the characters in the station except that Moscow rides a motorcycle. Otherwise, there's not much character development. With no on to care about, the movie lacks tension considerably.
Then there's the virus. An airborne weapon administered by terrorists, the virus can be transmitted by a mere a scratch on the skin. That should be frightening, but after learning that the infection only lasts for seven hours before the victim falls dead, there's no real reason to be scared. Once terrorist ringleader Navid Negahban enters the studio with a serum, the danger completely falls away. A virus with a cure?
In their essence, zombies have the power to frighten because there is no cure. A bullet in the head is the only way out. That, and seclusion are the keys to survival. Dead Air provides zombies that can be cured and zombies that only last for a short time. It could have made up for this with some decent gore but the movie looks like it was shot for TV and the "zombie make-up" is nothing more than some fake blood "dripping" from the eyes. It sounds scarier than it looks.
It's interesting that Bernsen wanted to step into the zombie genre, but it's clear from Dead Air that he is not well versed in it. If he is, he wasn't able to elevate Kenny Yakkel's script above anything but its premise: radio and zombies.