Zompire Film Festival, Part Two

DAY TWO

I missed the first few shorts that opened up day two of the Zompire Film Festival, but fortunately made it just in time for “Zombie Jesus.” From the filmmakers’ website:

Mary Maynard has returned to town to mend the relationship with her devout priest father. But Zombie Jesus has his own plans for their reunion. Compelled by the horror of Christ, Mary teams up with the local Jew, Isaac, in a desperate crusade to save Mary’s father.

As the trailer for the film jokes: “He promised us eternal life. But we forgot to read the fine print.” It’s a hilarious satire on religious proselytism, with Zombie Jesus “converting” the heathens to Christanity: shots of zombie hordes milling about outside churches, bible-thumping zombies going door to door, and concerned news reports about the “aggressive” new conversion campaign. Ultimately, the only way to kill Zombie Jesus is not with a headshot but with, naturally, a crucifixion.

“Cannibal Flesh Riot!” by artist Gris Grimly also deserves a mention here, a film that made interesting use of multiple styles (including both live-action and stop-motion animation). More of a black comedy than a zombie film, “Cannibal Flesh Riot!” follows two redneck ghouls, Stash and Hub, on a late-night jaunt to the cemetery for a bite to eat. The dialogue is somewhat Tarantinoesque, in parts, largely consisting of an extended philosophical conversation about condiments and anthropomorphic food:

Hub: You know, I don’t really like condiments.
Stash: Have you even tried any?
Hub: They scare me.
Stash: We’re talking about the same thing here, right? Ketchup, mustard, and such?

And later:

Hub: It seems to me that humans are always depicting their food to look like people.
Stash: What the hell you talking about?
Hub: Well, think about it. You’ve got the fruit guys from the underwear commercials. You’ve got the California Raisins. You’ve got the whole menu of food people selling McDonald’s. Doesn’t that seem just a little bit cannibalistic to you?
Stash: Not cannibalistic. That would be eating their own kind.
Hub: I know, but isn’t it a little funny that they got to disguise their food to look like people to make it appealing? ‘Don’t like raisins? Then how ’bout raisins that sing and dance the fuckin’ Oldies?’

Apparently, the film started with an idea by Peter Sandorff, ex-guitarist for the psychobilly band Nekromantix. Sandorff proposed the story as a horror comic (written and drawn by Grimly) that came with a soundtrack (composed by Sandorff). Instead, they ended up with a short film, but one that obviously draws a lot of artistic influences from the old EC horror comics (like Tales from the Crypt).

“Laundromat” was an excellent short film, cutting right to the heart of the zombie story in eight short minutes. Put together in part by some folks at Rue Morgue magazine, the film follows a young couple as they barricade themselves inside a laundromat to fend off the undead hordes. When the man gets bitten by a sneaky zombie that’s found its way inside, things turn very dramatic (and gory) very quickly.

The shorts were followed by the 2004 “remake” of Dawn of the Dead, introduced by a representative of the “Center for Undead Neutralization Tactics.” He recalled that the first time he watched Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, he came to a poignant realization: “the zombie apocalypse is going to FUCKING RULE.” In Romero’s world, he pointed out, the zompocalypse would involve getting some guns, staking out a position in a local mall, and using the walking dead for target practice. They weren’t all that smart, and they certainly weren’t fast, so avoiding them seemed to be relatively easy if you took a few precautions.

But then, he said, came the new wave of zombie films, ushered in by 28 Days Later and the new Dawn of the Dead (which diverged from the original film so much that it might as well not even be called a remake). In these movies the zombies (or the infected, in the case of 28 Days) RAN. And that is a truly terrifying prospect. Running zombies, he solemnly stated, constitute the Worst Case Scenario for the zompocalpyse; it’s unlikely that humans could ever survive that sort of disaster.

Of course, there’s a huge faction of zombie fans that is rabidly opposed to the notion of running zombies — and that would seem to be the topic for a later post…

The final film of the evening (and the festival) was the truly outstanding zombie comedy Wasting Away: a film from the zombies’ point of view.

In a Director’s Statement on the movie, Matthew Kohnen writes:

For too long, Zombies have been the misunderstood Antagonists of Horror Films. Nearly every other classic Monster has gone on to have a film made that takes a moment to look at things from their side. “Interview with a Vampire”, “Young Frankenstein”, even “Teen Wolf”. But never Zombies, no… [...] It was my goal to rectify this, to give Zombies a voice, a point-of-view, if you will, that would allow us all to see that Dead or Undead, we all basically want the same things: Love, Success, and the Freedom to eat brains whenever and wherever we want. Is that so wrong? [...] “Wasting Away” is the first step in what we are sure will be a long road to Understanding and Inclusion. Remember, Zombies are People, too…

Now, I’ll be honest. Having read the above, I did not expect much out of this movie. “It’s a cute idea,” I thought, “but how can they sustain that gag for 96 minutes?”

The answer is simple: by making the rest of the movie actually good. Good characters that we’re interested in and care about. Good acting. Good cinematography. A multi-layered plot that turns from a simple “they don’t know they’re dead” twist into a surprisingly epic story about outcasts finding their place in a world that despises them.

Seriously, this is one fine zomedy. Highly, highly recommended.

Wasting Away won the Audience Award at both Zompire and at 2007’s ScreamFest in LA, where it beat out 30 Days of Night. It’s appearing at the Another Hole in the Head film fest in SF next month, and I certainly expect it to be a major contender for awards there, as well. Check out the trailer, below.