The zombie genre is dead.It pains me to say this, as it was those friendly flesh eating dead (Specifically the masterwork that is Dawn of the Dead ’78) that got me into my cinematic stupor in the first place. After countless Hollywood blockbusters and an entire cemetery of crappy independent atrocities we can official give those decomposing husks a rest. It’s a good thing that the new mockumentary American Zombie ditches all of the ‘rules’ and makes up its own take on the recently re-alived.
Most of the zombies in ‘American Zombie’ are functioning members of society. They’re just a little pale, rotting and infectious, nothing to get worried about right? That’s exactly what filmmakers Grace Lee and John Jarvis set out to figure out. Grace is a professional documentarian with a slew of awards under her belt. John is an amateur trauma center cameraman who wants to probe beneath the surface and find all of the zombie’s dirty secrets. They set out to make a documentary that follows the daily lives of few of these ‘zombies’ that live amongst us: There’s a directionless teenager that works at the convenience store, a funeral arranger who is desperate to figure out her past and a flighty nine to fiver who just wants to marry a human. They all get scrutinized under the lens and get to share their daily lives as John asks probing questions at every turn: “Do you eat human flesh?”, “Have you ever longed for the taste of brains?” John is certain there’s something else under the Zombie’s clean-cut façade and he’s sure he’ll be able to crack it.
As a mockumentary, the first half of the A-Zombie works splendidly. It’s not hard to realize that the zombies are a send up every marginalized that ever tried to make their voice heard. They don’t have identification, they don’t remember who they were in their past life and they can’t get any official documents. All they want to do is be recognized! All of the zombies that appear in front of the camera have their own little quirks and personalities and the details we glean, like the people obsessed with having sex with undead, are the little details we’d find in real documentaries. The problems arise in the films last third, when we go into completely unnecessary Blair Witch Territory. Everything before then has been chuckle worthy dry satire and we’re suddenly thrown into the “REAL HORROR OF THE ZOMBIES” and it just falls flat. People start acting complete out of character, sub-plots are dropped (Where’d the blue drug go?) to augment the ‘tension’, and it all reaches a dramatic conclusion that feels completely unearned. If it had stuck to its guns and continued the dissection and satire that took place in the first half maybe we’d have a winner on our hands. Instead, an ending ripped out of a completely different film leaves the viewer with a terrible after taste after a delicious main course…OF FLESH!
Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
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