Rating: B
Dir: Cooper Roberts
Star: Logan Riley Bruner, Emma Chase, Mena Suvari, Neel Sethi
This begins 30,000 years ago, with the first depiction I’ve seen of a prehistoric zombie. Right off the bat, I was reeled in. By the end, a hundred minutes later, a giant zombie human/tortoise hybrid was being dispatched by… well, a method I’m fairly sure I’ve never seen before. In between? It’s a charming combo of horror and comedy, and also the most meta zombie films since One Cut of the Dead. It takes place in 1998, where Bucky Le Boeuf (Roberts) is a teenager with a dead mother, alcoholic father and aspirations to be a film-maker. He shoots his movies on a home-video camera, with the help of long suffering sidekick, Vish (Sethi).
He decides to enter a local horror-themed film festival, despite qualms about the genre – Bucky throws up at the sight of blood, even the stage variety (top). He recruits acerbic PA June (Chase) and actress Vivien (Suvari) to the production, but his ace in the hole is his father, Walter. Following an encounter with a meteorite, Dad is now one of the walking dead, giving Bucky the chance to make the world’s first zombie film with a real zombie. Fortunately, Dad worked in animal control, so there’s a plentiful supply of tranquilizer darts. Until Vish then gets bitten, so he naturally, turns as well. And Detective Moses Swan (Eddie Griffin) starts looking for the missing Walter. And Vish’s mom shows up. Suddenly, Bucky and June have more zombies than they can handle.
It’s all refreshingly inventive, and considerably gorier than I expected from the trailer. There’s a lot of practical effects, severed limbs and arterial spray. In this and the overall concept, of suburban zombies being kept captive, I was reminded of Peter Jackson’s Braindead – especially in the finale, where things go aggressively over the top. Yet it works because of the characters too, who are likeable and fun to be around. Bucky’s high-minded artistic goals are relentlessly crippled by harsh reality – and June’s pragmatism. Vivien is a great parody of the self-absorbed actress, and Detective Swan gets a wonderfully dark monologue describing hell like a fundamentalist preacher. Both Suvari and Griffin seem to be relishing their roles, and it’s the kind of enthusiasm which infectiously transmits itself to the audience.
Another good point of comparison would be Psycho Goreman, which also has kids handling an extraordinary, splattery scenario with remarkable aplomb. For me, this worked slightly better, slowly reeling you into its insanity, until you suddenly notice what’s happening, and wonder how the hell you got there. There is some tonal whiplash, and certain subplots are under-developed, e.g. the fact the ashes of Bucky’s mom speak to him, never proves significant. But I’d rather have a film with too many ideas than not enough, and this certainly falls into the former category. While I often feel the zombie genre is as dead as its inhabitants, it’s nice to be proven wrong occasionally.
The film is out on VOD and in select cinemas now.