As the zombie movie goes through every possible iteration known to man – no doubt egged on by the public’s inexhaustible appetite for films in the genre – it was inevitable that a zombie documentary would arrive. Well, okay; despite the fact that this is fast becoming a dirty word at film festivals, it is technically a zombie mockumentary. Whether it was inspired by the last minutes of Shawn of the Dead or not, the premise of American Zombie follows through on the idea presented there: that if zombies really did exist, their complete eradication would be unlikely. Society would have to find a way of dealing with these unusual citizens of the world.
Unfortunately for the living (pre-undead? un-undead?) humans of the world of American Zombie, the “revenants” walking among them can be shockingly high-functioning. They hold jobs, they make jokes, they create string art. Some even go to church.
“Jesus loves zombies,” says the (living) missionary of Christ’s word to the undead. “Jesus was the original zombie.”
Laughs like these will win for American Zombie a special place in the hearts of Romerophiles – at least those with a sense of humor about their favorite cannibalistic monsters. Other moments of levity revolve around the attempts of one zombie to promote the rights of his brethren with ZAG, the Zombie Advocacy Group – including a run of gray rubber bracelets emblazoned with the logo “DEAD STRONG.” The choice to make most of the film’s subjects near-human in intelligence and behavior may go against the grain of the usual depiction of zombies, but it’s a bit dull to interview a walking corpse that just wants to open your headbone and snack on the gooey contents. (Mmmm… gooey contents.)
Grace Lee, the film’s director and the maker of actual documentaries like The Grace Lee Project, stars as herself, reluctantly badgered into making a film about Zombie Americans living in Los Angeles by her friend John (also playing himself), who “never finishes anything.” Eventually convinced that the topic is one that needs to be covered, Grace disagrees with every instinct John has about the process of making the picture – his comic-book storyboards of stereotypical zombies eating brains on camera, his consumer-level DV-cam with the “cool” night vision mode, and most especially his insistence on baiting their interview subjects into admitting that they consume human flesh. Most of the interviewees are more than a little bit pathetic. Judy (Suzy Nakamura) whiles away the hours making scrapbooks of a life she doesn’t – and will never – have, and Lisa (Jane Edith Wilson) fixates on a former existence of which she has no memory. It’s hard to feel anything but a little bit sad for these characters with their impossible dreams and chronically maggot-infested flesh wounds, but John keeps asking to inspect the insides of their refrigerators.
It isn’t until the crew secures permission to film at the annual zombie-exclusive event “Live Dead” that things begin to seem at all sinister. Though Grace and her crew initially persist in their belief that the zombies are basically peaceable and that Live Dead is simply Burning Man for the undead set, even the unflappable “objective” filmmakers begin to question the wisdom of trekking out into the wilderness alone with several hundred potential brain-eaters.
It’s been said that if you want to make a movie with instant marketability, just make a horror movie. Zombie movies in particular are popular with beginning filmmakers – the effects are easy, gruesomely effective, and you can put all your friends in your film even if they can’t act. Lee is obviously no beginner but one wonders how much of that “instant audience” factor was in mental play when she and partner Rebecca Sonnenshine sat down to write the script. American Zombie is a lot of fun, but it doesn’t quite fill out its 90 minutes without shuffling its feet. There’s a noticeable lull in the film’s pace just prior to the trip to Live Dead. And though Lisa may be a delightful character in some ways (like her love for funeral floral arrangements as a celebration of the wonders of being dead), her scenes are the ones I suspect will hit the cutting room floor should Lee decide to go back and tighten things up.
American Zombie reveals Lee both as a competent filmmaker and actor, and the film is a solid attempt on a strong premise. It is not, however, the kind of movie that will inspire viewers to come back to see it again or even to recommend it highly. Don’t get me wrong – there are moments of humor and insight in this film that are unattainable by most other zombie pictures. American Zombie is definitely shambling towards greatness. I just don’t think it’s quite finished yet.
