Night of the Living Dorks (2006)

Strong and Moving!

Dreadfully Boring

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

A lesser version of Idle Hands (1999) due to the pot references and a lesser version of Shaun of the Dead (2004) due to the zombie comedy. This would have been great if they were geeks or nerds but they were dorks and that was just annoying. There are plenty of stoner and drug references which could be a political stab against the brain-dead generation but I really doubt that. I didn't laugh very much and I found my attention slipping quite a lot. It was quite funny, quite entertaining, quite interesting and quite average on all levels. Good idea made without flair.

"Die Nacht der lebenden Loser" is a German movie from 2004, so this one will have its 15th anniversary two years from now. The writer an director of this 90-minute movie is Matthias Dinter and if you take a look at his body of work, then you probably already can roughly estimate the quality to expect here. Or I should say the lack of quality. The script is a mess and the "actors" add their best (worst) to sink this film even further. Even the likes of Henry Gründler who may be a talented comedian are just no quality performers in terms of film acting, even if it is comedy. There are many familiar names in here, but they are all more entertainers than actors. Then again, the actors aren't any better. Just taking a look at the lead trio here, they are all basically interchangeable with their performances and absolutely nothing about their characters stands out at all. Not through the acting. Not through the writing. This is the story of three teenagers who turn into zombies after a fateful coincidence of events. But this transformation was needed for them to find out who they really are and who/what really matters to them. Finally, the likes of actors like Hendrik Borgmann (GZSZ) or other actors whose most known credits is "Sturm der Liebe" being in here says it all about the quality of the cast. There were just so many scenes when the dialogues did not feel authentic at all, but written and thus exactly what they were. You never had the impression you were watching actually existing characters (of course there are fantasy elements, but still) and the actors sure didn't make things better. And they also never came off like zombies, just like people with pretty weak zombie make-up on them. Now if this had at least been somewhat charming with the romance element attached to it and the way the central character and Ulmen's get together, but it was all predictable and for the sake of it and once again the lack of talent in acting and writing makes this painful to watch. The genuine drama moments like the knife scene at the end are ones where the film actually dares to take itself seriously despite how garbage it is. If people say films today here in Germany are worse than 15 years ago, they need to check out this one because it refutes the theory completely on its own. And still it is pretty famous still even today, most certainly the most known work by almost everybody involved with the project and that shows how much people are curious about zombie movies. But there is not a single reason to love this one. It is a huge mess and a definite contender for worst 2004 film. I highly recommend to stay far far away from any copy of "Night of the Living Dorks".

As far as German teenage comedies go, this one at least doesn't suck. Instead it offers an interesting twist on the spoof zombie genre. Three high school friends hang out with the local three-goths-high goth scene and take part in a half-arsed "waking the dead" ceremony with them. Then, they die in a car crash. To their surprise the ceremony did work after all and they're now zombies ... complete with a zest for human flesh, superhuman strength and their very flesh rotting on their bones. For a while they exploit their new abilities by taking revenge on cruel gym teachers and school bullies and pursuing their love interests. At this point the pretty impressive supporting cast comes into play and manages to patch over the now somewhat stolid plot. Our hero Philip chases after the posh Uschi who turns out to be the type of female sexual predator who constantly talks about getting it off and pleasing her man and who will be the first to be brutally offed by the zombies in a run-of-the-mill US-American teen comedy. While this movie has taken many cues from standard Hollywood fare, at least they've decided to let the sexual predator chick off in this case. The film steers towards a pretty far-fetched but at least fairly original ending.I didn't get to see this movie when it came out ten years ago. Then I recently remembered it and decided to catch up. Overall this is what it claims to be, a working teenage zombie comedy. Since those are pretty thin on German ground, it's a fat shame that nothing much became of the director nor his primary cast.

As my usual SIFF ritual, I attended a "Midnight Adrenaline" screening, and this year it happened to be "Night of the Living Dorks", a German "zombie-comedy", a spoofing genre that has seemed to kick off since the massive cult success of UK's "Shaun of the Dead". And this film does play like a nutty hybrid of "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Night of the Living Dead", and it's joyfully naughty, undemanding fun.This particular horror spoof/send up takes place in suburban Germany, focusing on group of unpopular high school geeks in all their individual, expected ways. The sort-of leader of this hapless gang is Phillip (Tino Mewes) a mildly neurotic teen with the typical everykid amiability, who doesn't have a whole lot of personality but an earnest heart. However, he has a hopeless crush on the school's reigning teen queen Uschi, and whenever he drudges up the courage to confront her he meets an unduly comeuppance by the school's preppy, heartless jocks. Of course, this wouldn't be a teen movie without a pair of sidekicks: best friend Konrad (Thomas Schmieder), an uber Micheal-Anthony-Hall-ish nerd who keeps a precise, daily recording of the endless taunts and vile pranks repeatedly pulled on him, and Wurst (Manuel Cortez), a perpetual stoner who remains completely insouciant and unaffected by the group's considerable lack of a social life. And in true John Hughes' fashion, there's the lovely next-door gal pal, Rebecca (Collien Fernandes), one for whom is trying on a Gothic lifestyle to see if it fits, who has a none-too-subtle crush on the oblivious Phillip.And the night that puts the story's pivotal turn in motion is at a pathetic meeting of Collien's goth clique and Phillip's nerdy triad, for which an inept voodoo ritual to try and reverse Phillip-n-crew's downward social spiral goes awry, as they die in a car crash during a roadside bong haze, only to wake up in the city morgue that night to realize there the walking dead! And when they return to school the next day, they realize their luck is about to change: not only do they crush the athletic jocks at their usually unbearable PE class (with heavy reverence to "The Longest Yard") and find they have superhuman strength, but also throw a totally radical school-wide party at Phillip's pad (for whom are on vacation), completely reversing their terminally unpopular streak.But of course, things don't quite go as smoothly (body parts falling off at inappropriate times, a conniving, emasculated jock planning to bring them down and Konrad's wildly uncontrollable violent outbursts), and they realize they are now on a ticking clock to resurrect themselves with a "magic mixture" before they officially go forever back into the grave.Now all this is a pretty predictable template, but director Mattheius Dinter's goofy, manic energy and the unpretentiously clever vignettes (Finding ancient zombie remains on E-bay; an ultra-cheery mother barging in on an awakening Phillip to see he has an erection under his sheets) helps elevate this gross-out comedy/teen-horror-romance to the above-average category. The movie does have a few deeper observations than expected (noting that a Zombie's "Hunger" for human flesh reflects the boy's burgeoning sexuality), but really it just wants to have fun, as even the movie's climax is pretty much you would expect (with some minor surprises), it still works splendidly.Great fun, no matter how petty it actually is.