American Zombie (2007)

Waste of time

An Exercise In Nonsense

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

IMPORTANT NOTE: AZ IS DEFINITELY NOT A COMEDY! - there must have been a mistake in the classification. Emotions are all represented in this movie, from hope to pathos to sadness, but certainly not humor.If your average idea of a good movie is 120 minutes of explosions and flying limbs, move along, there's nothing to see here. If, though, you're interested in something new, fresh, giving a second birth to a topic already exploited to death and beyond, you're in for your money.In world where Zombies retain their mental faculties after turning, and try coping with their ailment, American Zombie is a mockumentary (fake documentary) following the afterlife of several revenants, each having a distinct approach towards their status (legally dead), future, lack of memory regarding event before their legal death and, most of all, their place in society. But activist, new age tinker or desperate optimists, they all have one thing in common: well kept secrets. Every aspect of this movie is impeccable, and really leaves us with the impression that the mock filming team has done the best they could to uncover the truth, even it the film deliberately leaves some questions unanswered to add to its realism. The acting is surprisingly masterful, techniques used are not over the top, yet not sub standard either (no overused shaking and bad image quality) ; the mock filming team is supposed to be made of professionals, and we're watching professional result. Grace Lee manages to fuse narrative and documentation to keep a dramatic curve that will hook you until the last minute, and deliver a spectacular piece of entertainment which will make you wonder for a minute or two whether or not zombies are real. A must see, definitely.

Those of you Zombie movie fans out there expecting a flesh-eating fest will be disappointed - but let's face It, the Zombie film has been taken to It's limits and beyond so a new slant was definitely required. Though a bit silly, this spoof documentary Is both funny(very tongue-In- cheek In places)mixed In equal proportions with some very straight-played characters and scenes. The "professionals" give there opinions very well and through them both the main background to the Zombie virus as well as the Social problems faced by the creatures are made apparent, although 'creature' may be the wrong word here considering that the majority of these Zombies-or 'Revenants'(look It up,It's a pretty cool word!)-as they are most commonly termed throughout-are generally In full control of themselves and retain most of their mental capacity. I give It a high score because It's so different and played so well. Look out for the Private detective demonstrating his Zombie-killing techniques!

I will try to be as vague as possible while still remaining coherent so as to not give away too much.I liked the movie and it is possible that I am over interpreting the movie but want to address statements that the end is in contrast to the majority of the movie. It isn't, the reasons for the resurrection of the "revenants" and the basic motivations for the zombies is suggested early on in the movie and the movie does provide confirmation of the reality of this motivation subtly quite early. The movie presents the motivation as manifesting in various forms through the characters dialogue, multiple world views interpreting the basic motivation of the cause for their resurrection. It makes what is happening at the end more coherent, the characters various ethical dilemmas and basic motivations manifesting in different forms. The zombies discourse is close enough to resemble the major discourse present in living human society such as love, equality, art, meaning and truth, but the unconscious drive behind these positive terms is something else not human and the majority of them are probably are not conscious of the disparity.

The craftsmanship is topnotch, the performances solid, the writing sound. There are some astute observations here and there about life after death- and life before death. Like the risen dead in THEY CAME BACK, the undead in American ZOMBIE aren't just mindless, flesh-eating zombies (not that there's anything wrong with mindless, flesh-eating zombies) (check out my black and white comic, CAPE FEAR COMICS, available from comiXpress, which is dedicated to George A. Romero himself, and you'll see whereof I speak). The socio-political ramifications of the dead rising from their graves is explored (sometimes hilariously, sometimes more sublimely), but it's the superb film-making that makes this one worthy of a nice, long look.