Friday, September 10, 2010

What I watched: "American Zombie"

In case I haven't said this a hundred times already, I love the Netflix watch instantly feature. I have watched many movies and TV shows -- good and bad -- that I would have never rented or put on my queue. Case in point is the movie I watched last night. It's a "mockumentary" called "American Zombie."

From the film's media Web site:
Filmmakers Grace Lee (“The Grace Lee Project”) and John Solomon (“Nonsense Man”) team up to shoot a documentary about high-functioning zombies living in Los Angeles and their struggles to gain acceptance in human society.
Now, anyone who has read even a little of this blog is well aware of my love for all things zombie. And I know I'm not alone in my love. Vampires may be the hot new thing and sexy as hell, but zombies will always be the top monster in my book. The scariest thing about zombies is their complete lack of humanity. They have no regard for family or friends. They kill and eat indiscriminately.

In "American Zombie," those particular zombies are known as "feral zombies." They have lost all humanity. But there are two other types: zombies who have retained enough humanity to do manual labor and "high-functioning zombies" who seem to be just like any other human -- except for their decaying flesh, of course. And none of them seem to have a taste for human flesh -- or do they? (Cue ominous music.)

The film follows four high-functioning zombies through their day-t0-day lives. We see them at their jobs, interacting with girlfriends and co-workers and preparing to attend Live Dead (a kind of Burning Man festival for zombies only). The film makers finally get permission to attend -- despite being living humans -- and film Live Dead, resulting in dire consequences.

It's an interesting take on the zombie genre. Though it wasn't as funny as I'd hoped it would be, I still enjoyed watching the film. For a die-hard zombie fan, like myself, it was a good movie. For everyone else, I'd probably say give it a pass. It starts out slow and has a pretty predictable ending.

All in all, I'd give it a better rating than the 4.9 stars out of 10 IMDb users give it. But, as I said, I have a love for all things zombie, from the super cheesy to the classic.