Zombi Child

Zombi Child blends voodoo, boarding school, pretty women, and some sort of avant-garde horror into a daub of mediocrity, painting in broad, superficial strokes that look pretty but ultimately amount to nothing of value. It tells two disconnected stories (or at least, that's what writer/director Bertrand Bonello wants you to think): one of a reanimated man forced to work in sugar plantations, and another of a young, high-school girl trying to fit into boarding school while pining for her boyfriend. The film lacks any tension, dramatic or otherwise; although being touted as a horror film it lacks suspense; and it lacks an engaging storyline and characters, making the almost two-hour film really feel its runtime.

Zombi Child suffers from various problems, although not all at once. It starts off promising, setting up the two storylines quite well with vivid imagery and fantastic cinematography. Almost immediately after, however, the endgame becomes painfully obvious and the rest of the film is merely a slog to that point, watching teen girls be angsty and sighing while speaking to each other in hushed tones under muted sepia lights. The writing is painfully lacklustre, with dialogue woefully inadequate and characters chewing the scenery more than anything else at any given time. Lack of dialogue doesn't bother me; after all, Beanpole does a fantastic job with sparse dialogue; however, the sparse dialogue in Zombi Child, designed to come off as artistic, only presents itself as shallow and vapid.

Unlike The Wave, however, Zombi Child is not a complete loss of cinema. The film works best when it completely gives itself up to the legend, with the mysterious, occult scenes where voodoo is performed a highlight in cinematography. The acting is brilliant: both women (Louise Labeque and Wislanda Louimat) perform admirably in the spotlight, doing the best with what they're given: Labeque playing the vapid, love-lorn teenager filled with angst and hormones, and Louimat playing what appears to be the only person of colour in the film.

The final third of the movie is its saving grace, with beautiful cinematography and displays of Haitian (or is it voodoo?) culture that almost make the slog through the first two-thirds worth it.

Zombi Child could have been so much more if it had focussed its attentions on the tale it was trying to tell. It wastes its time talking high-school romance and pining for faraway lovers, when it could have been trying to build interest and suspense. It also might have helped if we, the audience, weren't aware of how things were going to turn out in the first ten minutes or so. In fact, it might have been better if Zombi Child had been two movies: one exploring the life of a man returned from the grave and forced into slavery, and one where a young woman does everything in her power to keep herself together after her love falls apart.

Instead, what we have is two halves of slightly under-baked pies struggling to be one. I mean, I'd eat it, but I think I'd enjoy it a lot more if it had been something else. At least it looks pretty.

Yes, true to the old style zombies this movie just trudges along. A '60s Haitian worker decades earlier in the storyline is purposefully given Pufferfish tetrodotoxin with an abrading additive through his skin. He dies, sort of, perhaps just heart rate suspension, anyway he's buried then dug up to work as slave "Zombie" style labor in a sugar plantation. Decades later a young female relative is in a French school where she tells the tale of voodoo practice in Haiti which eventually plays into turning our storyline into a "misadventure". Lots of jumping back 'n' forth between the two locations/periods. Good accuracy in the basic narrative, but drags & ending is a little weird.

The zombie film has come a long way and has returned to the beginning: from the movies about slaves who worked in cane fields, it went through all kinds of cannibal gore and splatter, to finally go back to its origins, such as "Atlantique", a return to social issues, telling the story of modern young slaves in Africa. This other attempt remained halfway. For a good while, I thought, "This may be the one that would set the record straight". I also found it interesting, for its respectful description of a (fascistoid) school of privileged girls in Paris, and of the girls themselves, as pleasant, intelligent and normal beings. A few scenes, such as the insubstantial class about the French revolution, were distracting from the main subject. But the "main subject", which seemed to be the encounter of two cultures in the 21st century, based on the story of a real zombie (that of the Haitian Clairvius Narcisse, who claimed while being alive that he had been a victim of zombification), seen through the eyes of Narcisse's granddaughter, a girl who survived the 2010 earthquake in Haiti... that is not, in fact, the "main subject." The "main subject" is about a girl who is desperate to meet up with her lover Pablo to make love until she is dry, but the girl disguises her tickle with cheesy declarations of love as in the worst romance novel, which we have to listen to every time Narcisse's story advances a little, because it is she who will take us to the "scène de rigueur" of cheap supernatural horror, which, as in "The Serpent and the Rainbow", almost erases all good intentions, a collapse rounded off with a song by Rogers & Hammerstein. Anyway ... that's a shame, but maybe it is asking too much from Bertrand Bonello...

P. S. In the case of Craven's "The Serpent and the Rainbow", we knew the horror fest would happen in any moment, so although it weakens the movie a bit, it was a typical horror movie "a la Craven", and a very good one.

This was a film that I debated whether to see in the theater or not. I don't normally watch trailers as I like to come in blind to movies, but I did catch part of this one. I'm assuming it was when I was at the Gateway Film Center with my girlfriend and I can't be on my phone. This one as I said intrigued me and with the title, I thought it could possible be horror. The synopsis is a man is brought back from the dead in the hell of sugar cane plantations. 55 years later, a Haitian teenager tells her friends her family secret - not suspecting that it will push one of them to commit the irreparable.

We start this movie where we're seeing someone prepare the ingredients for something. It turns out to be a voodoo ritual and we see that it kills Clairvius Narcisse (Mackenson Bijou). This is all happening in Haiti and we see what their funerals are like. On top of that though, his wife is taking it hard. Things go a bit dark when Clairvius is removed from his casket and he's become a zombi.

This isn't in the sense like we're used to with Night of the Living Dead or The Walking Dead. This is a throwback to movies like I Walked with a Zombie where they're mindless creatures that are undead. He's taken to work on a sugar cane plantation with others that are like him.

The movie then shifts to the present in Paris. Our main character here is Fanny (Louise Labeque). She goes to a special school for children that are bright, but it also for students who have parents that are recognized for important awards. She is longing for break so she can see the 'love of her life', Pablo (Sayyid El Alami). She is in a sorority of sorts with three other girls and has befriended Mélissa (Wislanda Louimat). She is originally from Haiti, but due to the earthquake in 2010, she relocated to France. Her parents didn't make it so she lives with her aunt.

The rest of the group accepts her, but they think there's something not quite right about her. This is coupled with seeing what happened to Clairvius back in the 60's after the horrific event that happened to him. These two time periods have quite a bit in common and everything comes to a head when one of these girls as the synopsis says, does something that will change her life forever.

Alright, now the first thing I need to lead off here saying is that for about 80% of this movie, I wasn't going to do this review. It is listed on the Internet Movie Database that this is a fantasy film, which it is. I would even say that drama probably would fit as well. The event that is alluded to in the synopsis though was extremely creepy to the point where I had to write this. Due to that section and there being zombis in this throughout as well as Netflix listing this as horror, I decided it warranted this review.

I should cover that part first. We keep learning things about voodoo throughout this movie, so that shouldn't come as a shock. A ritual is performed and it is coupled with a character explaining the dangers of doing something like this. I like that they're giving the history of the religion and even more so when they introduce the character of Baron Samedi (Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey). I first learned of this entity from James Bond, as there's a villain that takes on this name. It is also a villain in season 3 of American Horror Story: Coven. What they do with him in this movie is scary if I'm honest and I like the flamboyant nature that is given as well.

What I found interesting with the zombi aspect is that it really isn't handled in horror for the most part. There is one of the girls who is freaked out by noises that Mélissa makes in her sleep and has a nightmare she's attacked. Other than that though, I saw the zombis as more of an allegory of slavery. They're brought back to work the plantations and do not get paid. The rich reap the benefits of this. This didn't click for me until the last few minutes, but then I started thinking back and it made sense. I even like that Mélissa's mother was fighting against the corrupt government, which in turn earns her daughter's way into the school she is at as well. The movie does state information about zombis in Haiti before the credits. I'm not sure how accurate what they're providing, but it does intrigue me to see if there's legit studies or data out there.

The only other thing story and deeper meaning wise I wanted to cover would have to be the correlating this school and its girls to what we're seeing in the past. They're all quite privileged. Listening to Fanny as an adult made me cringe, but I can't be too hard as it is thoughts I had when I was younger. She believes that she loves Pablo and he breaks it off with her. This sends her into depression. She doesn't think she can live, but in the grand scheme, she'll be fine. Seeing what they're worrying about while watching Clairvius trying to survive with what happened to him was an intriguing duality for sure.

I do have to admit that I thought the movie was a bit boring. It wasn't to the point where I hated it. It just took too long for the two stories to correlate back. I found the story around Clairvius to be much more interesting until how it collides with the present. That scene that went horror had me glued to the screen and really brought me back into the fold. I thought the ending worked to what they were building toward as well.

The acting in the movie I thought was fine. Labeque I thought really embodied the character she was playing. It is kind of annoying, but that really fits to who she is supposed to be. Louimat I thought was much stronger. She's an outsider. She doesn't necessarily care to make friends, but given the opportunity, she takes it. This is also the downfall by revealing aspects of her past. I found it interesting through a conversation with I'm assuming her aunt. Bijoy I thought was really good in his performance, especially as a voodoo zombie. Pierre-Dahomey though stole the show for me though. His performance was Baron was creepy and just great. The rest of the cast was fine for what was needed in building the story.

There weren't really a lot in the way of effects, but it wasn't really that important. During the scene that made this horror for me, I thought it was great. Seeing the character and how she was acting was amazing. I also like what they did with her eyes as it made it even creepier to be honest. The cinematography was also really good. It gave us the duality of how beautiful Haiti's countryside is to the horrors of what is happening there. On the flipside, how drab the school in Paris is with how important the teachers are making out to what they're doing is.

I also have to give props to the music selections. We do get some pop and rap music from France, which helped the feel of the realism for the young women. What I really have to give credit for is the voodoo music we're getting. It has that African vibe to it, which makes a lot of sense. Even more so though it helps to ramp up the tension for the climax as well.

Now with that said, I ended up really enjoying this movie. I like the duality of what happened in the past in Haiti and the social implications there and pairing that with these girls in a proper Parisian school. Where the movie ends up going had me hooked, but I'll be honest, it did lose me for a good stretch as I was bored and it took too long to correlate. The little effects we got were good and the cinematography helped as well as the soundtrack. The acting was also really good as well. With that said, this is an above average in my opinion, but really worth a viewing. I will warn you this is from France, so I watched it with subtitles on. If that's an issue I would avoid this.

7.5/10

In Haiti of 1962 a man is forced into slave labour. Modern days, a girl in an exclusive boarding school is trying to fit in. When she reveals the truth about her family origins a chain of events leads to a terrifying encounter that bring the past and the present together in a disturbing and dangerous way.

ZOMBI CHILD is a strange beast of static camera work and incomprehensible storytelling. But the most surprising thing about it is that the film works. By defying all the plot standards of modern film making it becomes unpredictable.

Switching between time frames, a disorderly Haiti of the past century and an orderly life of upper class French teenagers, it is hard to tell where the movie is going. And what is it trying to tell? Who are the real zombies? The ones under a voodoo curse who escape within an inch of their life, or the french youths confined in a jail-like school, forced to follow the traditions they don't believe in? Is it about the irrelevance of the past, no matter how important and treasured it seems? My guess is as good as yours.

Bottom line - ZOMBIE CHILD is a mess. It also makes it unique. And not a reason to skip it if you love French cinema!