American Zombie

What a splendid documentary! Finally, a Fair And Balanced look at the plight of The Un-Dead. Grace Lee's, American ZOMBIE treats the viewer to a never seen before look at 'a day in the life' in a variety of High Functioning Zombies in contemporary Los Angeles. 'The Creatures of the Night' are people too, and are lobbying for their rights, and demanding recognition from mainstream society! The film gallantly demonstrates how, ZAG (Zombie Activist Group) tirelessly champions the rights of this over-looked and ignored marginalized community. If you like documentaries that fearlessly seek out the truth, you can't pass this up. There ain't no 'sizzle' in this spectacular film, it's all 'red, red meat'.

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!

"American Zombie" is probably the biggest pleasant surprise I encountered in quite a few years and I urge every fan of cinema – whether horror or films in general – to check it out as soon as the opportunity occurs. The film is an odd and unconventional mixture between a zombie film (duh!) and the so-called "mockumentary" (people with hand-held cameras registering the unusual situation they find themselves stuck in). Just because of this label, I approached "American Zombie" with extreme caution and low anticipations. Let's be honest, the market for zombie movies already suffers from over-saturation since many years and the Mockumentary forms a suddenly unstoppable trend ("Cloverfield", "rec", …) that yet has to prove its stability. George A. Romero also joined in on the combination of zombies and shaky cameras with his latest effort "Diary of the Dead". Now, he's an acclaimed director and even the founding father of zombie cinema, but what to expect from a bunch of inexperienced documentary makers? Well, I love being proved wrong when it comes to innovating and new film projects! "American Zombie" is refreshing, original, intelligent, well structured and far more stylish than it has any right to be. The subject matter may sound ridicule, but writer/director Grace Lee presents everything in a convincing style and even the cast members, who have the difficult task of depicting plausible corpses, play their roles with a constant straight face. The script uniquely introduces resurrection from the dead as some sort of congenital defect, caused by a substance in the brain that is activated in case of a violent death. There are several categories of "Revenants", varying from the absolute braindead to the living dead with most of their vital brain capacities still intact. Throughout a period of several days, a Los Angeles film crew follows four of these "intelligent" zombies and illustrates how they live their everyday afterlife, deal with all sorts of discrimination and desperately attempt to oppress their physical decomposing. Just like normal people, these revenants have different personalities, hopes, desires, sentiments and goals to achieve. Meanwhile the film also centers on the arguments between the filmmakers mutually, as Grace wants to maintain an objective viewpoint whereas John continuously confronts the revenants with provocative questions. The revenants' stories and the crew's constant quarrels are already fascinating to behold, but the script is uplifted to an even higher level of quality through interviews with other groups. There are scientists listing the characteristics and history of the Living Dead, Zombie-haters (displaying various ways to destroy a dead brain) and Zombie-chasers (similar to people who write love letters to convicts on death row). Seemingly without much effort, "American Zombie" succeeds in bringing a biting satire that subtly mocks modern social issues and media sensationalism, but simultaneously doesn't lose track of story depth and character drawings. There are multiple powerful scenes in the film and you honestly come to care for the revenants … even though the maggots occasionally fall out of their bodies. "American Zombie" is also a rather atypical "Mocumentary" (since there are still professionals in charge of photography, sound and editing) so the amount of shaky camera movements and extreme close-ups are thankfully kept to a minimum. Highly recommended to open-minded cinema lovers.

The people who wrote all the previous reviews must be trying to sell the movie, because I don't see how any of them could have got what they say they got out of the movie. It is boring from start to finish and the characters are flaky and uninteresting! There's really no plot other than that they are making a documentary. Some elements they bring up in the film are so vague it makes you wonder why they put them in the film in the first place. It makes me think if the Lifetime channel made a zombie movie, this is what it would be. If you are a true zombie movie fan, then this movie isn't for you! Trust me, you'll be more entertained sitting in front of your TV for an hour and a half with it turned off!

This movie seems to have multiple personalities. It starts out very, very dry, a little too much so. Then it warms up and is hilarious in the middle, but suddenly turns serious at the end, making it seem like a different movie entirely. A good mockumentary should build to a large climax that leaves me smiling, not depressed.

However, I do recommend seeing it. The good parts are enough to make the movie worthwhile. The private investigator is especially funny, and John Solomon's antics perfectly balance Grace's personality.

I'd be excited to see what these filmmakers do next. Though a better ending would have moved this film from six stars into eight or nine, there's certainly quite a bit of talent at work here, and a few more films under their belt might make all the difference.