Zombie Honeymoon

I just saw this last night. Although it has some really strong points--the lead actress especially--it was ultimately disappointing. The problem is that the director didn't settle on a single genre. It could have been a solid quirky comedy like SHAUN OF THE DEAD--there are some very funny scenes. But there are also really intense scenes that don't mesh with the comedy.

If the decision had been made to make a totally serious emotional film--what do you do when your new husband turns into a flesh-eating zombie?--but the comic scenes undercut that intensity.

Or it could have been a great mindless gore film--and there's plenty of great gore here. This film has plenty of good elements, but it just doesn't hold together.

I will definitely check out whatever this director does next.

After getting married, Danny (Graham Sibley) and Denise (Tracy Coogan) travel for a honeymoon of one month long in a cottage of her uncle nearby the beach. Danny and Denise are in deep love, and while they are resting on the beach, Danny is attacked by a stumbled zombie that comes out of the sea and vomits into his mouth. Danny dies for ten minutes, and when the doctor declares him dead, he miraculously revives. Danny stays in observation in the hospital along the night, and on the next morning, they leave the place and he convinces Denise to travel to Portugal. However, the former vegetarian Danny, having an uncontrollable hunger for human flesh, attacks many people, while Denise cleans his bloody mess trying to help her beloved husband.

"Zombie Honeymoon" is a bizarre and gore love story, but unfortunately the confused screenplay fails, once mixes romance, drama, dark comedy and horror but in very wrong doses and the genre of the story is not well situated. This low budget movie is visually too heavy and gore for a romance, shallow for a drama, silly for a comedy and most of the tension of the horror scenes are broken by the dramatic love story of Denise and Danny. The make-up and effects are great for this type of B-movie, and with improvements in the screenplay it would certainly be a cult-movie since it has a great potential. I believe "Zombie Honeymoon" deserves to be watched with a few expectations, and maybe the viewer may be favorably surprised. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Lua-de-Mel Assombrada" ("Haunted Honeymoon")

I saw this at the Torino Film Festival a couple of months ago.

The director introduced the movie before the screening. He's a nice New Jersey guy, who almost could not believe he had been invited to Torino with his second feature film (the first one's title is called "The Homeboy" and it is briefly seen here in a funnily self-deprecating scene at a video-rental (a furious client returns it to the clerk and yells his money back - but he has to pay for returning it late). "Zombie Honeymoon", said the director, "is probably the first zombie-movie ever to be based on personal experience".

The audience was ready to laugh, but there was nothing funny about that: the plot is an effort to handle the untimely demise of the director's brother-in-law, who died in a surfing accident shortly after getting married. The premise of the movie, therefor, is telling the story of two people trying to remain together against all possible odds.

The film's protagonist, Danny, is a surfer as well - but what gets him (temporarily) killed is not an accident: like a rotting pal of Venus Anadiomene, a zombie walks out from the sea to directly attack the poor guy and vomit black goo straight into his mouth. Then he falls dead over him. Rushed unconscious to the hospital, our hero also dies, only to come back to life a few minutes later. Problem is, after coming back home he finds himself desperately hungry for human flesh - which understandably proves a shock to his young wife Denise.

While presenting the film, Gebroe introduced it as a cross between a John Cassavetes piece and "Night of the Living Dead" - which is a fitting description for "Zombie Honeymoon". Although the photography does leave a lot to be desired (the film is all shot on digital video, and the choice of a hand-held camera style proves somewhat a bit annoying instead of contributing to the realistic effect ), the dialog and the interaction between the two unfortunate newlyweds are all absolutely believable - and even moving at times. Graham Sibley (Danny) is OK, but the selling point to the film is Tracy Coogan's Denise - not only she's beautiful: she is also great in totally selling the story.

Maybe the film does lose some steam halfway through, when the gruesome suppers of Danny start becoming a little repetitive. However, the final 20 minutes are genuinely poignant - starting with a great scene where Danny, after eating some of his victims, spends a long time in the dark of his and Denise's home playing with one of those arcade games from the 80s, while Denise, devastated, comes close to him and watches him play the game without uttering a single word.

I won't spoil the ending of the best zombie romance since the underrated "Return of the Living Dead III", but any Blues Brothers fan should love the way Gebroe uses the song "Sometimes is Hard to be a Woman" - we sure kept humming it for the rest of the evening, while discussing if death couldn't be seen as the ultimate handicap. Do check this film out, it's worth your while.

And now it is time for something completely different. Writer/Director David Gebroe has managed to give us an old fashioned zombie movie with a twist that is unique.

We see Denise and Danny rushing from the church to enjoy a honeymoon. They are the happiest of couples. They are lying on the beach and something happens to shake their world. Soon, Denise will have to remember that line she said in church earlier that day - in sickness and in health.

Graham Sibley and Tracey Coogan give us very interesting performances as a couple with a special problem. Lots of zombie gore in an interesting twist to the genre.

On the first day of the romantic honeymoon at the beach, a random zombie that comes stumbling out of the ocean infects Danny with an incurable virus. After being dead for a full ten minutes, he miraculously awakes and even continues planning his emigration to Portugal with his beloved bride Denise. But Danny really isn't the same anymore, as his insatiable hunger for human flesh drives him to forcefully attack people while Denise – loving wife as she is – helps him get rid of the leftover corpses. For only his second film as a writer slash director, Dave Gebroe had the bizarre ambition to blend gross horror with genuine romantic drama and even to throw in bits of comedy. The idea is admirable but, as you can imagine, the result is an often lacking and pathetic film. You can't really expect a story to emotionally affect you while you're watching at a slowly rotting zombie that takes large bites of flesh out of people, right? Luckily for me, I saw this film at a national festival where Gebroe himself came to enlighten the audience about his motivations and influences to make it. Believe it or not, but that actually helped me appreciating the effort slightly more! The whole dramatic aspect of the story is apparently based on a real event, as the director's brother-in-law tragically died in a surfing accident, which left his young wife behind with an emotional trauma. Re-working bits and pieces of this real-life drama into a horror film served as some sort of therapy for Gebroe, who was really fond of his brother-in-law as well. However, even with bearing Gebroe's introduction in mind, "Zombie Honeymoon" can't possibly pass for a good film. The sentimental moments are painfully tedious whereas the zombie action is quite gore and explicit. These sudden changes in tone are difficult to process and especially the tongue-in-cheek gags entirely miss their effect. The make-up effects are rather convincing considering the fairly low budget and the acting performances are spirited. The music selection and exterior filming locations; both a homage to the deceased Danny as well, are winning elements too.