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| The Entertainment Review |
| Genre: Mockumentary Director: Grace Lee |
It is an odd feeling to be disappointed with the new zombie film “American Zombie” because of the fact that it makes George Romero’s
latest film, Diary of the Dead,” look terrible. This of course is the George Romero that basically created the zombie genre. The two films
have the same basic concepts, a fake documentary about zombies, but it is the way that the two directors approach the material that
makes them so much different. Romero’s version of the film gives viewers a conventional zombie movie that continually reminds
viewers that it is nothing like any other documentary. Grace Lee, the director and co-star of “American Zombie,” became popular with
her documentary “The Grace Lee Project” and she understands the language of documentaries and how to use it to tell a story. This
means that her film feels like a real documentary, with a few unsuccessful attempts at drama.
Although the two films may seem like they have a lot of similarities between them, they are in fact very different. George Romero’s film
revisits “Night of the Living Dead,” having student filmmakers capture the first couple of days of the great zombie plague. Grace Lee on
the other hand has taken the zombie archetype that George Romero invented and took some liberties with it and made a couple of
changes and created a world where the zombies live among the rest of the human population as lower class citizens who have been
misrepresented in film and stories. Interestingly, both of the films do the same things with the zombies in a variety of different ways, but
the both essentially say the exact same thing about the zombie that walk the earth. While the Romero does it with a very clumsy
dialogue and voice over, Lee does it with some wit and a little bit a humor. She gives viewers a zombie film that will make them want to
actually cheer for the zombies, even if it is just for a little while.
In “American Zombie” the living dead, or revenants as they are officially called in the film, aren’t the mindless flesh eating monsters that
have been seen in movies, instead they are regular people who happen to have acquired a virus that reanimated them upon their
death. While they are very slowly decomposing, the zombies try to live as normal of lives as possible in a world that won’t allow them all
of the privileges of “normal” humans. They aren’t allowed to have credit cards, get married or get a driver’s license.
Filmmaker John Solomon, players by filmmaker John Solomon, sees that own of his friends from film school, Grace Lee, has been
making a name for herself with her documentary films. He is able to convince her that the lives of zombies in Los Angeles is a great
topic for a new film and they decide to team up despite the fact that they are approaching the film from two very different directions. John
wants to approach the film from an investigative journalist perspective, although he seems much more of a sensationalist, while Grace
is looking at creating more of an observational documentary film. John is constantly getting into the face of the subjects, with his main
question relating to whether or not the subject they are talking to eat human flesh, while Grace wants to play the role of a fly on the wall
and let the camera capture whatever it is able to in order to create a realistic look at the zombie population.
The film follows the lives of four very different zombies as they go about their daily lives. The first is Ivan, a zombie working at a
convenience store who makes photocopies of his self made magazine, since they haven’t been able to learn how to really use the
Internet yet, and whose girlfriend is a human who is tagged as a zombie chaser, or a girl who likes to engage in sexual activities with
zombies. Judy is a zombie in denial, a woman who tries to live a normal life, including having a healthy vegan diet and who has dreams
of marrying a human that she works with and adopting children. Lisa on the other hand work s a job creating funeral bouquets and is
desperately jealous of those who are allowed to die. She has no memories of her past life, before she was a zombie, and obsesses
over who she was in her previous life. The last of the four subjects is Joel, a zombie community organizer and leader of ZAG, the
Zombie Activist Group. The stories of all of these zombies come together at Live Dead, a three day festival that ZAG organizes where
humans are not allowed to attend. Of course the documentary crew comes along and makes a very startling discovery.
Unfortunately this film does tend to get a little long, even though it only clocks in at 90 minutes. While the storyline doesn’t necessarily
get old, Lee and co-writer Rebecca Sonnenshine hit a number of patches where the action slows down to a crawl and the film struggles
to hold the viewers attention. This would be expected from a real documentary film, but when it is a film based around a documentary, it
is expected to have a little more action, especially if it involved zombies. It just seems like there was thirty minutes of film that just wasn’
t needed.
Even though the film does have a few minor faults, “American Zombie” is a film that will get many interested in more than just the genre
of mockumentaries, but also zombie movies, a genre that tends to get a little oversaturated at times. While the film watching population
has been bombarded with films of zombies as mindless monsters, it is nice to see that there is a lot of humor that can go along with
the lives of flesh eating creatures.
latest film, Diary of the Dead,” look terrible. This of course is the George Romero that basically created the zombie genre. The two films
have the same basic concepts, a fake documentary about zombies, but it is the way that the two directors approach the material that
makes them so much different. Romero’s version of the film gives viewers a conventional zombie movie that continually reminds
viewers that it is nothing like any other documentary. Grace Lee, the director and co-star of “American Zombie,” became popular with
her documentary “The Grace Lee Project” and she understands the language of documentaries and how to use it to tell a story. This
means that her film feels like a real documentary, with a few unsuccessful attempts at drama.
Although the two films may seem like they have a lot of similarities between them, they are in fact very different. George Romero’s film
revisits “Night of the Living Dead,” having student filmmakers capture the first couple of days of the great zombie plague. Grace Lee on
the other hand has taken the zombie archetype that George Romero invented and took some liberties with it and made a couple of
changes and created a world where the zombies live among the rest of the human population as lower class citizens who have been
misrepresented in film and stories. Interestingly, both of the films do the same things with the zombies in a variety of different ways, but
the both essentially say the exact same thing about the zombie that walk the earth. While the Romero does it with a very clumsy
dialogue and voice over, Lee does it with some wit and a little bit a humor. She gives viewers a zombie film that will make them want to
actually cheer for the zombies, even if it is just for a little while.
In “American Zombie” the living dead, or revenants as they are officially called in the film, aren’t the mindless flesh eating monsters that
have been seen in movies, instead they are regular people who happen to have acquired a virus that reanimated them upon their
death. While they are very slowly decomposing, the zombies try to live as normal of lives as possible in a world that won’t allow them all
of the privileges of “normal” humans. They aren’t allowed to have credit cards, get married or get a driver’s license.
Filmmaker John Solomon, players by filmmaker John Solomon, sees that own of his friends from film school, Grace Lee, has been
making a name for herself with her documentary films. He is able to convince her that the lives of zombies in Los Angeles is a great
topic for a new film and they decide to team up despite the fact that they are approaching the film from two very different directions. John
wants to approach the film from an investigative journalist perspective, although he seems much more of a sensationalist, while Grace
is looking at creating more of an observational documentary film. John is constantly getting into the face of the subjects, with his main
question relating to whether or not the subject they are talking to eat human flesh, while Grace wants to play the role of a fly on the wall
and let the camera capture whatever it is able to in order to create a realistic look at the zombie population.
The film follows the lives of four very different zombies as they go about their daily lives. The first is Ivan, a zombie working at a
convenience store who makes photocopies of his self made magazine, since they haven’t been able to learn how to really use the
Internet yet, and whose girlfriend is a human who is tagged as a zombie chaser, or a girl who likes to engage in sexual activities with
zombies. Judy is a zombie in denial, a woman who tries to live a normal life, including having a healthy vegan diet and who has dreams
of marrying a human that she works with and adopting children. Lisa on the other hand work s a job creating funeral bouquets and is
desperately jealous of those who are allowed to die. She has no memories of her past life, before she was a zombie, and obsesses
over who she was in her previous life. The last of the four subjects is Joel, a zombie community organizer and leader of ZAG, the
Zombie Activist Group. The stories of all of these zombies come together at Live Dead, a three day festival that ZAG organizes where
humans are not allowed to attend. Of course the documentary crew comes along and makes a very startling discovery.
Unfortunately this film does tend to get a little long, even though it only clocks in at 90 minutes. While the storyline doesn’t necessarily
get old, Lee and co-writer Rebecca Sonnenshine hit a number of patches where the action slows down to a crawl and the film struggles
to hold the viewers attention. This would be expected from a real documentary film, but when it is a film based around a documentary, it
is expected to have a little more action, especially if it involved zombies. It just seems like there was thirty minutes of film that just wasn’
t needed.
Even though the film does have a few minor faults, “American Zombie” is a film that will get many interested in more than just the genre
of mockumentaries, but also zombie movies, a genre that tends to get a little oversaturated at times. While the film watching population
has been bombarded with films of zombies as mindless monsters, it is nice to see that there is a lot of humor that can go along with
the lives of flesh eating creatures.
