REVIEW: Among The Dead
I was hoping beyond hope that this would be a decent portrayal of a zombie dealing with his situation. It.. kind of is. The film is 58 minutes long and could have easily been trimmed to 40. As I feared before watching (because I had watched a few of the other Project Zee Production’s short films on their website), the movie badly suffers from lack of editing. There are long, continuous shots of the single zombie doing little actions in the single room. For instance, we first meet the zombie as he awakens to the room, and it takes him four and a half full minutes to get off the couch (I timed it). And we watch him for all those minutes, as he spits up a little blood, feels his arms, looks around the room, and finally attempts to stand. Just him. On a couch.
Luckily the room shots are interspersed with flashback shots of the zombie’s personal life leading up to the outbreak. These aren’t that bad, but again, could’ve used some cutting. A couple scenes that should’ve been just a quick mention, like a birthday party, are minutes long. “It’s 20-somethings at a birthday party. And there’s conversation. Aaand… they’re drinking. Yep, it’s a party. And it’s still a party. Oh, another shot of the party.” It didn’t add anything to the story, other than to let us know the guy had some good friends and got along with most people. But for the most part these scenes are a breath of fresh air after being stuck with the zombie in the room, watching him walk around the room and touching things.
Now usually this “breath of fresh air” feeling would be just what the filmmaker’s were aiming for, and probably is also the case here. But it’s fresh air for the wrong reasons: it’s simply something different, something not as boring as watching a guy walk around a room. I do like the contrast and it seems to work here. But I feel it could’ve been contrasted with nearly anything and it still would’ve had the same affect: “finally, something else.” It’s not because we had a sense of claustrophobia or anything.
I think this is meant to be a portrait of a zombie (kind of like I, Zombie from what I understand, though I haven’t seen it), and in that they succeeded. It verges on being an art film. But they just couldn’t pull off the entertainment value, not with the acting and budget restraints. If it were Bub (Day of the Dead) stuck in a room, it might have been different, but as it is, the actor — though he isn’t that bad by any means, for a micro-budget flick like this — couldn’t hold it up. Not with those loooong drawn out shots. And I’m not sure whose fault that is, honestly: either they needed a damn good actor to rest the film on (I’m talking like Dustin Hoffman here), or they needed a better editor/director. And the latter could’ve happened much easier. I admire the filmmakers for trying something different with the genre, and trying to make their budget restraints work for them. It seems an honest effort. However, it’s obvious, at the time of this movie anyway, that Project Zee Productions still have a bit to learn.
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