6/27/15 (Part Two): Two is the Loneliest Number

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Adam Cronheim, Alana O'Brien, baseball players, buddy films, Christian Stella, cinema, directorial debut, dramas, end of the world, film reviews, films, friendship, horror films, independent films, Jamie Pantanella, Jeremy Gardner, Larry Fessenden, low-budget films, low-key, Movies, Niels Bolle, post-Apocalyptic, road movie, Ryan Winford, slow-moving films, stranded, The Battery, undead, Walkman, writer-director-producer-actor, zombie apocalypse, zombie movies, zombies

How rad would it be to run wild in a post-apocalyptic world with your best friend? Hunting, fishing, killing zombies, taking whatever you need, never answering to “The Man,” never working another day in your life, just kicking back and taking it all in…if you squint just right, it looks like a damn good life, doesn’t it? Now…imagine the exact same scenario but substitute “a co-worker you don’t know very well” for “your best friend” in the above equation. Not quite as fun, eh?

First-time director Jeremy Gardner (working from his own script) takes a close look at the second scenario, the one that sees you getting stuck with a relative stranger during the fallout from an unnamed zombie epidemic, in the low-key, immensely effective horror-drama The Battery (2012). Utilizing a slow, measured pace and a startling degree of real-world verisimilitude, Gardner has created the equivalent of a mumblecore zombie film, a movie not so much about the ravenous hordes of undead that stagger and groan across empty swatches of abandoned humanity but about the few remaining humans who’ve been left holding the bag. When the end-times come, Gardner seems to say, we’ll all find ourselves doing the exact same things we did during “better times”: arguing, swearing, fighting, listening to music on our headphones, masturbating, hoping, goofing around, wondering and wishing for a better tomorrow.

In as economical a way as possible, we meet our two leads and get the lay of the land right off the bat: Ben (writer-director Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim) are a couple of baseball players who find their lot tied together once the U.S. (and, presumably, the rest of the world) becomes overrun by zombies. We don’t get big explanations, no sense of a larger scheme at play here, just the facts, ma’am. Although the two were never great friends when things were “normal,” they now find themselves needing to rely on each other for their very survival: you might think that making a new friend is difficult…try doing it when mobs of zombies are trying to eat your face!

Personality-wise, the two former teammates couldn’t be more different. Ben is the brash, act-first member of the team, a guy who sees killing zombies as his duty and relishes the opportunity to live “off the grid” and make his own way through life. Mickey, on the other hand, is much more reserved, quiet and withdrawn. With his ever-present headphones and lingering memories of his lost life with his pre-apocalypse girlfriend, Mickey is like an open, throbbing wound, slinking from one place to the next without ever really living. Hell, he even resists Ben’s constant attempts to teach him how to fish: he’s got plenty of canned goods, after all, so why bother with the “real stuff” until he has to? Grizzly Adams, he ain’t.

Change comes to the guys’ daily fight for survival when they happen to pick up a mundane conversation on their walkie talkies. The discussion might not be earth-shattering (picking out the movie choice for that night) but Ben and Mickey are rocked to their very cores: here, at long last, is proof that they’re not alone. For Ben, it means more potential problems but for Mickey, the existence of others allows him the faintest glimmer of hope: for the first time, he can begin to see the path that leads out of their personal wilderness and back into regimented society.

The problem, of course, is that folks in post-apocalyptic societies don’t tend to be the friendliest, most trusting, sorts. One of the voices, Frank (Larry Fessenden), pointedly tells our heroes that there’s no more room at this particular inn, while the other voice, Annie (Alana O’Brien) does much the same thing, albeit in a nicer way. Too late, however: poor Mickey has already locked on to the newly discovered survivors as his own source of salvation and he won’t take no for an answer. Despite Ben’s constant protests, Mickey wants to track down Frank, Annie and the others at all costs: not only does he get a whiff of the civilization he so desperately misses but, with Annie, he gets a hint of that other thing he desperately misses…female contact.

As Ben and Mickey continue to move through the destroyed landscape of what used to be a familiar country, constantly on the watch for ambushing zombies, they find their own burgeoning friendship tested and strained at every twist and turn in the path. Will the two ever be able to set aside their differences and become united in their goals? Will Mickey be able to rejoin the civilized society that he always carries so close to his heart, via his ever-present Discman, or will he spend the rest of his days in the wild, gradually giving his own humanity over to survival instincts? And what, exactly, are Frank and Annie trying to hide from them? What is the truth behind “The Orchard” and will it spell salvation or doom for our hardy protagonists?

Low-key, understated and pitched at a glacial pace, Gardner’s film isn’t what one might call a “thrill-a-minute” ride. What it lacks in visceral action, however, it more than makes up for with intelligent, character-driven drama. The focus here is squarely on the humans, not the monsters: for almost the entirety of the film, give or take a few choice setpieces, the zombies remain in the background of the action, serving as omnipresent threat but allowing Ben and Mickey to take the reins. In some ways, it’s a similar tactic to Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (2010), in which the massive beasts became secondary to the human drama at the film’s core. The Battery is, first and foremost, about the ways in which Ben and Mickey navigate around their world. which is an important distinction from most low-budget zombie films.

Despite this focus on the dramatic aspect, however, Gardner and crew don’t shortchange the horrific aspect. The zombies are all well-realized, with effective makeup, and the violence, although infrequent, is always gritty and physical. When the film wants to pull out the stops, it has no problem doing so: the setpiece involving Ben and Mickey trapped in a car by a veritable army of the undead is as tense as they come, culminating in a truly brave six-minute shot that handily recalls the tent scene in Bobcat Goldtwait’s recent Willow Creek (2013). By not making the zombie action the center of the film’s universe, it makes the scattered horror moments that much more effective: I can’t stress enough how radically different this is from most low-budget zombie fare.

In many ways, The Battery is a two-man show: although we meet a couple other characters, including the aforementioned Annie and a carjacker (played by Niels Bolle), the vast majority of our screentime is devoted to either Ben or Mickey. As with many low-budget films (particularly horror films), this could have been the kiss of death: as a lifelong horror fan, “outstanding acting” isn’t usually something I usually associate with these types of movies, at least not at this level.

Rather than being a deficit, however, the performances in The Battery end up being one of the film’s greatest benefits. Quite simply, Gardner and Cronheim have fantastic chemistry: not only do we buy these guys as real people but we also buy into their developing friendship, warts and all. There are certain moments, such as the minutes-long scene consisting of nothing more than Ben and Mickey brushing their teeth, that feel like nothing less than getting a front-row seat to real-life, albeit one where the occasional zombie pops into view. Both actors give unique life and characterization to their respective roles (Ben is the “asshole,” Mickey is the “nice guy”) that extends beyond easy stereotyping and feels a whole lot more like real acting. In this aspect, The Battery reminded me of another exemplary indie horror film about a friendship, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s extraordinary Resolution (2012). Like Resolution, the characters in The Battery feel 100% authentic, which works wonders on selling the inherent “unreality” of the zombie apocalypse.

While the cinematography in the film is never much more than decent (aside from a few scattered standouts), the sound design is actually pretty brilliant and flawlessly integrated into the fabric of the film. The big conceit here, that Mickey’s Discman provides the score in “real-time,” is pretty damn awesome: that the musical selections are so varied and exceptional (incorporating everything from traditional blues to Neutral Milk Hotel-ish sonic collages) really kicks the whole film up a notch, resulting in scenes and moments that could best be described as “thoroughly kickass.” The montage of Ben and Mickey bumming around the countryside, set to an old blues stomper, is beautifully evocative, as is the wild, chaotic abandon that fuels the scene where Ben gets wasted and dances in front of a mural. Gardner and crew understand that sound design is as integral a part of a film as the visuals and The Battery provides a great crash course in just how to accomplish that.

All in all, I was massively impressed by The Battery: for a low-budget, independent zombie flick, this is just about as artistic and exceptional as it gets. While the film doesn’t always break new ground (Mickey’s obsession with Annie is particularly tiresome and “old hat”), it strikes out on its own path often enough to prove how much Gardner has to say. For some viewers, the slow pace and relative lack of action might be slightly off-putting but more patient audiences will realize one important fact: you have to learn to crawl before you walk. By taking its time and easing into the horror, Gardner’s film demonstrates that it has the stamina to go the distance. Here’s to hoping that Jeremy Gardner and his team continue to pump out effective, well-made little films like this: for a genre that can often be more smoke than fire, there will always be a need for movies that are actually about something.

The Battery may a road movie set during a zombie plague but, in the bigger scheme of things, it’s really about human interaction and the ways in which we’re all intertwined, whether we like it or not. I’ll take that over another bloody disembowelment any ol’ day of the week.

10/31/14 (Part Two): The Unblinking Eye

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31 Days of Halloween, Amy Lalonde, auteur theory, Chris Violette, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Film auteurs, found-footage films, George Romero, Greg Nicotero, horror franchises, Joe Dinicol, Josh Close, Land of the Dead, living dead, Megan Park, Michelle Morgan, Night of the Living Dead, Philip Riccio, R.D. Reid, Scott Wentworth, sequels, Shawn Roberts, student films, Tatiana Maslany, voice-over narration, writer-director, zombie apocalypse, zombies

At one point in Diary of the Dead (2007), George Romero’s fifth official “Dead” film, one of the characters wonders what compels us to stare at an accident but not offer assistance: we’ve become a society of cold, removed observers, she notes, as dead on the inside as the walking corpses that relentlessly hunt the living. It’s a thought-provoking observation and one that seems especially prescient in this era of social media and “cellphone journalists.” These days, Good Samaritans appear to be a thing of the past, concert-goers watch bands through their phones while standing three feet from the stage and the general public can receive nearly 24/7 celebrity updates via Twitter, Instagram, etc. Technological advancements have made it so that humans are more inter-connected than at any previous point in our history: never before has it been more possible for complete strangers on opposite sides of the world to “talk” than it is now. This, of course, makes it even more puzzling when close friends sit next to each other and text rather than, you know…speaking: never before have we been more connected yet simultaneously unplugged from the “real world.”

Like all of his “Dead” films, Romero’s Diary of the Dead is anything but a straight-forward zombie flick: Romero, after all, was the guy who inserted social commentary into the very DNA of the zombie film all the way back in 1968 with the incendiary Night of the Living Dead, taking on race relations, global unrest and the Vietnam War with equal aplomb. The follow-up, Dawn of the Dead (1978), took the very notion of consumerism and capitalism to task as survivors of the global zombie epidemic hole up in an abandoned shopping mall and live like royalty while the mindless flesh-eaters gather en masse outside the gate like so many rotting barbarians. Day of the Dead (1985) further explored Romero’s fascination with the notion of “evolving” zombies, as the undead gained more human attributes even as the actual human characters descended into a cartoonish maelstrom of prejudices, misplaced rage and violent tendencies. Romero followed up Day of the Dead twenty years later with the action-oriented Land of the Dead (2005), which tackled the eternal war between the haves and the have-nots, with the rich barricaded away from the world in a literal ivory tower before being turned into a smorgasbord by the living dead.

With Diary of the Dead, Romero takes an unflinching, if achingly obvious, look at the world of media and journalism, particularly the “infotainment” that has replaced our formerly unbiased news coverage as of late. Jason Creed (Josh Close), the student filmmaker at the heart of Diary’s storyline, has a very simple reason for being so compelled to finish his documentary about the zombie crisis, “cleverly” entitled “The Death of Death”: he wants to make sure that the truth makes it out there, somehow, amidst all the “conventional news resource bullshit.” In an era where it can sometimes be difficult to make out any individual voices, thanks to the excess of information bombarding us from every angle, Jason wants to be the voice of truth, a beacon in the wilderness: that he’s willing to constantly put himself and his friends in harm’s way to do so might make him some sort of martyr…or it might make him just as dangerous as the shuffling dead that continue to pop up everywhere.

Utilizing a found-footage aesthetic for the first time in the franchise’s history, Romero throws us right into the middle of the zombie apocalypse and gives us a front-row seat to the chaos, thanks to Jason’s unblinking camera and the host of other media (cell-phone videos, security cameras, news broadcasts) that help fill in gaps in the story. In some ways, Diary of the Dead serves as a kind of prequel to the other films (albeit one with a very different timeline), since it purports to show the period of time right after the dead begin to overtake the living. This ends up putting it in roughly the same time-period as Dawn of the Dead (1978), although the action has been wholesale moved forward about 30 years, which must certainly be the cost of doing business with a series that first kicked off in 1968.

As Jason and the rest of his film-crew, including Tony (Shawn Roberts), Ridley (Philip Riccio), Francine (Megan Park) and Eliot (Joe Dinicol) are out in the woods shooting a low-budget mummy epic (along with their film professor, Prof. Maxwell (Scott Wentworth)), reports begin to pour in about the dead returning to life and attacking the living. After opting to abandon his school project in lieu of turning his camera on the events around them, Jason leads his group back to their school so that he can meet up with his girlfriend, Debra (Michelle Morgan, whose voice-over narration quickly wears out its welcome). Everywhere they turn, however, there seems to be nothing but mounting danger. To make matters even hairier, the students notice that news broadcasts of the events are now being edited and given particular spins, slants which have nothing to do with disseminating the truth and everything to do with pushing forward an agenda.

Tension rises within the group, however, when Jason’s constant filming begins to wear on everybody: at one point, he even stays with his camera as its charging while the rest of his group are off trying to save one of their own. For Jason, his documentary is the only thing that matters now, a time-capsule that can explain the disaster to whoever manages to follow them. The rest of the group, however, tend to see things a bit differently: to them, Jason is hiding behind his camera in order to avoid facing the terrible reality that surrounds him. “There will always be people like you who want to document,” Prof. Maxwell scoffs at one point, venom dripping from every syllable. Even Debra begins to take her boyfriend to task, arguing with him about his unceasing focus on filming above and beyond everything else, including their personal safety. As the group begins to fracture and splinter, they all agree to make their way to the supposed safety of Ridley’s luxurious house. When they get there, however, they discover that their nightmare isn’t winding down: it’s just beginning.

Unlike Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead is a distinctly more horror-driven enterprise, lacking the over-the-top action setpieces and overwhelming firepower of the fourth film while returning to the social commentary of the second film. On the surface, this would seem to make Diary a better “Dead” film than Land but, alas, that’s not necessarily the case. The acting here, for the most part, is a decided step down from the previous film, bringing us dangerously close to the over-the-top thespianism of Day of the Dead. The zombie elements, while well-done, almost seem a bit perfunctory, although there are two suitably gruesome setpieces involving a barbecued State Trooper and jar of acid to a zombie’s acid, respectively, that are pretty damn impressive. As with Land of the Dead, Greg Nicotero handled the zombie fx, which lends this a similar look, if on a decidedly lower budget.

One of the biggest issues with Diary of the Dead ends up being its highly melodramatic and constantly hectoring tone: so much of the film seems to devolve into amateurish young actors shouting at each other and sticking cameras in their faces that it sometimes has the feel of a student production, which is rather ironic considering the storyline. Michelle Morgan and Josh Close, in particular, get rather difficult to take seriously by the end since they’re both so damn intent on proving how serious they are: Debra’s voiceover is a constant presence in the film and, while it may deliver the occasional thought-provoking whopper (such as the aforementioned bit about modern folks and their detachment), it’s just as often prone to deliver ennui and vaguely revolutionary talk that does nothing but detract from the visual aspect of the film.

Unlike previous efforts like Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead (or even Land of the Dead, for that matter), the “message” in Diary of the Dead is right upfront and constantly shoved in the audience’s face: mainstream media is nothing but bullshit fear-mongering and independent news sources, whether individuals with cell-phones or underground agencies, are the only source for truth in an increasingly confusing world. It’s a great, valid message, one that I (personally) couldn’t agree more with. On the other hand, Romero is so heavy-handed with the message, so constantly “on-point” that it becomes wearing, after a while: the film is kind of like a street-corner preacher with an apple-box and a megaphone, shouting at passerby as they try to scurry away.

Where Diary really exceeds, surprisingly enough, is as a found-footage film. Romero addresses many of the inherent issues with found-footage films (added music/effects, unknown camera angles, constant filming during stressful situations) throughout the course of the movie and comes up with some rather reasonable twists on the formula. The film also handles its morbid humor in a more subtle way than Land of the Dead, recalling the drier tone of films like Night of the Living Dead or Day of the Dead. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that the final scene of the film is amazingly powerful, easily the equal of the iconic final moments of the original Night of the Living Dead. It has the quiet horror, subtle irony and terrible beauty that has always marked the best of Romero’s work, whether zombie-related or not…it’s a purely cinematic moment and, without a doubt, the strongest in the entire film. Were there more moments like the final image, perhaps my ultimate opinion on Diary of the Dead would be a bit more positive. As it stands, however, I always find myself a bit disappointed by this film: any Romero is a good thing, of course, but I can’t help but wish for a return to the glory days.

10/20/14 (Part One): Dumb of the Dead

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31 Days of Halloween, Amsterdam, Ben Saunders, Carlo Boszhard, cinema, co-directors, Dutch film, Erwin van den Eshof, film reviews, films, foreign films, Gigi Ravelli, horror, horror movies, horror-comedies, Kill Zombie, Martijn Smits, Mimoun Ouled Radi, Movies, Nadia Poeschmann, Noel Deelen, rom-zom-coms, Sergio Hasselbaink, set in Netherlands, silly films, Tijs van Marle, Uriah Arnhem, Yahya Gaier, zombie apocalypse, zombies

By the time Martijn Smitt’s and Erwin van den Eshof’s Kill Zombie (2012) hits the three-minute mark, it has managed to pull off quite a hat trick and check just about every zom-rom-com cliché possible off the list: Beginning in the “wrecked” present before jumping to the pre-infection past? Check. Put-upon hero who works in an office, has a party-hard, worthless brother, a shitty boss, vulgar co-workers and an unrequited crush on the cutest girl in the office? Check infinity. Quest to save the hero’s “girlfriend” which will ultimately lead to the revelation that someone else actually, you know, like likes him? Check. Pseudo-dramatic moments as former friends/loved ones must grapple with becoming zombies, only to heroically save their friends with their last breathes? Well, maybe those last two revelations don’t take place before the credits have finished rolling but trust me: if you’ve seen at least one zombie-comedy in the last 15 years, you’ll be able to connect all of the dots pretty easily. New to the game? Well, sit back and let the “surprises” roll in, then, my friends: if this is your first race, you could probably pick a worse horse to limp you into the finish line…but not by much, I’d wager.

If Kill Zombie! offers any innovations to the standard zom-rom-com party-line, perhaps it comes from featuring a pair of Middle Eastern leads: to the best of my knowledge, that’s a first for a zombie film, foreign or otherwise. Besides that particular bit of casting acumen, however, everything else about the film will seem distinctly old hat. Unlike similar but slightly better films, however, Kill Zombie! has one mighty big albatross hanging from its gangrenous neck: the comedy is so broad that it approaches slapstick, a tendency which wears out its welcome almost immediately. I have absolutely nothing against comedy in horror films, mind you: I do have a huge problem with categorically stupid comedy, however, regardless of where it pops up.

Take, for example, the buffoonish characters of Nolan (Uriah Arnhem) and Jeffrey (Sergio Hasselbaink), the bodyguards who end up tagging along with main hero Aziz (Yahya Gaier) and his obnoxious brother, Mo (Mimoun Ouled Radi). It’s bad enough that we first get introduced to the pair as Jeffrey is busting out some sub-Karate Kid crane kicks but he then goes on to tase himself in the face (accidentally, since doing it on purpose would be…uh…stupid?), while Nolan gets his fingers stuck in a bowling ball. Nolan ends up winning the stupidity sweepstakes, however, when he gets bitten after stopping to take a bite of cake that a zombie is face-down in. Let me repeat that: Nolan gets bitten by a zombie after stopping to eat cake that, at the very least, is thoroughly polluted by a dead, rotted body. I’ll be frank: that revelation, alone, made my eyes roll so hard that I can swear I saw the bottom of my brain. I get that somebody could have the munchies during a zombie apocalypse: when somebody tries to eat zombie-cake, however, we like to call that a “plot contrivance” in my neck of the woods. The fact that the only two black characters in the film also happen to be the two most idiotic characters is, most likely, pure bad luck but the whole thing ended up leaving a pretty bad taste in my mouth, nonetheless.

But the stupidity doesn’t stop there, friends and neighbors…far from it. We also get the character of Joris (Noel Deelen), who comes up with the brilliant idea to rob a bank in the middle of a zombie apocalypse since, he wisely figures, the cops will be busy trying to avoid getting eaten. Smart move, buddy! We have the obligatory tough-as-nails female cop, Kim (Gigi Ravelli), who manages to go all weak-in-the-knees whenever the milquetoast Aziz looks her way because, you know, she’s a girl and stuff. We get a near-reference to Scarface’s (1983) oft-quoted “little friend” bit that gets cut off just so that the film can remind us how cliché said quote is, which is the equivalent of wearing a band t-shirt “ironically.” We get a celebrity cameo appearance when Dutch soccer star Ben Saunders shows up, as himself, only to be accidentally killed by one of the characters: since I actually had to look the guy up, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this little joke might just whiz right over a few folks’ noggins, bar the soccer fans in the house.

Most of the time, the film lurches from one mildly familiar setpiece to another terribly familiar one. A pair of zombie-fighting brothers by the name of Barachi appear, for a moment, seemingly so we can get a video game-inspired scene of them killing the undead and then disappear just as quickly. The film throws in a “twist” regarding the ultimate character of Aziz’s “beloved” Tess (Nadia Poeschmann) that seems to be more about “slut-shaming” her (How dare she like guys?! How dare she not fawn all over the “nice guy” who’s spent the entire film trying to save her, even though she doesn’t really even know who he is?!) than actually advancing the plot in any meaningful way. There’s the aforementioned “self-sacrificial” moment that’s so familiar, by this point, that it almost seems as iconic as shooting zombies in the cranium and a completely tedious, unnecessary and unpleasant scene where two of our protagonists bludgeon a third, who’s become a zombie, for what seems like five solid minutes: the scene is shot from the “dead” friend’s perspective and winds up being the only disturbing bit in the entire film, for reasons that the filmmakers probably didn’t intend.

From a filmmaking perspective, Kill Zombie! is competently made, for the most part, although the special effects and makeup tend to be very hit-or-miss. From an idea standpoint, however, everything about the film is thoroughly pedestrian and run-of-the-mill. Even the Amsterdam location ends up being fairly negligible: the film may as well have taken place in Chicago, Nepal, the bottom of the ocean or deep space, for all the difference it ends up making. The whole thing ends with a “twist” that sees our intrepid survivors gearing up to take on a new menace: as Aziz squares off, ready for battle, he snarls, “I hate vampires,” before launching himself into the fray. I’ll be honest: I don’t really have anything against vampires, per se, but if Smits and Eshof are involved, I’m pretty sure that I could learn to hate them, too.