Review By: Rob Sibley
“Mimesis: Night of the living dead”
isn't your typical zombie picture. I had no knowledge of the film
before watching it. It's rare that I go into a film completely blind,
with only the cover art as reference before hand.
By the title and the cover art I
shrugged and thought “Great another low budget film using Romero's
Night of the Living Dead in its title”. Of course since Romero and
crew never copyrighted their 1968 classic, it's fallen into the public
domain. So, for many years we've had filmmakers use the title and make
sorry excuses of films. Looking strictly to make a profit off of
someone's much greater work. The title has been a cash cow for
countless productions. Luring zombie fans in with the false sense of
hope that “Hey this can't be that bad!”. Sadly most of those
films baring the NOTLD title are dreck, cinematic trash that should
be forgotten about. Surprisingly though... Mimesis: Night of the
living dead actually justifies using Romero's title and not only
that. But it's a loving homage and smart satire on the zombie genre.
The film starts out typical enough, a
farmer is setting up a scare crow. When he catches something out of
the corner of his eye. What looks to be a zombie, he looks away and
looks back and it's gone. He finishes up his daily business. Walks
into his farm house to discover Night of the living dead playing on
the TV. He calls out for his wife who doesn't respond, he grabs a
knife and makes his way up the steps. To find his wife, dead in bed
and currently having her guts munched on by nasty beast. Cue the
opening credits.
The opening though solid still had me
thinking “Oh great, another replica of Romero's original”. But
after the opening credits the film really sets into motion. With the
great Sid Haig sitting at a panel at a horror convention discussing
the age old question “Do horror films cause people to act violent”.
I've always found it to be an interesting question. One that I
strongly disagree with. Films don't make people violent, if someone
is going to cause harm to another being and they are a tad disturbed.
They will find influence from a novel, a film, a comic book, hell
maybe even a painting. Then the form of art gets blamed and said
piece of art is crucified by the public for causing violent behavior.
All of this plays a part in the film
itself. It's a smart, self aware film. It's clever but never too much
for it's own good. It plays with your expectations and it has a fun
time doing so. Sure there is plenty of social commentary if you want
it. But on the surface level you get a clever zombie flick that
understands what the word “Homage” really means. This film is
kind of the Scream of zombie films.
The films central characters are
Russell (Taylor Piedmonte) and Duane (Allen Maldonado). Russel is a
die hard horror fan, Russel on the other hand? Not so much, he's more
interested in picking up chicks then flicks. His fantasy comes true
when Goth cutie Judith (Lauren Mae Shafer) invites them to a post
horror con party.
Everything is going well enough until
Russel & Duane pass out. They wake up next morning to find
themselves actually living out Romero's NOTLD. All of the party
guests have been dressed like the characters from the original film
and even the locations are spot on. Just like the Romero film there
are a group of people outside ready and willing to tear them all to
shreds.
What makes the film interesting is the
inherit mystery. Are the people outside the house actually zombies or
are they just a bunch of loons pretending to be ones? To say anymore
would spoil the fun twists and turns.
The true standout performance comes from Lauren Mae Shafer. A character who at first seems like the typical token goth gal but who becomes something much more human by the end of the picture.
That's another joy of the
picture, it's not afraid to set up stereotypes then break them. In
process turning 2-D characters into full three dimensional human
beings.
Anchor Bay brings Mimesis to DVD in a
great looking anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen transfer. For a film that
only cost 500K it looks very impressive. Blacks are deep and the
contrast is spot on. The DVD looks utterly fantastic so I imagine the
blu-ray will look even more impressive.
Extras consist of a sole audio
commentary featuring Director/co-writer Dougless Schulze &
Co-Writer Joshua Wagner. It's a fun track and it's obvious that both
of these folks are rightfully proud of the film.
Mimesis: Night of the living dead isn't
your typical zombie film and that's a great thing. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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