Zombie narrator discovers Twilight love

Rating: Null/10 (19 June 2013)

What if zombies had thoughts running through their heads as they lunged around? And what if you made a movie from their pov? That seems to have been the whole concept here, and a story was worked out. The idea itself is a good one, not unlike the Tucker and Dale movie from last year, and perhaps long due. Horror, effective horror, has been all about placing us closer to the nature of the horrific experience, it's why as early as the 1960's, monsters were dragged from swamps and castles and moved next door to Bates motel.
And what better placement than making us the monster?
So they could have this as a black comedy, and I'd be a happy viewer. We'd see all those situations we know from zombie movies, but from behind the zombie mist of dumb instincts looking out at human instincts, in a way that drove home the absurdity and dumbness, drawing the same parallels that Romero did in his time. We are in Romero's timeline anyway, Land of the Dead.
But for reasons that strike me as more shrewd than creative, they decided this should be a romantic movie. The idea here is to have the zombie narrator as one of the target audience, a teenager baffled at the 'deadness' of modern life, a music geek and awkward with the girl he loves, stuttering every time. Clever so far.
Where it completely loses me as a viewer, is that the decision was made, and this had to have been part of a shrewd business plan, that there is currently no better mode to rope more of that teenage audience than Twilight. The franchise has come and gone, but the ripples are still being felt, especially in a film like this.
What the Twilight influence means is that there is the angle of forbidden love, forbidden because of social constructs. They found a mopey, Kristen Stewart lookalike to be the sullen heroine. There is a more elaborate mythos, introducing zombies which are more evil than 'regular' ones. And it all has to culminate with an 'epic' battle and redemptive aftermath. Worst of all, and this is why I rate the film so low, is that mopey, wistful tone that probably passes as introspection in high-school corridors. There's even the inane visual bit, the equivalent of sparkly vampires, with the hearts of 'awakened' zombies beating red!
You'll know the filmmaker is a dull mind, if you observe the scene, it's a small moment but very indicative, where 'good' zombies have decided to make a stand, rousing Scorpions music kicks in the soundtrack; instead of giving us say a flat, comedic side-shot where zombies simply limp along into the frame one by one, he has them coolly walk towards the camera... in slow motion!
Which defeats their actual stumbling in slow motion, all so we can have a useless Reservoir Dogs effect.