Product: Zombies Anonymous
Rating: 3.0
Great premise, OK movie
After seeing Insane-O-Rama's earlier vampire movie, Strange Things Happen At Sundown, I had high hopes for this entry in the world of Zombie flicks.In Strange Things, Marc Fratto and crew gave a new take on what life would be like if you were a vampire in 21st century America. You would still need rent money, gas money, a car, and rather than buying food at a grocery store, you have to hide your socipathic, homicidal tendencies for your craving for human blood. In short, it's not easy being dead.And there's a tendency that this sort of life would drive you insane. Not exactly a romantic notion of vampires, is it?In addition Fratto, on a B-movie budget, was able to produce a well written, original movie, and get surprisingly good performances out of amateur and semi-professional actors in Strange Things. So, I was understandably excited about Zombies Anonymous coming out.Past Zombie movies from the likes of George Romero were little more than monster movies, and had become very formulaic. Zombies Anonymous is an original take on the Zombie genre, telling the story from the Zombie's point of view. If you are a fan of the genre, stop reading now and get this movie!Like in Strange Things, being dead doesn't mean you don't need rent money. So, the heroine in this story still goes to work and tries to live her life as normally as a murdered person can. But blending in with the living isn't easy, as the living have a natural aversion to the dead; so there are interesting themes on discrimination and living a double life. Zombies Anonymous follows our heroine's attempts to get along in a world that treats her as a second-class citizen, and her inner struggle to accept what she has become.There are so many subtleties and possibilities with the concept of the movie that one can't help but be disappointed when those possibilities aren't fully realized. Maybe it's a victim of its own high aspirations, or a victim of its budget, but while Zombies Anonymous entertains, it falls short on many levels.And that's a shame. Fratto had a great vision, but somehow he just didn't get it to gel on this one. In summary, it's worth watching, but it's not as great as it should be.