Watch This Film
2005
Rated: PG for suggestive material and adult language.
Genre: Short Mock Documentary Comedy
Directed By: Larry and Aaron Longstreth
Running Time: 7 Minutes
Review by: Felix Vasquez Jr.
Review Date: 10/08/05
If you like this, try: A Mighty Wind, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show.

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ZOMBIES IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD

 

  I'm not that bright sometimes, I admit it. I know what you're saying "Felix, it can't be true", but I'm being honest, I'm not as utterly intelligent and charming as I look to you. Sometimes a joke is so subtle, I don't get it. Again you're gasping and thinking "My god, he's mad he IS charming and intelligent", but it's true, my friends. Either way "Zombies in my Neighborhood" is basically proof to my sad admittance. "Zombies in my Neighborhood" is the making of a film that--will never happen. Thus is the joke. Which I didn't catch on to. I know, just calm down, it happens to the best of us, your friendly neighborhood critic is still prime. Stan Lee gonna sue somebody.

Either way, the director had to actually point out to me that it was a joke, and then I saw it and this film is much too short for the comedy it churns out. Within the seven minute window, there's joke after joke thrown at you that had me laughing out loud and I was sad when it ended. There's your cast of actors who know they're participating in a crappy movie, and the looks on their faces is priceless. This is as close to Christopher Guest as you can get, and sure its presumptuous to declare that, but I guarantee you I was laughing like crazy, and I'm not gullible to comedy. There's your horrible make-up from the actors who look more like Violet as a blueberry in "Willy Wonka" than actual dead people, there's your hilariously militant zombie choreographer which is such a funny gag because he's militant about something so absurd, and then there's your director with his scarf and thin-framed glasses like an escapee from Juliard.

He's a mixture of the bourgeois James Lipton meets John Gielgud veteran who oddly chose to make a zombie musical (?) which reflects either his vanity, or sheer ignorance in attempting to do so, but his bits happen to be the funniest whether it be demonstrating a horrible song from the film, hitting on his apprentice, and--my favorite scene--his theory on slow moving zombies as opposed to fast moving zombies which literally had me in tears. Larry Longstreth captures the candidness and comedy with a keen eye and really makes one hilarious and all too short mock documentary. I was surprised.

Though the film does achieve the feeling of candidness, it never pulls off the realism it attempts to work at. The actors look too much like they're reading from their lines at times and nothing ever really felt spontaneous or improvised which would have ultimately helped the case for this in the long run.

Though it lacks the randomness and realism of a documentary it's basically moot point because Longstreth pulls off a lot in the seven minute window making for a laugh out loud mock documentary that is too short. Well worth the watch if you want a good laugh.

  • Winner of "Honorable Mention" at the 2005 Indy Gathering.

 

 

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