“Jesus was the original zombie.”
I guess zombie movies have reached the point where they’re basically self-consuming niche titles that have nothing new to offer. They’re either vague remakes of Romero, or vague remakes of “Shaun of the Dead” which is where “American Zombie” comes in. It’s a mock documentary that also tries to be social commentary, and more often than not it manages to work well as a tongue in cheek little satire on society and its fear of immigration and outsiders. Every society has to have a minority of individuals who choose a lifestyle that we have to chastise and condemn, and director Grace Lee takes an interesting step in exploring this collective action of a fearful society through the scope of the horror genre that turns zombies into a group of re-animated beings seeking to go about their lives in a world that has little room for them.
Lee wryly gives us a view of a world that doesn’t want the walking dead because there’s simply not enough room left. Taking the cue from Romero, this undead minority rises immediately after death thanks to an unknown germ and they look for ways to integrate back in to an already crowded population who either condescend towards them, or just hate them for what they are. They eat rotten food to preserve themselves, are often very infatuated with death (one woman even has a worm collection), and live relatively mundane lives save for the rotting flesh and eventual decay they try to ward off by healthy lifestyles. And like every other minority, the zombies are often manipulated, taken advantage of, and preyed on by the religious and alleged shamans through spiritual healing as well as bringing to light our lust for immortality. “At what cost, eternal life?” is the question constantly posed, and it’s not an easy resolution.
Lee also takes this time in focusing on the lives (so to speak) of the zombies to gradually unfold a mystery that brings this dark comedy in to a realm of pure horror as co-filmmaker John constantly antagonizes the subjects and begs to discover what’s in their refrigerators (certain they are storing body parts for consumption), while also mocking the sheer pretensions of documentaries that take great pains in the conceit of guerilla filmmaking, while also being pompous cinema verite in the process. Lee brings the story along in anticipation of the upcoming “Live Dead,” a type of gathering of the walking dead that is extremely closed off to humans, which ushers in the hints of horror Lee slowly aims for, and the screws turn to take a very compelling direction on zombie films as a whole. Lee covers all bases and when we least expect it, she also manages to sneak in a creepy zombie flick.
I don’t know if Grace Lee intended for an honest genre picture for the horror geeks, or something more intelligent and that’s because “American Zombie” is painfully unfocused and a tonal mess. For the first half it is intent on being a dark comedy that revolves around this often clunky undertone of immigration and racism and then slowly works in to destroying all aforementioned morality plays in favor of a more conventional turn on the mock documentary sub-genre lifting key scenes from “The Blair Witch Project” and diving head first in to a full on zombie film. And when the film abruptly ends on a confusing and incredibly unresolved note, Lee goes for the social commentary yet again. And if that’s not enough, the overall resolution of the exploration of the zombie community takes a real hypocritical almost xenophobic twist that tries to work on the pretense that it’s all a fictional twist, but feels almost like a paranoid manifesto about minorities.
Whether or not Lee intends it, she seems to ride on the implication that the struggle for minorities to achieve a semblance of equality is based on this hidden strategy to take over the general populace. Though I’m not completely certain on this deduction since Lee’s goal with the story is so ill-conceived you can never be sure if she places this twist in the second half in the confines of the fictional world or in reference to our own. “American Zombie” could have used a good trimming since it’s much too long and flabby with pacing that really sucks.
Had the film been trimmed by ten minutes, it would have added a more cogent grasp on the story, but I don’t think anything could save the finale that’s interesting but leaves everything up in the air. Were we ever supposed to find out what was going on? Was there anything actually going on or was it simply empty threats demanding equality? Ambiguity is always respected, but the whole build up in the second half leads literally to nothing with Lee’s script feeling half hearted and ultimately very half assed. Grace Lee’s mock documentary about the zombie minority is a great concept with potential for some cheeky undertones with a creepy second half, but that’s sullied by her inability to pick a tone for her film, as well as pick an actual story for her premise, while much of what we see on screen is left up in the air thanks to the abrupt ending.