Mimesis: Night of The Living Dead
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Ok. Damn. Good movie. This is an amazing mashup and retelling, with a really strange twist that you can’t put your finger on. It’s like a great meal hinging on a specific spice or flavor profile that is both warmly loved and trusted but also slightly zingier, like a salsa or curry of a different color. But damn, I wanna spread it all over a pile of chips, strip naked, and throw myself into it whole-heartedly and unabashedly. This looks like everything that you’d point and laugh at, and yes, there is some humor, but it’s also really well grooved, like a familiar pair of jeans. Smooth. You think you know what you’re doing. You think you’re playing by the numbers. And then your date takes you to some strange foreign restaurant where the foods are all spicy or at least named spicy things, and you sit on the floor and eat with your hands, and half way through dinner you’re wondering if that really was Advil she gave you earlier in the car, or maybe… And then it all blows away like dust, and you’re left admiring something once hidden in a great movie, now making you think, ponder like Pooh. This movie rocked my “weird” meter so hard it fell over. This is in a category of one. No-one else is crazy enough to try something like this. But holy shit- in the tradition of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Nicholas Cage) or Being David Hasselhoff, this is some Being John Malkovich type shit. With zombies.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Kinda awkward story about some people at a party and a girl with too much makeup
- We’re waking up in NOTLD and it’s not a happy rabbit-hole to have wandered down
- Jesus, they really did a good job nailing this recreation! The Sister is fantastic!
- There’s even people downstairs hiding, and a little daughter, and… well… something is hinky?
- Shit. There’s no zombies after-all. It’s living super-fans recreating the movie with drugged strangers.
- A guy gets his eyeball poked out and he really wants the world to see. (bad pun. I’m not sorry.)
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
Well, there’s two types of… menace here. There’s the zombies, some of which are really fucking good, and then there’s the goths, which… fuck if I know. It looks like a Bam Margera fan club financed this movie on the sole intention of getting to dress up like zombies and stumble around. But the regular zombies are pretty regular, and the goth zombies, as much as it sucks to say, sort of illustrates Romero’s initial intention of the growing and evolving zombie. They just are showing up a movie or three too soon. So, like, they think randomly when its convenient to set up a scene. That kinda crap. And they all have makeup that looks like the artist was given the instructions “Try to rip off The Crow as much as possible without us actually getting sued.” And then it turns out that there are no zombies after-all, and that it’s just super-fans recreating the movie in real red life.
Where the money went
Where the money went
Holy shit, it went into special effects and make-up. I mean, the dude on fire? The multiple manual eviscerations? There’s a lot of gore and a lot of red and a lot of make up on the zombies. It could even be a case of less-is-more in some instance, but damn. I mean, they even jabbed a stick through an eye-ball! And did it in a new way!
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
The sickle of crotch-skewering +7. I mean, wow. Talk about effective. Didn’t even need to stab him in the back of his head, poking out one of his eyeballs. Lotta traditional weapons here, but then again, it’s a remake of NOTLD so… no, no laser death rays.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
There is an absolutely great “bloody hand slaps the window” when Glasses, dressed as the Brother, and having had his neck chewed out by the Zombie, is being carried into The House by Heckler. The Sister is backing away from… something. Like an air-vent or equally scary… I was about to say “Hey, this probably isn’t a world where it’s safe to back up without looking for long periods of time!” and then before I could the bloody glove slapped the window and we all jumped and then we laughed and hugged and there were great times had by all. Except those who drank the shitty keg beer. Yes, there are references to cannon here. Very very much so.
That was new!
That was new!
Ok. I’ve seen every permutation or reimagining or plain-old-steal-an-idea-and-then-drive-it-into-an-underfunded-cliff version of this story, but I’ve never seen such an… I hesitate to use the word intelligent; that’s just inadequate. It’s intelligent in the way offering a giant apes a bunch of bananas to not pummel you into red paste is intelligent, which maybe ought to be some sort of “proof of deserving of future oxygen and protein” test. But what I mean to say is that this may be wrapped in a flimsy gauze and ribboned with twine, but inside are the fucking BEST cookies you ever ate, and they’re your favorite kind of cookie. You like macadamia? These are the BEST you’ve ever had. Peanut butter-chocolate chip your thing? These are the BEST you’ve ever had, and they’re right out of the oven and there’s a huge glass of cold milk waiting for you. This fucking movie is sexy to the degree of the singing temptresses of Greek yore who ran men mad and their ships to dash against the rocks. This is the good stuff! Find a fucking vein and GO! And then it hits, the acid you forgot you ate! What? Where did the plot just go? How could this have… it seriously pulls a Cabin in the Woods on your head. It’s like getting soccer-faked out by a real pro. So good!
Review Notes
Review Notes
Opera. -5 points.
Silly skull logo going on too long. -5 points.
Tractor. Ok. I like tractors. “YELLOW??”
A farmer dude at a cross… no, wait… putting up a scarecrow.
Sees a dead dude standing there for a second, but doesn’t… do anything.
And then he’s gone.
And the tractor is put away.
And there’s a goth kid standing there.
Yeah, pretty usual. Apples.
Damn Ginger. Can’t trust them!
Damn alcoholics… can’t trust them!
Is that a pig?
Dude is pretty fast to pull a knife.
And the TV is playing a promo for NOTLD.
Thumping upstairs?
Slow to go upstairs.
And there is a woman being eaten by the goth, and then another goth kid launches himself at the farmer!
All the promo shit is masks and… dumbness.
Lotta comic-con stuff. I like the big dude.
Nice to hear Sid in a coherent speaking role. I love this guy. I ran into Captain Spaulding at the grocery store produce section once. Too bad it was Halloween.
“The truth of the matter is this. We are capable of heinous crimes.”
That dude is heckling. He’s kinda a jerk.
Glasses isn’t happy with Heckler.
Not everyone is happy with Heckler.
“How is this a waste of time?”
“You can’t fuck it.”
Wow. I think she’s on drugs.
Heckler thinks he’s smooth.
Judith? What kinda name is that?
Glasses ain’t so Pointdexter.
Judith is trying a new look. She looks like a racoon in drag as the lead singer of 4 Non-Blondes.
Very exclusive invite only… based on a card with a vampire skull and film reel logo. I got a skull just like that tattooed on my chest when I was 18. So… yeah. Young Adults. Except, I took in my Cypress Hill t-shirt in as a model.
Wow. Glasses doesn’t want to go to the party.
Arguing about sweating. And air conditioning.
“I sweat a lot, ok?”
“I know you sweat a lot, but you don’t have to talk about my car. Apologize.”
Ok, crazy people in masks surrounding the car. And opening the gate.
Ok, looks like…Wow. Nice fade in.
No idea what the music is, but it’s a good rip-off of Rob Zombie.
Everyone is ranting about “Carnival of Souls”
Glasses is a whiner.
There’s women there who remembers them from the Sid Haig talk.
“Somehow, some-way, we’re all John Wayne Gacey’s children.”
Wow. Glasses just got ditched. It’s too bad they filmed this outdoors… if they did. It’s too bad if they filmed this indoors… if they did.
Heckle… just got kinda dissed, so he’s off to take a piss.
The screaming family just walked through his taking a piss and walked off looking for their car.
Is he hearing shit? He… just passed out.
What the fuck? Were they drugged?
Oh. Wow. Shit. He’s in…. the brother’s clothes from NOTLD. In a badly colorized cemetery. And the blonde lady is his sister.
“Fucking keg beer. Where the hell are we? What are you wearing? What am I wearing?” Yup. Had mornings like that.
Oh, shit! Zombie! On your six!
Oh, well… After a good heckling, Glasses just got his throat ripped out. And it was pretty damn good!
Nice! And she’s off!
Spikey gates! Spikes gates!
And then here’s Heckle! Passed out in a pickup truck in front of a farmhouse!
She’s… doing a great job as the original in NOTLD. Fuck yeah.
Phone is artistically dead.
I don’t think most dudes would really object to coming inside. Maybe one in ten. That’s kinda unrealistic. Or maybe that says more about me than anything. If I wake up with amnesia in the middle of no-where, I’m gonna trust the first woman I see. I’m kinda like… I see a red dot, you know? And that’s all it takes. Or, a BCW in a LBD. That too.
Zombies! Zombies! She said it.
“You’re friend, he’s dead!”
“What are you talking about! Are you high?”
Heckle to the rescue!
Spikey gates!
Dead Glasses. He’s got red all over him.
Oh! He’s spluttering.
Oh shit! Zombie oh Heckle’s 6!!
Where the fuck did he go?
Heckle is carrying Glasses.
Sister… exploring the house, hearing the people in the basement through the airshaft.
Holy shit! That was a great bloody hand slap!! Glasses/The Brother on the window right behind the Sister as Heckle carries him to safety!
And… they sped that up weirdly. Or it’s the mushrooms.
Uses an entire mason jar to bring over half a cup.
“One more breath!” (after he’s been pouring water down his throat and choking him)
Kinda like they realized they could put a camera in the cabinet so they did so. Repeatedly.
Ok, man… how do you dress a neck wound without choking someone? I should ask my wife. She just got a military grade tourniquet because of “our lifestyle”. She then cited skydiving, mushrooms, firearms, and my love of slingshots and throwing knives. She later agreed that a tourniquet, no matter how nifty, probably wouldn’t apply to skydiving or slingshot accidents. I love that woman.
Ok, so… they’re in the Farmer’s house. And it’s been well provisioned with obsolete computer equipment.
Great time to notice we missed a mental health appointment. And a text from my mother telling me she’s sick with Covid. Shit. I wish I’d been more on top of my phone today. And it felt like such a good day, too. At one point, I was even singing “Summertime… and the living’s easy…” out my car, and I guess, yes, it is- especially if you’re blowing off all your responsibilities to yourself and others. Damn. Feel like crap. Some rule about forgiving myself. And I can’t do shit now. Finish the review.
Glasses just hacked up blood or something and scared the Sister.
Heckle found a room with red all over the bed and a bad smell.
Heckle found… well… uh, flies… and… shit just sped up strange again. This is a fucked up movie to be watching right now. Just saying.
What the fuck!!
2 bodies just fell onto Heckle! They… were in the closet? I don’t really understand how that happened.
“There’s a zombie out there!”
“Could you quit saying that?”
Opera… and zombies. Nice combination.
The emo kids are closing in…
Oh shit. They gonna eat Glasses!
It is quite the red red gory red mess they’re making.
Whoever did the zombie makeup made it… surreal. Like David Bowie zombies or something. Each one looks cool, but… different than the others. No homogeny. Death is the great equalizer! Shouldn’t get different makeup in the afterlife.
Oh! A key!
To the basement! We know what’s down there!
Or rather, we *should*…
The fucking sister panicked.
Oh, they been… OH! That’s the family from the convention.
And Julia the wanna be something or other.
That kid is sick. Or did they bring her into the movie to be the sick one? Like a fake-out?
Sister’s man is there! But someone is still missing.
“It’s nothing honey! It’s just a dead bird on the porch!”
I would have headbutted him.
Heckle trying to explain about the zombies.
The Dad is gonna make a run for it.
“You know what? I don’t trust any of you. I think you’re all high on… dope or something.”
Heckle is taking the dad upstairs…
The flies…
Ok, not gonna repeat the dad’s entire rant, but it’s good.
Ok. They just explained their way through how this IS NOTLD and they’re all set up as characters.
“Ok, I would like to sit around all day and talk about vampires and zombies and it’s all really exciting…”
Well, there’s a goth on the stairs and a zombie outside.
Zombies shuffling outside. People pacing inside. Very poorly “aesthetically only” boarded up windows.
Well, they acknowledged how strange the situation is.
Dad thinks he can hotwire the truck.
“Well, he’s right. You’re not exactly an Olympic runner.”
Ok, it’s Shed vs. Truck.
In the movie, Truck ends VERY VERY badly.
So, uh… Heckle going out the back window onto the porch. Making quite the racket, too.
The news is the same as from the original! Fucking A!!
Waving around a broken tennis racquet.
In the shed, Heckle is… well, he found a tractor. And a goth found him.
The goth has a pitchfork. Is this homage to The Crazies?
Ok, these goths can think, at least. Used his boots as decoys. That’s pretty sophisticated thinking.
Goths can also bleed, evidently.
Ok, Sister coming upstairs…
I am in love with her portrayal. Spot fucking on.
And Heckle… He’s a re-imagine, but, but… his soul is solid.
Dad took off? With his family? Sister is watching the original movie on tv. Right at the scene where Brother/Johnny/Glasses is getting assaulted, I think.
Ok, they might be being watched? That adds a news element.
Pitchfork, ballpeen hammer, and a pair of shears. A screwdriver.
“So what happens next in the movie?”
“It’s a good thing no-one tries to start that truck out there. Because in the movie, it blows up.” God, I’m swooning! I swoon! Swooooon!
Looks like Dad is making a run for the truck. I think we just had some foreshadowing about this.
Strange aftermarket steering wheel for the truck. Hotwired, lights on, there’s some zombies, maybe a goth or two, and then a bomb under the truck. Well.
The zombies are watching him try to start the truck. They are not approaching.
Oh… Dad is burning. That was… fucking amazing.
The zombies… just drew and quartered his cooked body. That was pretty… ick!
They talk about how many people make it out. None.
Oh, shit! They’re coming!
Julia… doesn’t react well. Or effectively.
Heckle is still darting about the house.
Zombies coming in!
Creepy woman… a fat clown…
Fat clown has human eyes. Human movement.
Creepy woman is doing a good zombie. Got some Ring in the mix, too.
You don’t hide under the stairs! You fight!
She got yer foot!
Oh, shit! That’s a bite! A really red one!
Zombie spit the flesh back onto the daughter!
Smashing through the protection…
Then The Guy puts a pair of shears in her spine.
The Fat Clown is interested in downstairs…
And Heckle gets him in the head with something heavy, and The Guy puts the pitchfork through the Fat Clowns face. Getting the eyes, of course.
Heckle gets jumped! One of the more adorned zombies.
Who then flees upstairs when The Guy comes to Heckle’s rescue with his stabby-shears?
The Guy follows. Holding his shears awkwardly.
He’s got John Cena arms tho, so I think any way he holds them is gonna be effective. Fuck, I want Oreos. No. I get some frozen fruit after this, but no Oreos. Bad thinking! Bad!
Cena!! Why didn’t you clear that room?
Fucking Goth. Says he’s a victim too.
“My name is Owen!”
“I just killed a man downstairs. For all I know, his name was Owen.”
Cena is getting stab-happy.
The Sister is questioning Owen.
I guess that’s a very begrudging acceptance.
There’s something strange about Owen.
Heckle is questing where Owen fits into NOTLD.
Oh, shit… Owen has something bloody by his neck?
Owen explains that the zombies are really overly zealous Romero loving thrill seekers pretending to be zombies. It’s… strange.
And they all abandoned him out there, and it looks like he was killed with a… huge fork?
Well, Heckle opened up the door and he came in holding his intestines into his belly.
And one of the zombies quickly crawls out of the window and onto the roof.
Meanwhile, in the basement, with the dead fat ex-clown. Or ex-fat clown.
Something about alternate realities? I’m getting lost. I also have a bowl of fruit.
The corpse is wearing a metal grill? Like, full metal biting?
Heckle is really beating himself up over Glasses’ passing.
And now they find a pendant with the insignia same as Julia’s
Julia didn’t know this was going to happen! I mean, she thought it was going to be a game…
Julia’s playing the “I’m in this too!” card…
So, they throw her out. I think I approve.
When she turns around, she’s all alone. So she runs off into darkness.
The zombies… are talking to Judith.
“What’s the matter? You don’t like… roleplaying?”
And indoors, we have a fist fight going on.
So we smash the TV. I like it.
Oh! The boar on the wall has a red light in it’s eye!
Julia is making a run for it.
All the cars… hoods up.
Julia hiding. The hopping zombie guy… calling for extra light.
Straw. Loud.
Car lights. A wonderful thing.
Passed out blondes. (Possibly dead?)
Hiding in cars. Unsuccessfully.
Now we’re in their make-up room?
With Sid Haig also tied up?
One of the zombie guys is creepy-talking to Judith.
So… they run a NOTLD Haunted House.
Going to pin it all on Sid?
Evidently, Mimesis means something about life imitating art. Says Sid.
I like Sid.
I mean, I used to like Sid.
One of the zombie corpses has a Phantom of the Opera ring tone on his phone? I… speechless.
The Fat Clown smothering the blonde.
Weird phone things.
Strange rantings.
Scary footage of ourselves.
Oh shit!! That dude was faking!! And now the Guy is getting it!
“A Romero Zombie wouldn’t act like that! Where did we find that asshole anyway?”
“You have no sense of style, you don’t understand continuity… You’re making a mess!”
The… What is Heckle doing in there?
There’s a zombie coming!
He’s got a double-headed axe.
He’s more a Joker than a zombie.
Oh. The sickle to the crotch. That sucks.
The lopping off of a hand? Uncomparable.
Sister is fighting back, but she’s overpowered.
The kid gets the guy in the knee with a hammer.
“Don’t make me come over there. I’m kinda busy right now!”
Wow. That is the best “Stabbed through the back of the head and your eye is now impaled and poked out and you have a spike through your head.” that I have ever seen.
Judith got the grill on and she bites the neck. Plus, you know, a headshot. Rule #2.
They’re being recorded though.
Interesting! Romero is billed as co-screenplay writer.
Diego Rivera, you did a good job on the music. I like.
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
4:49 am. Something like 5 grams of mushrooms over two doses, a nap, and 8 bowls of fruit.
I’m trying to write. Who was it who said “All my favorite artists have stolen all of my best lines.”? What’s his name from Alkaline Trio. The one who writes deeper lyrics yet I prefer the other’s singing. At least until he left the fucking band and broke my heart.
All my fucking heroes are dead, and they were alive when I was a kid. I got to fall in love with them, then watch them trend down out of age and into totally unassociated credit card commercials or soda advertisements. I stopped following all my other heroes then when I met other people my own age and realize that they had heroes, and I naively thought these other people knew something I didn’t simply because the court knew the topics they brought to discuss when called upon.
I knew jokes that played on the meaning of words, I knew anecdotes about insane people dispensing down home wisdom, but I didn’t know you’re supposed to laugh when someone refers to a big set of breasts as “boobs”. My inclination was always to go quiet, holding my breath, mesmerized, staring, committing that image to memory. I felt so included in the 3rd grade when one of the tall popular girls said that she liked the same radio station I did. How was I to know that in that little town there were 5 stations that came in on FM and only two of them completed for the pop market?
I played hockey. Thank God. It was the one normalizing American experience I got to have. My dad ruined everything else by getting between me and the thing I was trying to do. Maybe he did the best he could; raising me with blindfolds on couldn’t have been easy. Lacrosse came later, and he was clueless about that, but… I can still sing along to all of Centerfold, like I learned while out skating the rink after hockey practice but during the mandatory free skate.
My hands are like broken crabs against the backlit keys in this dark room. I can see little other than the screen and what it illuminates. There is a balloon above a solitary lamp elsewhere. I wish I was at the gym on the bag. I’m in no condition to drive though. And I ate all these under some sort of plan where I’d wake up tripping when my wife got home, and then I think I was going to do something, but now I… when did I brush my teeth?
Thank god. I love the taste of mouthwash. No, that’s not correct. I love the feel of the sensation tinglingly boring its way into your mouth’s flesh, as if were you to hold it too long, it could caustic through your cheeks and spill away. That feeling reminds me of finally doing something that I’ve been procrastinating, and upon reflection, that’s most probably literally and allusively true physiologically speaking, considering the abuse and neglect I’ve put my teeth through.
I learned I could open a beer bottle with my teeth when I was 17 or 18. I continued doing so through college. I admit this with the same revulsion I’d… I’m not allowed to finish that sentence. The first couple scenarios that presented themselves cannot be written, lest I be hauled up on hate charges. I hate no-one, I hate all, I have a special list you’ll never find, but I don’t hate generically or categorically. Yet I still can’t…
I keep realizing I have to blow my nose and then realizing I’ve blown my nose into my hand. And then I wipe it on the carpet and the claws go back to molesting the keyboard. I am an oaf. Picture a hearty, grown lad with his feet tied loosely together, his eyes blindfolded, and each hand holds a cricket bat, or a baseball bat, or even a large salmon.
Now, spin the person. Spin him of his own foolish delight, because he fancies the sensation of careening out of control while attempting to remain upright, finally sprawling out in a torque of excess so admirably mis-aimed that bystanders are hurt and disturbed.
Now make him laugh, in pain, of pain, through pain, make him laugh since it drowns out all else, and set him upright again, and pull the string that starts the spin again. I am an oaf. Motherless? King Lear? Of no woman borne? How about of no father led? Which is worse?
That which is unnatural, or that which naturally becomes feral and fearsome? I can’t say anything could ever be better. I can’t say anything, I haven’t even cleaned the coffee marks off my laptop’s screen. I need to fight again. I need to fight again.
I think I hear rain, and when I listen, it’s just my dog snoring. I can taste the circuits shorting on my tongue, like the acid I used to take. “She wants to get to the psychedelic stage without losing control.” The transmission doesn’t shift that way. You can’t get to 7 without 5. You can’t see reality melting until your own wires have been fried.
Between the drugs and the fighting, I can already smell my wire loom heating. I feel very blue, but I’m wearing a blue sweatshirt, so that… I also feel like I’m a very small berry collapsing under the invisible weight of the atmosphere. Where do I belong if I am not suited for growth here? They’ve shown animals can have OCD. Imagine being a dog that only could accept even number of pettings? How do you communicate that you still need only just one more? Wow. I’m really tripping here.
(9/8/22)
I’m writing this without reading the above. I was tripping when I wrote it. That’s either excuse or statement of inspirational muse depending on which side of the coin you favor. Wow. What can I say? Today was a good day.
I can’t specify anything… speffific, but… I ran some errands earlier and it was like a sudden wave of calm and positivity. I surfed that baby through grocery shopping and a couple other quick errands and then ate a couple mushrooms and went to the gym. I’ve been doing really good, I’m proud of myself. Not in the sense that I’ve accomplished anything in specific; in fact, I can’t break 165lbs to save my life, but I’m back running and working the bag regularly.
Lots of thrash music. Lots of sore knuckles. Lots of loving it, of feeling defined again- not like I’m ripped or anything. Fucking Ghostbusters are still trying to hunt me down and fry my Stay-Puft ass, but boy, I can run now. Forest Gump here, baby! Whoo! Um… And my fucking awesome wife is getting a nationally recognized nursing award tomorrow.
And that is so fucking awesome, except I have to be there at 6:45 in the morning to… film, or something. Clap. So, I gotta do this kinda fast. I think the first part of fast is knowing what I’m gonna watch. Ok. Something out of the My Watch list on Amazon. Ok. I had to turn down two movies for being “creepy human replacement movies without being actual zombie movies”, but then I came to this one, and as I was pondering the really incoherent yet cool artwork, I saw the name Sid Haig. Sold.
Mimesis: Night of the Living Dead “NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD comes alive in terrifying fashion for a group of horror fans who become unwilling cast members in a nightmarish real-life version of the George Romero cult classic.” The other thing that really has me happy with this one is that it’s called out as target audience of Young Adults, yet it’s rated R. The irony is as delicious as one could lick a tongue over.