ThinkZombie.com — pondering of the living dead

The Revenant: 12 myth-mixing steps to blood sucking zombies (Fantastic Fest 2009)

Put a good curse on the rare zombie movie that won’t tow the creative line. As a zombie fan, I tend to expect the same old Romero rip-offs…maybe a bit faster, plus an over-explained viral conspiracy plot.

Watching The Revenant bestows a bit of that original terror I experienced when first exposed to the potential existence of the living dead. For me, it began rockstar zombiemakers like Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson & Dan O’Bannon who cinematically bitch slapped us in the face with The Evil Dead, Braindead (aka Dead Alive) & Return of the Living Dead.

I grew up in a smallish Texas town and found salvation in the form of late night cable horror and VHS rentals based on whatever b-movie cover art looked the best. Hastings, Two Day Video,

Randall’s & Albertson’s Family video rental…BLESS Y’ALL. My friends would take turns paying the rental/late fees and generously offering their parents houses for weekly late night screenings.

Tapes rewound. Tracking adjusted. Popcorn & Dr. Pepper  in hand. Horror movies, along with the good company of a few friends, saved my adolescence.

Back to The Revenant – an adventure to watch the characters discover a new, difficult-to-classify vampiric zombie lore. Iraq War veteran returns home in a casket and later shows up at a friend’s apartment.  Weird, dark, undead buddy-comedy film gets stranger and stranger. The zombies in The Revenant are unlike all others I’ve seen before. They retain their cognitive abilities (despite decomposition), shoot guns, commit crimes and ingest copious amounts of drugs – which begs the question: Can the dead get high?

Good acting, good gore and comedic moments that stick like superglue. If this film doesn’t get the wide theatrical distribution it deserves, it will nevertheless be a huge sleeper hit at the rental store, Netflix, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.

Four and a half zombie thumbs up for The Revenant & the unafraid filmmakers who build new mythologies from dead scratch.

So I’m thinking: “Why is this movie so goddamn good?”…And ya know what I found? That old Wiki sez:

The Revenant is written, directed, produced and by Kerry Prior, who also supervised the visual effects on the film. The film is co-produced by Jacques Thelemaque and Liam Finn and edited by Walter Murch.

Walter “Maniac Editor of APOCALYPSE NOW” Murch!!! Are you kidding me, Wiki? For the sake of Sweet Zombie Baby Jesus, no wonder The Revenant is so damn good.