By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Bruce La Bruce
Starring: Guido Sommer | Jey Crisfar | Katharina Klewinghaus | Marcel Shlutt | Susanne Sachße
Country: canada, germany
Year: 2008
Running time: 94
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1151384/
Scot says: “Yeah, that’s the title, semicolon and all. It’s writer/director (sometimes actor) Bruce LaBruce’s latest effort and it’s not entirely terrible. I quite liked some of it, in fact, but overall, I think it’s a ‘meh.’
“The premise is that zombies have become commonplace in the not-too-distant future, having developed some critical faculties, like reasoning and very basic social skills. (Fashion and hygiene are not among those new skills, however.) In particular, most zombies that have awoken of late seem to mostly be gay and male. They feed off the flesh of other men and lust is basically synonymous with hunger. And sure. They seem to infect the living. And the living like to beat them up, but not out in the open. At night, in gang bashings.
“See where the metaphor is going? Good, cause I’m a little unclear about it. Is it an AIDS thing or a defense of perceived gay male piggishness? (IMHO, all men are pigs and the metaphor of humping eviscerated organs could easily be applied to straight dudes too.) But whatever. It’s definitely a ‘queer’ movie, but in the last ten years, my attention span has grown shorter in such films.
“But on the plus side, it’s a hell of a lot nicer looking than HUSTLER WHITE or SUPER 8 1/2. It still contains graphic sexual elements. (You know, erect penises and real honest-to-goodness sex.) But it’s all pretty unerotic (to me at least) because it’s all mixed in with entrail munching and liver licking. For the most part. This film was shot in Germany, though the dialogue is all English, and the cast is comprised of German non-actors. And you can tell. But the dude who plays Otto is pretty charismatic for a zombie. The guy who plays Fritz is handsome and makes pretty pictures, even if he can’t act his way out of a body bag. Like I said earlier, though, there are some beautiful scenes, particularly one at the end that captures a gorgeous German countryside with a double rainbow in the distance.
“IMDB states the release year for OTTO as 2008, but it must not have played Boston. Usually Bruce LaBruce’s films play Toronto, so I guess I just missed it since we didn’t go last year. So why, you might ask, would Scot write a review of a ‘meh’ non-Chlotrudis-eligible film, when he so rarely writes any reviews at all lately? It’s the damn theme song by a group I don’t know: The Homophones. ‘Everyone’s Dead’ is the awesomest bouncy tune since ‘Mmm-bop’ and I can’t get it out of my head. I’m hoping that writing this review will help. Of course, I downloaded it, too, so maybe I can purge the earworm that way. You can hear a clip at amazon.com. 3 cats”