Darren Gaskell

Welcome to a world in which zombies roam. What, another one? Yes, but this time there’s a major difference. These folks are not driven by the desire to chow down on human flesh. In fact, uttering the z-word has become something of a societal taboo, with campaigners pushing hard for the rights of the country’s “living impaired” citizens. At the forefront of research is The Coleman Corporation, an organisation which collects those recently, existentially challenged folks and houses them in a facility which aims to study their condition.

Making a dishonest buck from this collection service is the slacker trio of Karl (Alexandre Nachi), Freddy (Derek Johns) and Maggie (Megan Peta Hill), who have tracked the movements of a certain pair of Coleman employees in order to jack their route and sell on the undead, sorry, living impaired through non-legal channels. It’s not long before their little scheme attracts official interest and the three are forced into a situation where they need to score a big payday – and quick.

The third movie from Canadian filmmaking collective RKSS (François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell), We Are Zombies taps more into the anything-goes style of fun that permeated their debut Turbo Kid, rather than the chilly undercurrents of sophomore effort Summer Of ’84, but it still has something to say about corporate culture and class. They just want you to enjoy the gory slapstick first and foremost.

In an oversaturated subgenre, RKSS manage to pull off the trick of bringing something fresh to the entrail-strewn table of undead flicks while still delivering on audience-pleasing splatter. Amusing news reports and interview clips build the world quickly and never get in the way of the misadventures of our loveable trio of losers, bickering and fumbling their way through a situation in which they find themselves increasingly out of their depth.

Nachi and Johns work well as a double act which could easily get irritating if overplayed, but their nerdy banter is light, sweet and fun, with Hill providing the eye rolls and pithy responses as the capable, underrated Maggie. Elsewhere, Stéphane Demers is a hoot as Oscar Maddox, a glitter dispensing, Damien Hirst-alike of the undead art installation world and Rosemarie Sabor is a double-dealing delight as the star of a zombie cam girl website (and object of Karl’s desire).

The satirical elements are sketched broadly, but this approach fits nicely in a world inhabited by characters whose traits have a touch of exaggeration about them. Bogging down the plot with too many OCP-style boardroom machinations would have otherwise disrupted the main thrust of the story and We Are Zombies is agreeably swift in how it introduces its business bad guys, with Hannity (Benz Antoine), its chief dealer in nefarious activity, keeping the metaphorical moustache twirling to an admirable minimum, yet still delivering the necessary exposition in terms of his dastardly scheme.

The final act is satisfyingly chaotic as the paths of most of the interested parties cross at a red carpet event organised by Maddox, where the celebrities of both the living and living impaired world meet to be seen. The celebrity zombies idea is a stroke of genius, with one particular iconic figure being given a treatment that could raise the hackles of those of a particular spiritual bent. Hey, this movie is not aimed at those people and I found the running gag absolutely hilarious.

It all ends in a welter of wrestling moves, gunfire and guts, Karl and Freddy taking the fight to their enemies in their own ridiculous style, parodying an endless number of those ultimate zombie showdowns but still holding up as well marshalled, fun action sequences. The final scene is perfectly in keeping with the rest of the piece, playing with the audience’s expectations as to how they believe society as a whole will have benefitted from the deeds of a few unwitting heroes. Do you believe RKSS are going to miss the opportunity to throw in some kind of amusing kicker here? What do you think?

We Are Zombies may prove a little too flippant for those who like their zombie action dark and doomy, but its beguiling mix of indie humour, social commentary and gooey practical effects will win it a lot of fans.

We Are Zombies (2023) screened at the Celluloid Screams Film Festival in Sheffield, UK.

US Border Patrol Agent Angel Waters (Roberto Urbina) heads to the scene of what looks like a crossing gone tragically wrong, discovering what he believes to be the watery Rio Grande grave of a mystery man. Almost immediately, things go south as the corpse suddenly turns out to be very much alive, then very much dead in the custody of Waters and fellow officers Veracruz (Julieth Restrepo) and Hitchcock (McCaul Lombardi).

Finding their normally quiet station house slap bang in the middle of an Internal Affairs investigation, the colleagues’ trust of each other is tested to the limit as they attempt to provide a consistent, coherent narrative of the incident under pressure from elements both natural and supernatural, with strange visions and events forcing themselves into the lives of those who follow the physical evidence to draw their conclusions.

An intriguing meld of slow-burn character drama, paranoia-soaked thriller and low-key ghost story, director Lance Larson demonstrates a willingness to blend genres and carries off the mix with some skill. Tense interrogation sequences sit side by side with creepy vignettes, tender scenes of Waters’ home life co-existing with jarring jump scares.

The Texas setting is an atmospheric one, showcasing landscapes of both stunning beauty and lurking danger. Even in the daylight, those wide open spaces generate their own fear, exacerbated by the motivations of an enigmatic, seemingly omnipresent stranger whose single-minded aim of reaching El Paso may hold the key to a mystery which has echoes down the decades.

Throw in a couple of curious IA officers played by Chris Mulkey and Julio Cesar Cedillo, and you have a classic case of the walls closing in on small town cops, trying to cover their tracks in the wake of snap decisions that turn out to be unbelievably bad. Urbina proves to be a solid, dependable presence in terms of performance, his character’s stoicism both a blessing and curse to those around him, especially the twitchy Lombardi, who essays an impressive line in increasingly erratic behaviour, adding an extra layer of tension as the shaky alliance between the three officers comes under increasing stress.

Restrepo, thankfully, isn’t saddled with either the token female law enforcement type or the overly kick-ass cypher that litters the genre when the script calls for a memorable woman. Capable, flawed, full of suspicion, the film is at its most interesting when she’s around. Mulkey, in a smaller but nonetheless important role, is at his unnerving best, his questions loaded with traps.

There are so many threads to the tale that its resolution may seem overly neat but in many ways, this is a story which demands explanation, especially in its handling of its otherworldly elements. The fate of certain characters might conveniently materialise out of nowhere – literally at one point – and the predicted bleakness of those final moments does not quite come to pass but, in a genre which often falls over itself to deliver downbeat denouements, it’s refreshing to reach an end credit roll which is accompanied by a feeling of hope.

Deadland is pleasingly understated in the way it goes about its business, its brooding atmosphere left to simmer, punctuated by sporadic bursts of violence which are all the more impactful for their brutal banality. Eschewing blazing action for a more thoughtful treatment of a charged political situation, its focus on the unknown – in both the tangible world around us and its uncanny fringes – makes for an experience which frequently leaves the viewer’s nerves as frayed as those of its main protagonists.
Yes, many familiar thriller tropes are deployed, but Larson uses those as a stepping off point into something intriguingly different, maximising the effectiveness of its premise, managing its plot detours with assurance and inviting post-movie discussion of its big themes. What can be wrong with that?

Deadland (2023) appeared at this year’s Spirit of Independence Festival in Sheffield, UK.

Archive: Author: Darren Gaskell

Celluloid Screams 2023: We Are Zombies

Spirit of Independence 2023: Deadland