For many years now film goers have been dreading an assault by zombie. Film
goers have been dreading the rotting corpses of the recently dead rising up to
stalk and feast upon the flesh and brains of the living. Not that long ago
zombies did in fact begin to take over. This swarming menace is not present in
the actual sense, the zombie hordes are at this very moment zombies at attacking
our movie theaters and television channels throughout the world. Although this
invasion is not occurring in the world but the impact is significant and as far
as the portion of the entertainment industry zombies were originally utilized an
occult menace typically fro exotic island nations in the Caribbean by horror
film directors to achieve an unstoppable, mindless killing machine. In 1968
under the innovative guidance of a young filmmaker, George Romero, the zombie
was reinvented into a vehicle for social commentary and a staple of budding
masters of horror throughput the independent film world. A with any human
endeavor the use of zombies ranges over a wide spectrum. At the shallow end are
young filmmakers who can exploit the cheap and easy application of reasonably
effective makeup. It is so simple that zombie bar crawls have appeared in many
cities where groups deck themselves out in the finest undead couture and proceed
to bar hop across town in costume. On the other side are the film that trace
their lineage to the Romero franchise that uses the lumbering formerly human
creatures in allegorical terms were the undead come to represent social concerns
ranging from prejudice to rampant over consumerism. Somewhere in the middle of
this bell curve lays movies similar in construction and inclination to the one
under consideration here, ‘Dead Season’ are an attempt to set an otherwise
familiar story against the back drop of a zombie infestation.
In a case as represented by this movie a standard trope is retooled through
the use of the undead creatures as an immediately understandable threat. The
filmmaker need not expend too much footage in exposition; just a brief scene
explaining how a viral outbreak has set the zombie multitude has been set loose
upon our kind. The specific scenario serving as the foundation of this film is
fairly representative of the plot device. The precise details of the etiology of
the zombie infection are inconsequential more inline width the classic Macguffin.
Although what occurred is naturally important to the characters within the
context of the story but from the vantage point of the audience the cause can be
regarded as de facto and just accepted without further questioning. The
traditional storyline used here is pair of characters on a road trip. The
destination in this case is the safe haven reportedly located on a far away
island. This is an accepted variation of the quest story. Other notable example
is the post nuclear Apocalypse navigated by two soldiers on ‘Damnation Alley’
which is a variation of the same themes employed here. Just search for radiation
and replace with zombie. Of course the required changes are more complicated
than that facetious but it does demonstrate the ubiquitous nature of the men on
a quest story line. By altering the foundation of the premise filmmaker Adam
Deyoe has managed to breathe a little life in to this hackney genre, no pun
intended. Through the alteration of character motivation in this fashion Deypoe
has change the driving force of the story. Normally the humans in zombie flicks
are just running from the staggering source of peril. Here the difference is in
some ways subtle but it is just what is needed. Her two people here, Elvis
(Scott Peat) and fellow survivor Tweeter (Marissa Merrill) are on a journey
towards a specific goal, an island off the coast of Florida that is reportedly
free of zombies. The usual moral dilemma comes up such as the disposition of
those fortunately infected to how to cope with a boy who attaches himself to the
travelers. By switching the travel from danger to a specific location the film
can ascend about the routine flight or fight reaction to a journey of hope, a
promise of some semblance of a return to normalcy. On a greater scale the script
provided by new comers Joshua Klausner and Loren Semmens shifts the film from a
video game like dispatching of one zombie after another to the basis for an
insightful character study of two reasonable men facing a world devoid of
reason.
Here the journey is but the start of the story’s heart. One the pair make it
to the island they discover the expected rag tag group of survivor lead by the
militarily inclined, Kurt Conard (James C. Burns). The story takes a surprising
change in the expected direction when Tweeter and another young woman in the
compound, Corsica Wilson (Rachel Conrad), plot to escape. They need flee the
draconian rile of Conard’s administration. Just for another telegraphed plot
device Corsica is the leader’s daughter. Adam Deyoe’s direction exhibits a bold
streak. He is not shy of switching up the pre determined roles to vary the
personalities of the characters. An example is the stern leader/ I one
dimensional portrayal would go down that overly trod path but here the people
are represented as fully developed personalities instead of the customary
caricatures populating the common zombie flick.
This film has heart and not just the bloody organ being ripped out of a
victim’s chest cavity. There is an unexpected emotional layer to the film that
leads me curious as to how these artisans will develop their talents. It isn’t
often that a zombie movie eschews political message or overt gross effects in
favor of relating a story of human beings under stress from an emotional stand
point. The film stumbles a few times as expected by people at the start of their
careers. What is obvious is the potential the writers and director display as
storytellers.