Fan Of The Dead + The Walking Dead Girls (2008/2011/Cheezy Flicks/MVD DVDs)
Picture: D/C- Sound:
D/C- Extras: D Films: D/C-
Here we’ve got a double shot of zombie documentaries from Cheezy Flicks - Fan
of the Dead and The Walking Dead Girls. Unfortunately, both docs run short in length
and exhibit production standards that are well below expectations.
First we’ll take a look at Nicolas Garreau’s Fan of the Dead - a
documentary that is little more than a home movie of the filmmaker’s trip to Pittsburgh. Although Garreau put a lot of heart into
creating this video, it falls short of his intentions and feels akin to being
trapped with a stranger and forced to watch old tapes of them on vacation. He makes the standard stops that any self
respecting zombie fan would when visiting their Mecca...
going to the Monroeville Mall where Dawn of the Dead was filmed, and the
cemetery in Evans
City well north of that
mall, the site used in the original Night of the Living Dead.
There are some highlights in the project. These come when he takes his camera into some
of the less accessible filming locations, such as the former office of Romero’s
early company, The Latent Image - the basement of which was used in the filming
of NOTLD, as the one in the farmhouse seen in the film was too small to
effectively film in.
We also see some locations for Tom Savini’s 1990 remake of the film, as well as
take a peek into the facility that served as the underground bunker in Day
of the Dead. Strangely, while
Garreau goes out of his way to make some other lesser-known stops along the
journey, he neglects to mention anything about The Crazies, in spite of
being mere miles away from the locations in Evans City.
Despite his claims of being a super-fan, he shares very little actual knowledge
about the movies with the viewer, which is a shamefully missed opportunity. Instead of cramming information into the
meager 60 minute runtime, we watch as he gets lost while driving, or sits
around, bored, talking into the camera from his hotel room. Lazy filmmaking like this shouldn’t be getting
distribution anywhere but YouTube, but we have it here on a pressed disc with
an MSRP of fifteen bucks.
Every bit as bad is The Walking Dead Girls, a film that shows obvious
signs of being hastily pasted together for some quick cash. There are some decent interviews with George
Romero, John Amplas and Terry Alexander, all conducted at a convention, and
more professional sit-down interviews with Linnea Quigley and Lloyd Kaufman. These are interspersed between unrelated photo
shoots being done for a Cheezy Flicks calendar featuring zombie strippers. Some silly, not too taxing questions about
zombies are asked of the girls, and the whole affair is supposed to be
lighthearted fun, but is ultimately just a stupid waste of time.
Video and sound quality are so terrible on Fan of the Dead that it's
nearly unwatchable. The Walking Dead
Girls is a step up with clean and clear visuals, but often weak sound. Both
features are 1.33:1 full frame with stereo sound.
Neither disc has any bonus content, which is practically criminal, considering
that the longer of the two features, The Walking Dead Girls, just barely
cracks 70 minutes. More could be said
about the negative aspects of both of these films, but there’s little point in
ferreting out all of the problems - these titles are a mess. Avoid them at all costs.
- David Milchick
