An gay teenage zombie falls in with a pretentious experimental filmmaker who casts him in a politically themed porno while documenting his experiences as a walking corpse in this existential gut-muncher from Canadian provocateur Bruce LaBruce. Adorable twink Otto (Jey Crisfar) was wandering the streets of Berlin and feasting on road-kill when avant-garde filmmaker Medea Yarn recruited him to appear in her latest film, a porno-political-zombie flick set during the gay zombie uprising. Gradually,
over the course of shooting, Medea's interest in Otto grows and she decides to make a documentary about him. Flattered by the attention lavished upon him by both the filmmaker and his smitten fellow cast-members, Otto suddenly finds his life -- or death -- gaining a newfound sense of purpose. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Campy but not comical, reactionary but not very clever, LaBruce's film is best saved for those tickled by the sight of homo-zombie orgies or the hardcore penetration of an open wound.
Canadian queer-cinema provocateur Bruce LaBruce continues his trademark blend of sexual explicitness and shoddy technique with his numbing necro-porno, Otto; or, Up With Dead People.
Its metaphorical examination of the plight of queer zombies in Germany is readymade for former LaBruce fans. Get ready for copulation with a hole in the stomach and such memorable quotes as "I was a zombie with an identity crisis."
Sadly, this is one of those moments where I have to scan my reviewer's list of dismissive nouns to come up with the perfect word to describe this mess. Ah, yes, here it is: claptrap.
Veers between raw zombie cuisine, raw gay porn, high calorie sex that includes entrails-devouring as foreplay, and cranky anti-establishment rants against advanced capitalism. Not to mention that it's hard out there for a zombie too.
Calling a zombie movie lifeless is bad enough. But when the charge is leveled at a gay zombie movie by Bruce LaBruce, queer cinema's most radical fairy, the disappointment cuts that much deeper.
Veers between raw zombie cuisine, raw gay porn, high calorie sex that includes entrails-devouring as foreplay, and cranky anti-establishment rants against advanced capitalism. Not to mention that it's hard out there for a zombie too.
When the viscera and seminal fluids are cleared away, there is something less flagrant but more durable resembling a beating heart inside this bloody stump of a movie -- a coded message to do with loneliness and loss.
Bruce La Bruce's latest offering is a deadly affair of heavily politicized metaphors that overflows with imagination, angst and a smattering of good old fashioned porn.
This film does a terrific job at eliminating audience members - weeding out the weak. Do not watch this film if you can't handle: gratuitous gore of the intestine eating sort, explicit gay sex (between zombies using fresh improvised gashes as sexual orifices), frequent cross-cutting of "reality" and "film", and
dedicating major segments of the film to an art house indie director criticizing art house and non-mainstream film. But if you're a weirdo like me and think all of that sounds like a hella good time, you will or will not be disappointed ;)Some things that are truly outstanding here: the director character's lover is constantly encapsulated in a bubble of silent film; the lengths to which this director goes to be "avant garde" and the heights to which those attempts accidentally succeed and the hilarious depths to which they intentionally fail. Otto, the main zombie character, is constantly battling for a sense of identity, and his story juxtaposed and interweaving with this director's vision (Up With Dead People is the title of her film) makes the titling very apt (which the title itself is a wink-wink nudge-nudge satirical jab at fringe cinema). Ultimately, this is not so much a film about zombies as it is a film about film; the zombie aspect is merely used as fuel for probing the subject of identity in both the personal and social arena.Hot Gay Sex notes: for those looking to avoid poorly done zombie sex and see hardcore human/human (in appearance) gay male sex in the context of narrative feature, around 1:20:00 is the best example; beyond that you're on your own and in for some zombie/zombie, zombie/human combos
More than anything else, I think this film spoofs pretentious film directors who only like to make artsy-fartsy documentaries where they deal with more or less deep subject matters (being a zombie) through what they consider to be really thought-provoking means (gay porn). Don't despair during the first half an hour,
the film becomes much clearer towards the end.
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