Night Of The Living Dorks (Satire/Germany)
Picture: B- Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: C+
Give or
take the occasional Shawn Of The Dead,
most rip-offs and satires of George Romero’s zombie films, especially the
original 1968 Night Of The Living Dead
are beyond played out. Though far from
original or perfect, Mathias Dinter’s Night
Of The Living Dorks (2004) is one of the few satires up there with Shawn or Bob Clark’s Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things
(reviewed elsewhere on this site) that really work or matter.
In a
sometimes charming, sometimes bold and definitely not American (or should we
say formula U.S. filmmaking) tale, three best friends (Konrad, Philip &
Weener) are the nerdiest of all the students at Frederich Nietzsche High School,
a name that already spells trouble.
Hanging with the Goth crowd to make friends, a phony voodoo ceremony
turns out to have real supernatural implications and the three become zombies.
Suddenly,
they can overcome their ordinariness, stand up to bullies, make some girls more
interesting and see the world in a new way.
If only their bodies would stop literally falling apart and
decaying! If that was not interesting
enough, the story is fused with the youth culture of Germany and that alone
makes it stand tall and above the glut of U.S. productions that sadly keep
getting made in this cycle of Romero zombie knock-offs.
The
script is not bad, though there are some uneven things that happen as the film
moves on and a few missed opportunities along the way. However, the cast and the three leads
specifically have great chemistry and there is a certain honesty about growing
up the film has that is actually being censored in the gross majority of U.S.
films of any kind. Dinter also wrote the
script and has an appreciation of more than just Romero’s legacy. Genre fans should slowly discover this more
and more as its builds a long-term cult reputation that makes sense.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is not bad for a low-budget production
with consistent color, some depth and fairly good detail. The Dolby Digital English 2.0 Stereo is good,
but I liked the Dolby Digital German 5.1 as well, though both have about the
same surrounds. They also have somewhat
different dialogue and the English subtitles are amusing to watch with either
soundtrack, point out to cultural differences and sensibilities that make this
even more amusing.
Extras
include deleted/extended scenes that are not bad, interviews, trailers for both
the German and U.S. markets, behind the scenes and a “fun scenes” piece. That is more than enough for the film, though
if it keeps picking up, a special or ultimate edition would not be out of the
question. Catch it if you like zombie
films.
- Nicholas Sheffo
