I suspect if you are like me you are largely sick to death of zombie films. There is so little variation that they are boring. Even the shift into outbreak disease films has floundered. Yes there are some good one now and again, but mostly they are dead out of the gate.
PORTRAITS OF THE APOCALYPSE on the other hand is a great film. More something along the lines of what George Romero would have tried if he made another film, the film doesn't go the blood and gore route and instead mixes humor and horror in tales that firmly focus on the characters and how they react to the zombie outbreak over time.
Comprised of four parts each stand alone story takes place at a different time.
The first, the tale of a crooked cop at a crime scene gone wrong is set at the start of things and its funny until it isn't as she tries to fix what happened. Its a battle between her cop side and the bad girl voice in her head.
The second story has an older woman wake up her daughter because she is certain there is a rat in the house and because something happened to the cat. As the two women and the daughters husband ponder what is going on, they pay no mind that the man had been bitten earlier in the evening by a friend. This is another funny until it's not tale.
The third tale is told largely in video journal enties of a mother for her unborn child. Its a story that has an bleakness to it because we know from other tales this is not going to be happy.
The final section takes things into a new direction as father tries to contact his dead son through the use of a zombie. This is a chilling film since it changes the rules and resets the table of new ways to go with the genre.
I was blown away. Here at last is a zombie film that doesn't copy the past but builds on what went before to take things in new directions. This film potentially opens up new pathways and new doors that show us what the subgenre could be. This is one of the most heady films in the genre and one of its best. This film changes the rules.
Sadly while I am excited about this film, I suspect that the film is not going to please some film fans. Those who don't like the last trilogy from George Romero or films like MAGGIE, or MISS ZOMBIE, are not going to like some of the turns and the insistence of focusing on character over body parts. This is not a gorefest but social commentary and old school horror, and some people will balk.
On the other hand old school horror fans, or people who understand that horror is not just scares but about going deep into the human condition are going to eat this up.
One of the best films at this year's Fantaspoa and one of the finds of the year PORTRAITS OF THE APOCALYPSE is a must see.
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