Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *
Cast: Marlon Kazadi, Madi Monroe, Dan Aykroyd, Henry Czerny, Brenna Coates, Chevy Chase, Lexie Mitchell, Brooke A. Smith, Chris Farquhar, Mikael Conde, Jonas Goddard Lashbrook, Ryan Anthony Mauro, Chattrisse Dolabaille, Scott Thompson, Callan Potter, Samuel Lariviere, Emiliana Perrotta, Bruce McCulloch, Rossana Tassone, Jocelyn Lacroix, Mitch Markowitz.
Genres lose their power when they have not only been parodied, but when those same parodies cease to be amusing, when everything they have that is special fails, when the jokes no longer are seen to be fit for purpose.
Parody is often an excellent narrative, especially in cinema, it can keep writers on their toes, it can act as a warning that the genre has been taken far too seriously. The viewer and film lover only has to remember the greatest parody of them all, the magnificent Airplane only came about because of the abundance of Airport films that were being produced for the cinematic consumer and disaster fanatic.
When parody slips over into regurgitation that is when becomes unpalatable, undeserving, unlikeable, redeeming features such as being able to see two old masters sharing a scene together is soon reduced to feeling sorry that it happened, and when that scene is between two of the most considered and genuine men of American comedy, Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase, the brutal discovery of Zombie Town is one that will haunt those who desire comedy, parody to be the essence of lampoonery, to be caustic perhaps, and certainly distort the vision of purity with the truth of satire.
The film certainly didn’t take notes from the enjoyable The Dead Don’t Die, the vehicle which brought together Bill Murray, another of the 70s and 80s alumni of satirical television and film, with Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, and Adam Driver in what might be looked at time to come as terrific example of comedic pacing within the Zombie genre, and for that, especially when coupled with the general antipathy and overwhelming lack of growth within the project, Zombie Town is the direct owner of giving a film script too much credence and not enough thought.
There are few plusses to found within, but Brenna Coates as the anti-horror school authority figure is one, it is just a shame that her character of Ms. Bonnard wasn’t allowed to have more of an impact on the final effect of the film. The same could be said of Henry Czerny’s Richard Lando, the local cinema owner and former actor, in the overall production of the film the lack of discerning focus on such a comedic possibility leaves an empty feeling in the viewer’s gut.
It rankles the spirit to suggest it but Zombie Town is a poor reflection on a magnificent career. The sense that it feels as though the film is a result of various moments of script left out and given a tweak from the previous Ghostbuster films is palpable, a forced delivery with no love for its form, this is a sentence of apathy for the skill of critically acclaimed writing in which satire and the lampoon roam free.
Ian D. Hall