Recent Reviews
Film Review: Last Rites of the Dead
By John Marrone
Sep 10, 2006, 15:57

Directed by:  Marc Fratto
Running Time:  118 minutes
Body Count:  living/dead... whats the difference?

- trailer (quicktime)

A beautiful young woman named Angela is ruthlessly murdered in her apartment bathroom.  Shot in the head.  Her jealous ex-boyfriend flees the scene.  Paramedics arrive, but they know there's nothing more they can do.  She's dead.  Well, sort of.  Angela, like the rest of a recently growing subsociety wont quite die.  She's become undead - down to one heartbeat an hour, craving raw bloody meat, with a hell of a mess to clean up.  Whats a poor, broken hearted, zombie girl to do?

Enter Marc Fratto's modern world in Last Rites of the Dead - where the dead won't quite die.  Men, women and children everywhere are becoming zombies, and society just has no room for them.  Attempting to live normal lives, zombies roam the street, hold jobs - even have their own dating services online.  But, as Angela is about to find out, being undead definitely has its disadvantages.  For one thing, you cant vote.  You cant marry.  Forget about catching a cab.  The living dont like the undead.  Theyre dirty, they smell bad, and no matter how much makeup they throw on, they just don't fit in.   You're gay?  A minority?  Zombies dont wanna hear it.  They have it worse.

Such is the pun in the title of this film - Last "Rights" of the Dead.  Angela, played by the heart-stopping gorgeous Gina Ramsden, walks the earth with a sad heart.  The relationship from hell, her old friends wont talk to her anymore, she's swung at on the street...  She joins a support group for the "mortally challenged", and learns that she's not alone.  Several minor characters in the film introduce her to what happens at "disposal centers" (reflecting concentration camps), battling prejudice and how to try and blend in with the living.  Many of the problems they face are very similar to those that we, as minorities or other non-mainstream people, face every day and every generation here in the United States and around the world.

Running parallel to Angela's story is that of Josh (Joshua Nelson - Aunt Rose/Addiction) and where he fits into the world.  Consumed by anger, uncontrolled emotion and blind hatred, he attempts to join the Commandant's Army - a band of zombie hunters who stalk and abduct the undead off the streets, from their jobs, and murder them without provocation.  These "walking dead" aren't trying to harm anyone - they're just trying to fit in - but if Josh, his friends, and the Commandant have their way, they'll all be wiped off the face of the earth.

"Looks like someone needs a group hug..."

The two stories converge as blind hate and oppression meet - zombie hunters cross the mortally challenged - and the blood spills.  The action and gore rivals anything else Ive seen all year.   Marc Fratto does an insanely excellent job of taking a low-budget film and mastering it for every facet its worth.  Fratto knew his own limitations, worked within them, and polished off a "modern" zombie classic.  Where George Romero's Land of the Dead dropped the ball, bumbling a big budget and fumbling with his usually injected political and societal observances - Marc Fratto takes the similar structure of a zombie evolved segment of society trying to fit in among the hate and oppression and makes it work on several levels.  Levels that Land of the Dead never quite evolved to.

Fratto takes the time to build characters that you want to follow.  With the exception of the amatuerish Mary Jo Verruto who played Solstice, and Joshua Nelson, who was a bit bland for a lead - the cast carries this film well and maintains interest throughout what ends up being a two hour saga.  Gina Ramsden played the most attractive and most endearing zombie Ive ever seen.  She'll lighten your opinions on necrophilia.  Her sensitivity and quirkiness drove this plot, and in combination with a fantastic gothic piano score and complimentary makeup - this story works when originally I scoffed. 

With the country split so far to the right and the left at this point in time, it may be fair to say that this film might leave a bit of the right slightly peeved.  There's a lot of sensitivity to rights.  However there is no lack of mutilation and trauma from what the rightwing zombie fan might expect - ala Night or Dawn of the Dead.  Heads are severed left and right, mouths popping with black gore from shotgun shells, exploding exit wounds and sinewy flesh.  Gore galore!  Storywise - I dont think there's ever been such a well told, left wing, liberal zombie feature such as this.

Final analysis:  Ever wonder how the other side lives?  Restricted only by budget, Marc Fratto shows he is ready for the next level of filmmaking.  Fratto maxes out what can be expected from a low budget zombie film.  Mega gore, ruthless and viscious cold blooded killings, good script, lighting, editing - fine actors from top to bottom (with a couple non-major exceptions), strong minor characterization, and a story that is so well built and told that it fills the plot with detail, to the point where you dont have to think hard to believe in the tale.  The length of this film did drag on about a half hour too long, however.  The story went thin and had trouble finding its way to the ending.  The shining star of this project has to be Gina Ramsden, who makes her mark as an outstanding leading lady.  For someone who sometimes prefers an all-out apocalyptic bloodbath over a politically hinting, Masters of Horror Homecoming type of zombie film - I found LROTD to be well thought out and original, working on several levels - cerebral and splatterwise - and in the end, it earned from me an admiration and respect for what Fratto was able to pull off.

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