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USA, 2009, 90 Minute Running Time Genre/Subjects: Black Comedy, Cult, GLBT, Horror, Religion, Social Issues Programs: Contemporary World Cinema, The Watching HourLanguage: English
DIRECTOR: Kevin Hamedani Producer: John SinnoEditor: Andrew McallisterScreenwriter: Kevin Hamedani, Ramon IsaoCinematographer: John GuleserianPrincipal Cast: Janette Armand, Doug Fahl, Cooper Hopkins, Bill Johns, Russell Hodgkinson
Ever since George Romero brought the horrors of Vietnam so close to home in his 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, the zombie has stood (make that lumbered) a trusty metaphor for the fears of modern-day society. Using Romero’s model, director/cowriter Kevin Hamedani examines the realities of post-9/11 American life in our funny bones (among other body parts) as it does so, ZMD takes us to the once supposedly idyllic hamlet of Port Gamble where, without warning, zombies have begun to take over. Running for her life is Frida, an Iranian-American young woman whose Walmart-loving neighbors deem the zombie influx a terrorist plot – perpetrated by her. On her side are Tom and Lance, a gay couple who have ventured here to come out to Tom’s mother – a scenario that probably would not have gone well even if she hadn’t been mauled by flesh eaters. Local politics, meanwhile, are getting as ugly as the undead menace, what with the conservative mayor up for reelection against an ecofriendly female hippie and the local minister preaching that the zombies are all sinners – and that he and his followers will be spared their messy fate. When the bloody dust settles, who will remain – and will they be pro–health care? Hamedani (himself Iranian-American) has said that ZMD is inspired by his experiences in Seattle in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, when even friends turned on him in suspicion and fear. It was time, he decided, that America remember the truism that sometimes there’s nothing more fearful than fear itself. Let the gore-spattered healing begin.