The Zombie Rights Campaign set out to the local independent theatre on Sunday afternoon to see ‘A Morning Stroll’, the Oscar-nominated short animated film that’s been causing some buzz. The terms ‘blood-thirsty’ or ‘Zombie dystopia’ are bandied about quite frequently, and naturally caused the ZRC considerable concern.

Sadly, the film was even worse than I had imagined.

First, the description of ‘A Morning Stroll’ from our last post is essentially accurate; this is an animated film about a chicken walking down an alleyway in a major metropolitan area, knocking (well, pecking) on a door and being let inside. Only, repeated three times, in three differing art styles to represent three distinct time periods. The first segment is set in the 50s and drawn mostly in simple, black and white outlines. The second is set in 2009 and is a riot of neon colors, music and noises. But neither of those concern Zombie Rights, at least directly. It’s the third segment, set in the future (2059) that features, yes, the Zombie ‘Dystopia’.

Naturally, in this future with Zombies, the city lies in ruin, virtually devoid of movement or life. The streets are littered with trash, cars are parked haphazardly along the road and a lone, sad looking Undead fellow is limping up the alley when he notices the chicken walking back the other way.

And then things get violent. I mean, really, really violent. Shockingly violent, should-probably-carry-a-warning-label violent.

The pitiable Zombie, who probably hasn’t had a good meal in a long time (supposed downfall of civilization and all) starts flailing around, violently pursuing the chicken with manic movements and extreme, Tex Avery-esque facial expressions, designed no doubt to be jarring and dehumanizing. The blood and gore are excessive and more than faintly nauseating, as our poor Undead individual chases the chicken down the broken street, crawling and scrabbling at it under a parked car, desperately squeezing into tight spaces in search of a meal.

I was wincing pretty badly as the Zombie scrabbled its poor, bare fingertips against the asphalt. *shudder*

It gets worse, if you can believe it, with limbs ripped off, fountains of blood and viscera, culminating in a ghastly and savage end for our poor Undead protagonist (I refuse to believe the chicken is the hero of this story).

I go to a lot of horror conventions, film festivals, etc. I read and watch a lot of Anti-Zombie media. I can safely say that nothing they showed at The Dark Carnival last year, for example, was this graphic. And if it had been, it would have been shown in a special Adults Only section.

For the Academy to put this out there without even a cursory advisory is a bit unnerving, and shows the extent, I fear, to which Hollywood has decided that the Zombie subculture is an ‘acceptable’ target. The lack of sympathy, the cruelty, the outright glorification of the suffering of others, so long as they are Undead, is repugnant. Do Zombies deserve debasement and starvation, homelessness and deprivation, solely because they are Undead? This film seems to think so.

We, however, strenuously disagree.

The Zombie Rights Campaign rates ‘A Morning Stroll’ by Grant Orchard and Sue Goffee as one of the worst offenders in the Anti-Zombie short film genre to date, and accordingly awards it our lowest and most odious mark of shame, branding it: Living Supremacist.

Tags: Movies

This entry was posted by John Sears on Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.