The last film we have to review from the Drunken Zombie Film Festival is perhaps the biggest of the indie shorts; it stars John La Zar and Adrienne Barbeau, was obviously shot on a decent budget and has a steady, confident feel throughout.

It’s also in many ways the most disturbing, because the central theme of this movie is simple: “Coddle the Undead and you’ll be very, very sorry.”

Alice Jacobs is Dead most strongly resembles World War Z, in that it is set neither at the beginning nor the end of a Zombie Apocalypse, but afterward, in a world struggling to put itself back together; in shades of Max Brooks’ Anti-Zombie epic, the US evacuated to the West Coast, hiding out behind the Rockies until it could find a solution, if not a Final one, to the Zombie Problem.

Unlike in World War Z, this came not from a fundamental reworking of the social fabric and retooling of the military, but from the world of medicine: Dr. Ben Jacobs, John La Zar‘s character in the film, discovered (in the nick of time), a partial cure for the Zombie ‘plague’ sweeping the globe. There was only one hitch; the serum only works in the early stages of the disease. For someone too far along, the drug proves ineffective, and although Dr. Jacobs labors intensely to improve his discovery, he has so far proven unsuccessful.

Still, one would be forgiven for wondering why he bothers; his treatment was, epidemiologically speaking, a fantastic success since it could be used prophylactically. Your traditional Romero zombie stereotypes (the type of Zombie prejudice employed in this movie) are only threatening because they can spread; if a mob of these unfortunate caricatures were faced with a squad of soldiers using M-16s who couldn’t be converted, well.. it doesn’t take a tactical genius to figure out how things will go.

Perhaps this explains why there is so little interest in developing Jacob’s work further, and why he labors alone in a poorly funded, lightly staffed lab day after day, even while the world sings his praises and calls him for interviews. (Well, the indie budget might have had something to do with it too).

Yet no one in the film’s world asks the question: why does Jacobs want to find a cure for a disease that has been completely contained and is almost entirely exterminated, when his pre-treatment is so effective? Why not retire, rest on his laurels, or work on the old medicinal holy grail, a cure for cancer?

That’s the rub; for Jacobs, the disease still presents a dire threat, because, unknown to his admiring public, he didn’t ‘lose’ his wife in the Zombie War… he’s been keeping her alive, staying one step ahead of the progression of her ‘ailment’, for a very long time now, and he needs to find an improved cure before her time runs out.

I won’t spoil the ending for you, but you can probably guess that it doesn’t go well, for Dr. Jacobs, for his wife Alice, or for the human race at large. The movie paints a sympathetic picture of the Almost-Zombie Alice, but has the usual complete lack of sympathy for Zombies at large. Jacobs is a tragic figure, for failing to realize the truth. The same truth that every Zombie movie protagonist faces about every infected friend; the Truth About What Must Be Done.

In other words, the movie’s core purpose is to warn off any namby-pampy Zombie coddlers, to teach them that, no matter how much your heart may bleed, Zombies Aren’t People, and those who will become Zombies are already as Good As Dead.

Sigh.

Alice Jacobs Is Dead isn’t just Anti-Zombie propaganda; it’s Anti-Zombie-Sympathy propaganda, an angry polemic against all who would argue on behalf of the Undead or those who are becoming Undead. In other words, us, though not the ZRC exclusively (obviously). The movie presents an explicit threat to those who aren’t hardline enough about Zombies: you’ll get eaten, or shot, or otherwise disposed of, and then, gee, won’t you feel silly?

Well, the ZRC doesn’t respond meekly to such threats and arguments. We will stand proudly by our Undead compatriots and defend them from cruel slanders and bigotry, even when it is delivered by a veteran of Creepshow, one of the finest Pro-Zombie films ever made. We feel great sadness to see how Adrienne Barbeau is slumming it these days, consorting with the worst sorts of Zombie Haters, but it doesn’t change our mission or challenge our resolve. We will still fight for the rights of the Differently Animated.

For all the reasons listed above, this film too receives our worst rating, the Living Supremacist mark of shame.

Tags: Movies, ZRC Reviews

This entry was posted by John Sears on Monday, November 8th, 2010 at 10:38 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.