Director SABU’s artsy, black & white horror/thriller Miss Zombie is set to make its NY premiere at the NYAFF/Japan Cuts today. The film is set in Japan during a time where zombies exist but have varying levels of the zombie virus, meaning that not all want to attack and eat your flesh. One day, Dr. Teramoto (Toru Tezuka) receives a large box in the mail which contains a mail order zombie (Ayaka Komatsu), an instruction manual detailing the vegetarian diet it needs and that it shouldn’t be fed meat. It also contains a gun as a just-in-case measure. Though a controversial arrival in the community, this functioning yet seemingly emotionless zombie is put straight to work by Mrs. Teramoto (Makoto Togashi), given the glorious chore of scrubbing the patio outside their home. Each day the functioning zombie goes home and is ridiculed and stabbed by various people along the way, unfazed by the beatings and stabbings. Things change though when the family’s contractors decide to get frisky with the zombie and their son drowns while out playing resulting in emotional turmoil for the family and, soon enough, the zombie as well.
As is the case with many Japanese genre films, Miss Zombie aims to be subversive in certain aspects, particularly of the sexual kind. While the first conflict arises from death and resurrection of the son Kenichi, the second comes from the rape/molestation of Sara the zombie. Not only do the construction workers get zombie action, their boss Dr. Teramoto discovers their new hobby and while he’s initially repulsed by it all, he is soon turned on, turning her into his zombified sex toy.
To be blunt, I initially didn’t like Miss Zombie. By the time I finished the film I thought it was one of the most boring films I had seen since I saw the Oscar nominated The Missing Picture. I didn’t really understand the purpose of the film until the final 30 minutes which, in my eyes, is a little late in a feature to start turning up the real story and dramatic action. Upon reflection days after my screening of it, I still am not a fan of the film but can appreciate some of the artistic elements and unique approach the film took, particularly with the power shift of the family, the use of black & white cinematography and how specific emotional stimulation can somehow reawaken a zombie.
The reason the film becomes a pain to watch is because a good chunk of it involves the repetitive nature of watching or listening to the zombie scrub the patio, receive her food from Mrs. Teramoto, and walk back to her “home.” It just gets really annoying since it represents the bulk of the film. The changing point from all of this repetition is when the son dies (mentioned above) and the mother tells the zombie to bite her son to bring him back to life. Now I know what you’re all thinking, it’s breaking zombie rules because you typically can’t turn someone into a zombie via bite after you die, but I’m going to let that detail slide for now. The thing is, the bite awakens something in the zombie, returning memories of her human life while also initializing a motherly instinct to care for the child who now wants to be with her over his actual mother. It’s an interesting premise and completely changes the type of film it is, throwing out all the general zombie tropes. The father starts to get more attached to the zombie as a sexual toy and the mother starts going bat shit crazy after she discovers what her husband is doing while dealing with the fact that her son died and now that he’s alive again he’s trying to abandon her for the zombie.
One of the odder elements of Miss Zombie is the lack of dialogue. There isn’t much said throughout the film, instead the film uses the visuals to tell the story, which, surprisingly, it does pretty well, but I feel the idea of domesticated zombies requires a bit more in the way of communication, especially when said zombie inadvertently changes the lives of the people living around her. Also, while the visuals work, I can’t say the same about the audio. A majority of what you hear is the scraping of the zombie’s feet on the sidewalk, her brush scrubbing the patio, and eventually the mom crying and yelling. It gets extremely irritating, especially the mother who performs like an over dramatic soap opera star. This combined with the mediocre at best acting distracts quite a bit from the quality aspects of the flick.
While not my cup of tea, Miss Zombie will certainly find a crowd at this year’s NYAFF and Japan Cuts screenings. The film is a nicely shot tribute to classic black & white “horrors” and offers up a unique approach to the use of zombies in film. That being said, the lack of dialogue results in the use of annoying sounds that begin to wear heavy on your ears and the c-rated acting distracts you from, what should be, semi-gripping scenes. If you want something seemingly high-brow and melodramatic then check this one out, otherwise I’d save your money for a different film at the fests.
Rating: A different take on zombies with quite a few annoyances but it’s a film that needs to be digested to be appreciated (4.5/10)
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