avid Gebroe filled many shoes in Zombie Honeymoon: writer, director, producer, caterer, whatever you’ll have on this picture because he’s the driving force behind this low budget outing which, surprisingly, tries to do something new for the genre of zombie cinema in the wake of its obvious financial constraints.
Denise and Danny (Tracy Coogan and Graham Sibley respectively) star as newlyweds who idealistically intend to move to Portugal as soon as their bank account will allow. To prove their faith in one another, however hastily, once they arrive at the house of Danny’s uncle for their rendezvous with love, they call their employers and tell them they quit before scheduling with their travel agent later in the day. The only problem with this, aside from the novice approach to reality, is that Danny was accosted by a strange man while on the beach earlier that day. The man vomited a black fluid all over Danny moments before dying. Danny consequently dies and Denise, while at the hospital¾now faced with her husband’s corpse after being married for less than a day¾is jolted back to reality once Danny regains consciousness after being declared dead for a full ten minutes. Though strange to say the least, the couple shrug off the event in order to return to their idyllic weekend and to one another.
What the couple doesn’t initially know is that Danny was unknowingly resurrected as a zombie but, unlike modern zombie folklore, his decline is gradual. Danny and Denise quickly find things are awry in that Danny has a sudden distaste for vegetables, which is quickly replaced, though temporarily, for a now insatiable appetite for meat. His dietary needs rapidly shift from being appeased by cow to that of human.
The respectable quality of the work is that it is trying to do something new for the genre. As close of an analogy as I can create is it attempts to do with tragedy what Shaun of the Dead did with comedy. Another zombie flick that comes to mind is I, Zombie, which tries to gain the viewer’s sympathies filming the work from the zombie’s POV. Zombie Honeymoon is a pure tragedy in that we are forced to see the pain of both characters, not just the zombie’s, throughout: Danny must restrain his urge for human flesh, however great, in order to keep from feasting on his bride while Denise can only stand beside her man (in this case adamantly adhering to the latter part of “For better or for worse”) and watch, helpless to assist or even call for help because Danny has already killed a handful of people before either knew what was occurring. I will not reveal the ending, but I assure you, it will damn near tear your heart clean out of your chest, believe it or not.
Also, as I often wondered while watching zombie flicks, Gebroe addresses the infectious nature of bodily fluids by those who house the zombie strand. More often then not, a character will be covered in contaminated blood after dispatching a slew of the undead and never show any signs of infection (some had to get into his mouth, you know?). In this regard, it is legend that infection comes through a bite or scratch but with Zombie Honeymoon, if you aren’t torn to shreds, the threat of infection still runs high via intravenous exposure. (This still leaves me with Romero’s assessment that a zombie need only a brain and nothing else to qualify and thrive, thus I’m still waiting for the severed heads which remain comatose to be addressed.)
Zombie Honeymoon works on many levels: It can be seen as a parable for what couples go through with a partner suffering from a terminal illness or as a metaphorical depiction of the struggles of maintaining a marriage. The ironic twist to the story is that it is grounded upon fact: Gebroe’s sister married and the director watched as she crumbled after his brother-in-law died a scant two years later. He took his sister’s story and adapted it to this powerful retelling. Ingenious indeed considering that was even remotely autobiographical.
There was quite a bit of chatter, not about the installation of tragedy in a zombie film, but rather the wry humor which runs throughout it. Denise is a vegetarian, creating the epitome of a diametrically opposed couple in that her husband eats human flesh. At one point Denise is seen smoking a post coital cigarette as she waits for Danny to finish off what seems to be the tenth cadaver of the day (it was here that I first questioned if zombies had the capacity, considering their gratuitous consumption, to gain weight). Danny does the world inadvertent justice by eating the stereotypical travel agent. Denise then pulls him away like a child from the candy store as he reaches back and whines “I’m hungry.” There are even nods to Dead Alive (Danny begins to fall apart in his soup over the couple’s first candlelit dinner), Dawn of the Dead (Danny turns a EC blue toward the end), and even Fulci.
The two qualms I had with the film is that Danny, regardless of his degeneration, maintains GQ hair throughout. This stands a far second to the obviously B-movie title which had me on reserve at the offset of the movie. Such a title should be reserved for schlock and fun in the guise of Return of the Living Dead, not a serious work such as Gebroe has created.
-Egregious Gurnow
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- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
