A zombie movie with a pedigree? The biographical notes on the cast and crew for this one go on for three pages of credits, and the film boasts a lead role by Adrienne Barbeau no less. Let’s see what that’s all about…
Opening with a pan across the Bay and the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge, we enter the laboratory of Dr. Ben Jacobs (John La Zar). As his assistant George (Peter Cambor) reminds him of the time, Dr. Jacobs leaves the lab and walks through an otherwise deserted medical complex. As he does so flashes of a TV interview inform us that thanks to his special serum Dr. Jacobs was instrumental in putting a halt to the spread of the dreaded Z-virus, an infection that has apparently exacted an enormous death toll on the population through the process of zombification.
Arriving at his secured home Dr. Jacobs greets his beloved wife Alice (Adrienne Barbeau), who, we were told by the television, was herself lost to the virus. This doesn’t prevent a bit of old married couple banter however, and in the morning the good Doctor leaves for the lab once again while Alice remains home to rest and take her medicine. She clearly isn’t well, exhibiting symptoms of nausea, bleeding and lethargy. Even as the dead woman shoots up her medication, Dr. Jacobs and George are discussing the “alarming” nature of a recent batch of test samples.
That evening is the Jacobs’ anniversary, and while Alice’s symptoms prevent her from enjoying a rare meal of champagne and beef her condition doesn’t preclude a little romantic necrophilia. In the morning Ben injects Alice and heads off to work, where George questions him about the nature of some of the samples they’ve been looking at. It seems that one group is from a positive specimen that they have been testing, donor unseen, for over a year, which is unheard of due to the deadly nature of the virus. “Do you think someone could be keeping it as a pet somewhere?” George asks. Brushing off these questions, Dr. Jacobs briskly packs up and leaves the lab early.
Alice meanwhile is at home watching Dracula. In an almost hypnotic state she gets up and goes to the refrigerator, and removing the meat from last night she carefully unwraps it. And then tears into the raw flesh with her teeth, smearing it over her face in her desperate hunger. When her husband comes home he finds Alice on the floor, crying and remorseful: “Don’t look at me! I’m disgusting!”
Ben does everything he can to console her, but Alice is clearly frustrated and resentful about her helplessness. Particularly the fact that she’s changing, for the worse, and can’t do anything to stop it. Ben has been as supportive as humanly possible, but it’s been over a year now and there’s still no hope in sight. “I’m turning,” she tells him. “I can feel it.” Alice is trapped, not only in her disintegrating body but in her home as well; technically one of the dead, she cannot be exposed to the outside population. (“I’m living in a Petri dish!”) Before the conversation ends, Alice makes Ben promise that when the time comes he’ll do the right thing.
The next morning Ben steps out of the shower to find that Alice has turned completely. He manages to subdue her and tie her up, but not before she takes a bite out of his shoulder. Hurrying to his medical kit Dr. Jacobs injects the site of the wound with his serum, then crawls back into bed to lie next to his growling undead wife.
Arriving late to the lab, Ben is confronted once more by George. He’s checked with Quarantine, and they never sent the samples that he was asking about earlier. The unusual samples are dated from the week that Alice died, and George now knows that Ben has been illegally keeping his wife in a holding pattern between life and death. Even as the argument grows Ben’s wound begins to bleed through his shirt, and George realizes in an instant that Alice has gone bad. Dr. Jacobs pleads with him, talking about a new serum that can still save her, but George understands that either the Doctor or his wife could start a brand new outbreak, one even more deadly than the last. And something has to be done.
The finale is abrupt and violent, even poetic in a doomed sort of way as the end credits play out over a scene not unfamiliar to fans of zombie movies.
A very enjoyable little film, in fact much more so than I would have expected from a simple three-character short. Well-paced for its 21 minutes, subtle and understated aren’t words usually used to describe a zombie movie but here they fit most appropriately. A largely quiet film, Alice… uses the zombie genre as a metaphor for the struggle of anyone in the process of losing a loved one to disease, be it cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, what have you. In this case it just happens to be zombification, and the story works well.
One element that does harm the film somewhat is that the image motion is a little jerky, as if it were skipping frames. Not only does this spoil some of the magnificence of the opening shot, but it makes much of the film look like you’re watching streaming video with an archaic modem. I don’t know whether this is due to the use of the digital Red Camera or the duplication process for the screener copies, but at points it makes the film look much cheaper than its $80K budget.
Nonetheless, with the talent and story brought together here it definitely makes the filmmakers ones to watch for in the future.
This promotional screener came with no additional features.
– Tom Crites
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- 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
