
The German’s are known for being a bit weird. There’s their porn of course, their penchant for lederhosen, and their bizarre love of sauerkraut. Not to mention the whole Hitler fiasco (oh those crazy Germans!). They’ve also managed to mix zombie films with queer cinema, a concept even stranger than pickled cabbage.
It sounds potentially inspired, conjuring up images of couture zombies staggering about in pink, a bit of sociopolitical commentary to rival Romero, and some neat jokes about ‘eating manflesh’. This of course would be my perfect gay zombie movie. But Otto, or Up With Dead People is not the perfect gay zombie movie. To put it politely, it’s a pile of pretentious wank.
Bruce LaBruce’s film revolves around Otto (Jey Crisfar), a young man who may or may not be a zombie, may or may not be repressing a traumatic past, and may or may not be gay. Medea (Katharina Klewinghaus) is an insane goth chick who hangs out with her girlfriend Hella Bent and makes avant-garde queer horror films. Hella has a bobcut and is literally spliced in from a silent movie. See Hella and Medea drink tea on the lawn! See them shop for headstones! See them exploit Otto and make him their new star!
I went in with only one agenda: to see some hardcore gay necrophilia. But even though this lifelong dream was realised, and in great style, the sight of a fetid cock thrusting into a slippery stomach cavity was the brief high point of Bruce LaBruce’s woeful piece of cinema. The film isn’t just pretentious, it’s annoying. You think the constant sound of distorted radio feedback (ostensibly representing Otto’s troubled and rotting mind) is aggravating? Try listening to a monotonous gothic freak with a German accent opine about alienation and mindless consumption. Because you’ll hear both. Ad nauseum.
Visually, the film is unimpressive. The greys and reds of your usual gorefest are present, and apart from a recurring motif of Medea preaching in front of a cloud-streaked bluescreen, it doesn’t offer anything memorable. The framing is bland, and the occasional novel shot is shattered by the irritating voiceover, relentless radio distortion, or another tedious shot of Otto looking blank and static. The constant narration only serves to highlight the fact that LaBruce isn’t a good enough writer or director to tell his story with subtle touches, something that might have saved the film. Instead, the commentary is like kids reading subtitles out loud in the seats behind you. Intrusive, and painfully moronic.
To put it nicely, Otto, or Up With Dead People is an experimental horror pornography with a couple of genuinely interesting moments. To put it nastily, I’d need a few more pages. Bad acting, bad writing, bad direction. It’s got the trifecta. The only people who will like this film are more pretentious than the director himself, a man who manages to make a gay zombie orgy into something boring.
It sounds potentially inspired, conjuring up images of couture zombies staggering about in pink, a bit of sociopolitical commentary to rival Romero, and some neat jokes about ‘eating manflesh’. This of course would be my perfect gay zombie movie. But Otto, or Up With Dead People is not the perfect gay zombie movie. To put it politely, it’s a pile of pretentious wank.
Bruce LaBruce’s film revolves around Otto (Jey Crisfar), a young man who may or may not be a zombie, may or may not be repressing a traumatic past, and may or may not be gay. Medea (Katharina Klewinghaus) is an insane goth chick who hangs out with her girlfriend Hella Bent and makes avant-garde queer horror films. Hella has a bobcut and is literally spliced in from a silent movie. See Hella and Medea drink tea on the lawn! See them shop for headstones! See them exploit Otto and make him their new star!
I went in with only one agenda: to see some hardcore gay necrophilia. But even though this lifelong dream was realised, and in great style, the sight of a fetid cock thrusting into a slippery stomach cavity was the brief high point of Bruce LaBruce’s woeful piece of cinema. The film isn’t just pretentious, it’s annoying. You think the constant sound of distorted radio feedback (ostensibly representing Otto’s troubled and rotting mind) is aggravating? Try listening to a monotonous gothic freak with a German accent opine about alienation and mindless consumption. Because you’ll hear both. Ad nauseum.
Visually, the film is unimpressive. The greys and reds of your usual gorefest are present, and apart from a recurring motif of Medea preaching in front of a cloud-streaked bluescreen, it doesn’t offer anything memorable. The framing is bland, and the occasional novel shot is shattered by the irritating voiceover, relentless radio distortion, or another tedious shot of Otto looking blank and static. The constant narration only serves to highlight the fact that LaBruce isn’t a good enough writer or director to tell his story with subtle touches, something that might have saved the film. Instead, the commentary is like kids reading subtitles out loud in the seats behind you. Intrusive, and painfully moronic.
To put it nicely, Otto, or Up With Dead People is an experimental horror pornography with a couple of genuinely interesting moments. To put it nastily, I’d need a few more pages. Bad acting, bad writing, bad direction. It’s got the trifecta. The only people who will like this film are more pretentious than the director himself, a man who manages to make a gay zombie orgy into something boring.
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