Graveyard Alive (2004)

A few years ago, the zombie genre was resurrected as a preeminent reference point in indie-culture, as evinced by Max Brooks’ tongue-in-cheek Zombie Survival Guide, published in 2003, which remains on bookstore shelves to this day. Without delving too deeply into the socio-cultural circumstances that may have brought about zombie-revival, it’s safe to say that 2003 was a good year for a film like the generically named yet quite unique Graveyard Alive to show up.

The French-Canadian made film was already a few years in the making in ‘03, and with zombie-mania catching on, you might have expected even an ultra-indie flick like Graveyard Alive to get a little more exposure. After all, within the next year-or-two, Shaun of the Dead (possibly the best horror-comedy in the history of cinema) was released, Dawn of the Dead continued the 28 Days Later-inspired trend of zombies with the dubious ability to sprint after their prey, and Romero himself explored the possibility of zombie evolution with Land of the Dead. But Graveyard Alive was a small film, a b-movie with a small cast and an even smaller budget. Too indie for a break big and hardly your conventional zombie film, it’s taken four years since its initial run on the film festival circuit to make it to DVD.

Graveyard Alive, is a stylishly presented, slick looking piece of DIY cinema with a striking aesthetic all its own. For a movie with only a little actual organ eating, barely any violence, barely any special effects, and plenty of silly overtones, the beautifully idiosyncratic cinematography creates an unsettling atmosphere, offering a memorably different take on the zombie-comedy (zomb-edy?) genre. Though not all that consistent in mood, Graveyard Alive is a fun watch – sometimes gritty and surreal, sometimes b-campy, and sometimes kind of like a teen drama, always feeling a bit like a silent film.

Patsy Powers (Ann Day-Jones) is a nerdy nurse working at the same hospital as her one-time flame Dr. Dox (Karl Gerhardt). Dox’s soon-to-be wife, the stuck-up, satirically named prude Goodie Tueschuze (Samantha Sian), also works there, and he is always trying to nail in the break-room. Patsy is often the victim of High School style taunts from her coworkers, until she’s bitten by a zombified woodsman who is being treated for an axe wedged cartoonishly in his noggin. In a comedic take on a theme dealt with in Cronenberg’s much more serious 1975 flick Shivers, the strain of infection Patsy contracts is accompanied by an increase in sex-appeal and an insatiable urge to screw. Patsy transmogrifies into a nylon clad black-widow style sex kitten, and immediately becomes the most sought after woman in the hospital. This brand of zombification turns you into an organ eating monster, but the only real physical downsides are stiffening joints, gaunt cheeks, flakey skin, and a teeth-blackening problem that can easily be remedied by brushing with bleach.

The fact that the zombies don’t shamble (and that becoming a zombie actually makes you more gregarious and popular) isn’t really what makes the film stick out, though; it’s the look and feel of the movie. It’s shot in black-and-white, without sound, and all of the dialogue was dubbed in after the fact. The characters (other than Patsy) mug intentionally, especially Dr. Dox, who really camps it up as a completely over-the-top caricatures. This is sometimes kind of hard to watch (Dr. Dox doing that Pepe LePew-style kissing thing all the way up Goodie’s leg is a little nauseous) but gives the film an almost absurdist quality. Scenes are shot through slightly distorted mirrors. Patsy’s surreal zombie dreams are depicted with a nightmarishly washed-out flicker. A short, impromptu musical number in a cabaret bar pays homage to Eraserhead. John Ashmore’s cinematography, combined with the eerie sensation of openness that results from the unique sound dubbing, creates a fantastically weird mood.

Graveyard Alive doesn’t use the ever elastic zombie metaphor to provide trenchant, gore-addled social criticism the way some of the more classic zombie films (The Romero films, Shaun of the Dead, Fangoria’s I, Zombie) have. It is, however, a movie that uses the walking dead for other means than just graphic depictions of flesh eating. Confidence and conformity are the major themes dealt with as Patsy goes from outsider to the coolest nurse around. Men, even Dr. Dox, who we learn ditched her when he shed his own nerdy persona, now flock to be with her. Once jealous and jilted, she switches roles with the bully, the once obnoxious Goodie Tueschuze becomes the outsider, valiantly attempting to fight, with a painfully inadequate butter knife, the zombie plague that encroaches upon the hospital.

The film’s commentary on how people tend to follow the leader (especially when the leader is sexy), and its uncharacteristically loquacious and goofy zombies, act as a setup for an ending where the main character realizes that everybody is ‘one of them’, the kind usually reserved for devil worship films like Rosemary’s Baby or The Sentinel, or any number of ‘60s alien invasion flicks. It’s punctuated by satisfyingly claustrophobic camera work, feeling familiar but not hackneyed, not particularly terrifying, but enjoyable right down to the final scream.

For a movie that was clearly a labor of love and took a long time to put together, Graveyard Alive is quite a slick looking final result. It’s kind of fascinating to turn on the DVD commentary and listen to three polite-sounding Quebecois women; Director Elza Kephart, Producer Andrea Stark, and Co-Producer Patricia Gomez, discuss the film in soft, NPR ready voices. The DVD also features interviews with Ann-Day Jones and Karl Gerhardt speaking about their early acting experience on the film. Both are insightful and give you some indication of exactly how DIY this film was, but they’re kind of hard to watch – at least on an early release copy of the disc – they seem to be mistakenly unedited, featuring the unsure voice of Elza addressing the actors from behind the camera and multiple undifferentiated takes on the same questions. Whether or not that gaffe ends up stuck on there for the final DVD pressing, it doesn’t really detract from the package, and gives you even more of a feel for how homemade the whole project was, and how fantastic-looking it ended up being, for such a deeply DIY endeavor.