Lazarus: Day of the Living Dead

Lazarus: Day Of The Living Dead.

     

Lazarus: Day Of The Living Dead.



A film by Thomas Churchill.



Just finished Lazarus: Day of the Living Dead. Still digesting. Great setup for the sequel which looks to be pretty awesome indeed.



If you like films that are shot in places from a bygone era, and camera work that takes you back to the days of when George Romero was just getting things going, you will love this film. In a word, Retro. I enjoyed this movie on a lot of levels, and the actors in it save for one I recognized from something else. They all seemed pretty believable and comfortable in their respective parts.



What I would like to have seen in some of it, is some different camera angles, and maybe some shortening of some of the scenes, but these are purely editorial duties, not about the acting or the direction. I found the only tiny glitch to be pretty minor and only a person familiar with guns would pick it out. Most people probably wouldn't have cared.



The effects by SOTAFX were really well done and held up during the black and white and color switches. The make up and prosthetic work was very well done, and downright grotesque. Some of the way it was shot made for some incredibly good, and scary scene work. There is one particular scene that will give me the creeps for days. It involves the girl named Emma. Wait for the seen, it will creep you out.



Big Hollywood productions have focused less on character development, and paint things in broad strokes. This film does a great job of giving each character in it a moment to stand out. One particularly interesting scene was involving an Egg Creme and a soda jerk that had that slice of life quality that seems to be missing from some movies.



I am speaking of the character of Smitty. He seemed to be like some people who feel stuck in their job. They want to talk to people, so they can experience something other than their own lives. It is this attention to detail that speaks to the care taken to tell an interesting story.



The film also goes into some truly strange and creepy places that quite frankly shocked me a bit. Again hitting the mark on some of the old style exploitation films. Think old Betty Page, and other exploitation films of the day. The actors all seemed to hit their marks, and knew their lines and despite some of the truly strange and unsettling scenes, nobody seemed out of place or uncomfortable in their roles. This is one of the earmarks of good casting, and good direction.



When an actor or actress is "Acting" and you can tell they are acting, their speech and inflections come through. Speaking natural dialog is hard for some actors their first or second time out. Watching the character study that unfolded revealed only a few sentences of dialog that was probably worked over pretty hard. Sometimes speaking English from a bygone era can be particularly difficult if you're a younger actor who has no point of reference.



I think that Thomas Churchill and I are close to the same age, and probably watched a lot of the same things growing up with regard to film and television. The attention to detail and getting things right where the settings were concerned were inspired. Seeing the older architecture shot the same way that it would have been shot in the 1950's was really great. It tells me that Churchill has an affinity for things that have remained somewhat timeless.



His choice in female leads was about as dead on as could be. The makeup was well done, though there were a couple of actresses whose hair technically should have been more period to the era of the film, but again these are small details and are easily overlooked. I am not giving anything away with regards to this film because I would like everyone who is into zombie films to watch it. It starts off a little slow, but the pacing is well realized. If you've watched enough 50's sci-fi horror films, you have a pretty good idea of what passed for quality.



This film has all those earmarks and stumbles into some territory that in all honesty surprised me and combined genre's from the same period. This made for some interesting moments that did not seem one bit out of place. Kudos to Chuchill and his cast and crew. I may have only rented this off of I-tunes but I look forward to adding the Blu-Ray to my collection.