This low-budget documentary follows French film maker and zombie fan Nicolas Garreau to the filming locations of George Romero's zombie classics such as Night of the Living Dead (original and remake), Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead.
The viewer will see such places as the basement from Night of the Living Dead, the mall from Dawn of the Dead, and the military base from Day of the Dead. How have these locales changed since the movies were filmed? Do they still hold the haunting power they contained in Romero's masterpieces?
Maybe. But watching a movie of some really excited zombie nerd walking around in the vicinity of places where Romero once filmed only stays interesting for so long. It's kind of interesting to see the mall, for example, still relatively as it was in the original Dawn of the Dead. But I'd still rather spend my time re-watching the actual movie. It also doesn't help that the film, originally in French, is very poorly dubbed over in English by a guy who sounds as unenthusiastic about the documentary as I felt.
There's probably a lot one could look at in a documentary about these groundbreaking films. What was making them like? What was the socio-economic context that led to such films and their rise to popularity? What was the reaction to them at the time? How did they become cult classics? What message underlies them? How do they compare to contemporaries? How do they compare to modern zombie films, or to those of the past? These, and other interesting questions are NOT studied in this documentary.
In fact, when the filmmaker has a chance to speak with cast members from Dawn of the Dead, such as the protagonists and some lead zombies, he just asks them if they thought the movie would ever get so big. They all say no, not really. Riveting.
1 mall tour out of 5
Unrated.
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