The Butler's Viewpoint
Sometimes one finds the oddest things
sitting in some of the stacks when cleaning this place up. And lo during the latest challenge to clear
out the Teddy Ruxpin of shame mounds of bear fur that somehow winds up in with
this lot I found a section of films that I am now realizing that were left here
for a reason. And the tragic reason is
for the simple sake of not knowing the language. Pity really as my last lesson with Dario
Argento shows me one can really be missing out on some gems.
Mind you translating this one I am not sure
I am expecting Shakespeare.
“Das Nacht der lebenden Loser.” Or in the Queen's English, “Night of the
Living Dorks.”
Bloody hell I better get started on a good
pint or three now.
We start off in Haiti; which is where the
Zombie legends evidently come from in more modern lore; where a family at home
finds itself under attack by a Zombie creature.
The family confesses to having no way to fight this evil, only to be
aided by a local woman armed with a flame thrower who then immediately deals
with the problem. Yep it's going to be
one of those films going straight for the humor rather than the horror. While I have seen this style of work before,
I am rather curious if a German film can carry off this balance.
The destroyed Zombie is burned down to
ashes, which are then sealed in a jar to be disposed of. This jar is stolen however and in a rather
quick human chain of escalating sums of money the jar finds itself posted on
the Internet for sale. This means while
organs might not be allowed to be sold on the Webs it t'would appear ashes are
just fine. And so our seeds for the
living dead are established.
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We now cut to our first young hero, asleep
at home dreaming of obtaining the award of his dreams from his dream girl, to
of course have this turn into a nightmare.
This is Phillip, and he has several repression issues from his
domineering parents and his own sexual lusts.
His father is commanding and refuses to allow him to really be a
teenager, while his mother is up front in the most embarrassing of ways that
her son really needs to get laid. During
this time we meet one of his childhood friends across the fence called
Rebecca. Rebecca is a new age goth and
she appears to have a liking for Phillip that he remains oblivious to. While instructing Phillip in a rather direct
way how to take care of their house while away, the parents make it very direct
that everything is documented and it better stay that way.
Arriving now are Phillip's best friends and
partners in this pending adventure, Worst and Konrad. Konrad quickly is established to be a
stereo-typical nerd with immense repressed hatred of all the tormentors of
life, even going so far as to catalog and document each incident and
perpetrator. Worst quickly can be seen
as an easy going party loving dope smoking sort of fellow. Giving Rebecca a lift to school it is
established that Phillip pines for the girl of his dreams and most popular girl
in the school.
Mustering his courage Phillip makes his
move on his dream girl Uschi, only to find her boyfriend and friends prepared
to humiliate him and his friends. This
gains no sympathy from the local students or even the principal, viewing it as
brought upon themselves and the order of things. Now with the pecking order established; and
our heroes shown at the bottom of the heap; they clean up and head to
class. There Worst shows his endless
drive to seduce their teacher with utterly no fear, much to the amusement of
his lovely teacher. Gotterin eine Himmel
indeed!
In class the lesson is religions,their
symbols and beliefs, and they are presented by the students. Rebecca's friends have picked voodoo and
other fetishes in order to show a darker view of the world. Worst of course is not taking any of this
seriously and plays up a voodoo doll with a prank that get the teacher to mourn
and long for the days of orgies and sex parties instead of childish pranks,
much to the interest of Worst. Rebecca
is crest-fallen and her friends embarrassed by the laughter of the classroom at
their own beliefs.
Outside the classroom Rebecca and Phillip
talk about the cliches of high school and of course Phillip asks about the
power of voodoo spells oblivious to Rebecca's own emotions. Out of friendship they agree to meet up at a
local cemetery to aid in a ritual which Phillip hopes to get him a love spell
for his dream girl. Our heroes show up
to the ritual and Worst cannot resist not only not taking the rituals seriously
but is candid that Phillip just has desires and lusts. Our Goths in a 21st century take
on rituals and a desire for Kurt Cobain's music muddle their way through the
ritual and add to this the actual ashes of the Zombie destroyed at the
beginning of the film. In blundering
they get the ashes all over our heroes and fear they have completely messed up
the ritual.
Driving home Worst cannot help but break
out the bongs and “smoke one up”. His
new auto-bong fails and fills the van up with smoke, causing our heroes to have
what appears to be a fatal crash. Laying
there the ashes glow and our heroes awaken to find themselves inside the
morgue. In a panic they fear that they
got so stoned that no one knew they were fine; due to their breathing and
walking; and conclude it must be a stoned dream. The attendants conclude this must be a
student prank and ignore the goings on.
So our heroes flee the morgue and rush home. In a stoned state they watch more classic
zombie films and laugh that they must be zombies. Though without the rotting or urges to eat
brains they conclude that the failed ritual and dust got them really stoned.
That morning they remark how good they feel
and how strong they are, and even dine on raw meat, thus thinking nothing of
it. They head to school and once more
create a problem requiring harassment by the popular crowd. Now the first strange issues happen when
Konrad has his jaw knocked out and then put back in feeling no pain. The bullies chalk this up to feeling like
“being kinder” when the real answer seems stranger. In biology class Konrad starts having more
cravings, including eating the frogs for dissection. Wurst insists that's just a French
thing. When Konrad tries to bite a
female's derriere to Wurst this just further proves normal urges and not the
craving for human flesh. At this point
Phillip notices something and drags Wurst to the bathroom to show him that
there is a windshield wiper impaled through his chest.
Our heroes have concluded finally that they
are Zombies...just not what they expected.
Phillip urgently looks for Rebecca in order to figure out how he has
gotten into this, and is there a way out.
By this point our heroes are clearly looking paler, but most write this
off as just being tired or Goth.
Meanwhile Konrad is showing a craving for more and more meat, and finds
that in his new form he can avenge all his wrong doings. Konrad sets out on a crusade to wrong all his
anguishes! Phillip meanwhile is finding
out from Rebecca that being a zombie may have some serious fail points, what
with parts failing and then decaying away.
Horrified he notices that Worst is needing his help as Konrad is going
insane with glee getting revenge.
Now our heroes find they have to take part
in gym class. Rugby against the champion
team of the school. Here the lads face
what they expect is going to be typical humiliation. Phillip councils passive resistance, but
Konrad soon delights and rages that in their new forms they aren't feeling a
thing, and that they could even get a few licks back in. (After getting himself suitably hurt in a
strange and weird way.) This time the
heroes decide to listen to Konrad and begin a long and pummeling payback on
the best of the school. Taking up the
rally behind our heroes the rest of the humiliated classmates begin to inflict
payback as well, and the entire school cheers them on, Good Show! The coach of the team walks off in shame and
considers that the heroes finally found their courage. The students rejoice and the heroes soon find
themselves the new center of attention and worship. Embolden and full of new confidence Phillip
and Worst proudly announce they will hold the greatest house party of them all,
and Phillip even finds his dream girl Uschi is smitten by this new and bold man! Rebecca walks away heart broken, it is only
then that the heroes notice that Konrad has wandered off.
Konrad of course has his eyes set on the
coach, remembering yet another past humiliation this time he seeks special
revenge. The Heroes arrive to find a
rather bloated and sated Konrad having eaten the coach. In a rage Phillip accidentally pulls of
Konrad's ear, which is soon solved by a quick use of a stapler gun. Phillip is concerned that this is the start of
the great hunger lust and fall to evil, but Konrad decides to play along for
now and later continue his quest for hunger and justice.
Not taking chances Phillip and Wurst decide
to chain Konrad into the garage while they work hard to dispose of the last
evidence and get back in touch with Rebecca to help solve their problem. Interrupted they find all the students have
shown up to party hard at Phillip's place and to Rock me Amadeus! While Phillip worries and frets Worst rolls
with this and instead revels in being the complete party animal exploiting his
abilities to the utmost, even going after his long lusted after school
teacher. Not having to breath underwater
has it's uses...oh my.
Phillip begs and gets Rebecca to come over
and help, only to find Uschi has set her sights on seducing Phillip. This of course becomes a case of worst
decaying body parts ever, including scuttling around to try and find important
bits. Our prior school bully and
humiliated lad sneaks into the house to plant drugs on the site and calls the
local police, only to have his plan spoiled by the hungry Konrad eating all the
Wonderful Candy! Phillip now finds he
has several problems, an embarrassed Rebecca, parts falling off, and Konrad
unleashed into the party in his Thriller outfit. For poor Phillip his first priority is use of
the magic stapler to repair the Uschi vice grip damage. This leads to the great breakup and then the
police showing up for a drug raid. Lucky
for them Konrad had the munchies. Grimly
Konrad later has even more munchies driving him to once more start chowing down
on those who have oppressed him. Left
with an inconvenient body they store it in the freezer and then Wurst and
Phillip have a large rage fight over their condition. As while Phillip continues to see the worst
Wurst just keeps being himself, just with more stamina.
Phillip finally resolves that he has to set
things right with Rebecca, and opens up and tells her everything while she
begins to suspect that maybe he's been telling the truth all along. Phillip finally starts to feel his evil
hunger starting, and is barely able to stop himself. In despair he fleas to see Worst and begs him
to kill him, only to find Worst took several levels at the StormTrooper
academy. Rebecca now completely
believing their plight shows up in time and convinces them that she can find a
solution for them. Now the quest to
assemble the needed ingredients begins, as Rebecca informs them they have
little time before the infection becomes permanent.
At this moment Phillip's parents are on
their way home, having heard rumors of a party. In a clever bit of timing they get completely
the wrong idea of what is going on and are prepared to unleash great vengeance
on their wayward son. At this point
Konrad accidentally saves the day as he is struck by the angry parents driving
home in a rush, but due to his nature is able to shrug off the impact. The Parents are shocked and now detour to the
hospital in order to get Konrad the help they think he needs. Konrad soon finds that the hospital has
everything he has ever desired. A full
buffet and women who adore intelligent men.
While Konrad is enjoying his new lease on
unlife in the hospital Phillip, Worst and Rebecca prepare the antidote while
also cleaning the house. At this point
unfortunately the parents make it home and let them know that Konrad can be
found in the hospital. In a plea of
sanity they try telling them the truth, which has the inevitable results. A bit of slapstick later and the parents are
“incapacitated” leaving our heroes their window to flee. The cure is tried to strange and great
success, but now the effort is made to try and save Konrad from himself. This proves tougher then imagined as Konrad
doesn't want to turn back and our heroes have to chase him down to try and turn
him back to human. The whole movie wraps
up with slapstick fashion and a final happy ending for both Phillip and Rebecca
at last. With just a few staples having
to be explained away...
This film turned out to be quite the subtle
pleasure to enjoy, with it's many small comments and observations of
Germany. Both the evolved multi-culture
of today's Germany in the casting of the characters, the blending of the still
“everything in its place” culture, and even the commentary on how the Zombie
infection affected the three heroes differently depending on how much hate,
evil or just plain meanness that was already there inside of them. Thus putting Konrad at one end of the
spectrum with all his grudges and unresolved issues while Worst ends up
profiting from the experience being what turns out to be an open and honest sex
and party fiend.
Just a tip to catch the humor it is best
enjoyed in the original German with subtitles if you really need them so all
the original and fun humor comes through.
And I must say this is an interesting take on the whole Zombie
phenomenon. Now I find my curiosity is
piqued to see just how other countries have looked at it with horror and
humor.
Of course now I'm craving a good serving of
blood pudding...
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