REVIEW BY SEAN PATRICK DOLAN
Year: 1994
Director: Scooter McRae
Cast: Stark Raven, Flora Fauna, Robert Wells, John Weiner, Daniel
Johnson, Marina Del Ray
"Hollywood is a Disease . . . Meet the Cure!" This legend greets you as you begin to watch Sub Rosa Studios' SHATTER DEAD, directed by Scooter McCrae (SIXTEEN TONGUES). An hour and a half later, you'll find this film has more than backed up this boast. The film opens to a woman being mounted from behind by a sexually ambiguous figure who, at the moment of climax, spreads an impressive set of wings - presumably Satan. We are then told that it is now 17 months later. . .
A gritty, haggard looking young woman, Susan (Stark Raven), walks the streets of a nearly abandoned suburban town, a bag of groceries in her arms and a rifle slung over her shoulder. There are people milling the streets and slumped in shop corners, none of them in very good shape. Some of them are missing limbs and a great deal of their faces. A man holds a sign which reads, "sold left arm to medical research." Another approaches the woman and begs for some money, telling his own tale of misfortune. "I took a job as a crash test dummy to feed my family. Now I'm too ugly to go home." What's going on here? The dead have suddenly refused to lay down just because their hearts stopped beating.
Susan leaves town but does not get far before her car stalls on a backroad. She is suddenly surrounded by a more aggressive group of the dead than the vagrant zombies in town. Their leader, the "Preacher Man" (John Weiner) announces that the dead are commandeering her car. He allows her to leave on foot, commanding his followers not to harm her. Susan makes it to the next town and is offered a ride by a young man who himself turns out to be among the dead. "Get your dead ass out of this car now!" she says while carjacking the ghoul.
Night falls as Susan arrives at a safe house of living survivors. After she passes the mirror breath test, she is shown to her room upstairs. She meets her roommate, a young woman who it turns out is an impostor among the living. A vain girl, she took her own life to remain eternally young and beautiful. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing outside the safe house. The Preacher Man and his disciples, the "New Order Zombies" are holding a religious "revival"- pun intended - in the backyard. Paraphrasing the Book of Revelations, he tells his followers that it is their mission to kill all of the remaining living, in order to significantly hasten Christ's coming and the Rapture. "We are the beginning of a better way for the world!"
The New Order storms the house and begins to unload on every one living being in sight with an impressive arsenal of firearms. Susan survives the massacre only because the room she is hiding in is overlooked. By dawn the New Order has moved on, and Susan is able to leave safely. It isn't long before she runs into her nemesis the Preacher Man again, and it is revealed that he is the ultimate hypocrite - he is still alive himself and using his "mission" as a cover to remain hidden within his group of undead. She blows a hole in his temple, slowing him long enough to escape, but not stopping him. Susan finally makes it back to her apartment, but her ordeal is not over yet - her boyfriend has been busy while she is gone, and a few nasty surprises and a betrayal await her . . .
SHATTER DEAD is a sometimes uneven film that contains both moments of near brilliance as well as lackluster cheese. To call this a zombie film would not quite be accurate. The dead in question are far from traditional - they do not crave human flesh and cannot be dispatched by a shot to the head. They have merely picked up their lives at the moment when they should have died, in exactly the same condition they were in when they expired. Some are horribly disfigured, some can pass perfectly for the living. Susan's roommate is only revealed to be dead when the two women enter the shower together to share a bar of soap- the girl has hideous bruises and swelling on her back and lower extremities, the result of her dead blood pooling from inactivity. The cause of the dead's inexplicable failure to lie still is never openly addressed, but is presumably the result of Satan having impregnated the woman in the opening scene of the film. The same woman is shown again at the safe house and delivers the demon baby "C-Section" after taking a shotgun blast in the stomach during the New Order attack- an exceptionally gruesome scene. The sexually ambiguous Satan figure appears numerous times in Susan's dreams, which are artistic, surreal, and erotic - but add absolutely nothing of substance to the plot.
The Preacher
Man is essentially a stock character and wears out his welcome quickly, despite
the plot twist, and his New Order Zombies are even worse. Though impressively
gory, the attack on the safe house loses much of its impact because the Order
is clad in ridiculous costumes and wigs, as if they had just robbed a cheap
novelty store. One prominent member looks almost exactly like the Howard
Stern character "Fartman". On the other hand, Stark Raven (who
plays Susan) is excellent. Her character is not given a great deal of
emotional depth - as this is a heavily plot driven film - but she carries
herself well in this role as a strung out, edgy young woman whose only immediate
goal is survival.
One of the great things about indie films is that they feature unknown actors
and actresses who can only enhance a film with an above average performance
- a stark contrast to watching a big budget Hollywood film that has an A or
B-lister looking woefully out of place or, worse, features a lineup of pretty
young flavors of the month. All in all, SHATTER DEAD has a lot to offer indie
fans. McCrae is more thancompetent as a director, framing scenes well
and providing images that are often grotesque and sometimes erotic. While
the film is shaky towards the middle - the New Order zombie portion - it makes
a full recovery by the end. The last twenty minutes of this film are
suspenseful, shocking and worth the price of admission alone. It is not
difficult to see why SHATTER DEAD was awarded "Best Independent Film
USA" at the 1995 FantaFestival.
I reviewed the 2002 Sub Rosa Studios Region 1 NTSC DVD release of SHATTER DEAD. The picture quality is very good, but the audio is sometimes unbalanced, with dialogue nearly inaudible. This DVD features a full chapter menu and is loaded with extras, the best of which are three audio tracks - commentary by director Scooter McCrae, cinematographer Matt Howe, and the cast of the film - as well as a TV interview with McCrae, a tour of the SHATTER DEAD house, and a making of/blooper reel.
Story: 4.0
BITCH SLAPS
Extras: 4.0 BITCH SLAPS
Picture/Audio: 3.5 BITCH SLAPS
Overall DVD: 4.0 BITCH SLAPS