It all started when I was about 15. I went to the dentist for a routine check-up one day, and he found, like, 20 cavities. Since I was just a dumb little punk, I was like, "Oh, YEAH? WHATEVERZ!!!" and got all of those teeth filled on the seemingly-limitless dime of my parents. The hygienists gave me several warnings about taking good care of my teeth, etc, but of course, I blew them off. I continued drinking, like, two liters of Mountain Dew each day and never flossing because...well, you know -- I WAS invincible....
Anyway, when I was about 25, it all caught up with me again. I went to bed perfectly fine one night, but when I woke up the next morning, BLAM -- mouth in terrible pain. I ran to a dentist, and was told that I needed, like, six teeth pulled (although, admittedly, four of them were wisdom teeth). It was quite the ordeal, and by the time I got everything all patched up, thousands of dollars had been spent. Miserable hell. I went through a huge round of procedures, and by the end of it, had come to almost enjoy the burning smell of the dentist's drill when it's really going at full throttle. Ah, and how about that high-speed scraping sound as jaw bone is shaved away? Or the ozone aroma of hot metal being fitted into a cavity??? So comforting!
Anyway, when THAT situation was resolved, I sort of changed my ways. I switched to DIET Mountain Dew (reasoning that it has no sugar and therefore must not be bad for the teeth), and stepped up my daily dental hygiene regimen. Looking at friends who could do whatever the heck they wanted and never experience oral problems like mine, I figured that I should be in the clear if I stayed on top of the brushing and avoided further examinations. "Hey, if MY FRIENDS can skip going to the dentist for twelve years, then so can I!" Besides, I was afraid to return to a dentist because EVERY TIME I DO, I end up losing more friggin' teeth. My plan was to just let things ride and hope that I'd die or something before my tooth situation became a problem again.
Well, guess what happened.
About a month ago -- BLAM, more crap. I got an infection in one of my few remaining molars, and had to seek emergency care. Back in a dentist's chair for the first time in years, I dreaded opening my mouth for an assessment from a guy who'd never even seen my x-rays. What would he think of me? A 30 year-old with a set of crowns and fillings like mine would surely be a frightening sight for a man who makes his living keeping teeth HEALTHY. Would he think I was some kind of a methhead or something? I tried to warn the hapless fellow before he dove in....
--"It's pretty bad in there. I...I've had some problems..."
--"Nah, trust me -- I've seen it all during my 35 year as a dental care professio-- OH MY GOD!"
--"What? What is it?"
--"Oh, eh...nothing. Sorry. Um, you do have some, uh, issues in here, Andrew." (nervous chuckle)
--"How bad is it?"
--"Ahem. Uh...you're HOW old again?"
Long story short, it appears as though my ingenious little plan of staving off tooth decay by drinking only diet soda didn't work at all (let that be a lesson to you -- diet is just as bad as regular); nor did my other plan of DYING before the issue had to be addressed again. Nope -- I believe the doc used a phrase like "rampant decay" to describe my situation, and told me point blank that several of my pearly whites (huh) will probably not be salvageable. Now, that is scary to consider in light of the fact that I must speak clearly in order to earn a living. You lose enough teeth, and you can't friggin' talk right. "Screw eating; what about the SPEAKING? Save the teeth that are important for TALKING, and I'll just eat applesauce!" I told the doc. He promised to do what he could, but also warned me that a dude my age is definitely NOT a good candidate for dentures (see, when you get them, your jaw bone erodes or something, and over time they won't even work anymore), so I'd better find a way to pay for some implants pretty soon. Those things are, like, a BAJILLION DOLLARS! How am I supposed to get that much dough? Go back to stripping? I PROMISED MYSELF NEVER AGAIN!!!
Groan. Here I am -- older than I'd ever intended to be, with problems for which I did not prepare. What a load of crap. Good thing the world has a lot of zombie movies to take my mind off things.
ZA: Zombies Anonymous (2006)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465517/
Netflix description:
In an imagined reality where zombies coexist with ordinary mortal folk, the undead are considered second-class citizens. Angela (Gina Ramsden) finds this out the hard way when she's shot by her boyfriend and must learn to adjust to her new zombie lifestyle. She tempers her hunger for human flesh with Zombies Anonymous meetings and tries to pass for living in the mortal world. Joshua Nelson co-stars in Marc Fratto's tongue-in-rotted-cheek satire.
Gah! For once, I had high hopes that a no-budget, near-amateur zombie flick would actually turn out to be good. I mean, Zombies Anonymous (also known as Last Rites of the Dead) certainly had a good idea behind it: a world in which the living and the undead co-exist. See, a girl named Angela is fatally shot by her psychotic boyfriend, and must adjust to her new "life" as a zombie. She feels and acts the same as before; it's just that, NOW, she has no pulse and only wants to eat raw meat. Angela joins a support group of other recent undead converts (ZA) who share their struggles to "survive" in modern society with this strange new handicap. The population of such individuals is rapidly growing, and the dwindling majority of LIVING people are starting to feel threatened. They discriminate against the new zombie underclass, denying them government benefits and gainful employment. Angry mobs roam the streets attacking any zombies they see, and televangelists rant about the need to eliminate this new zombie menace before it takes over. Angela reacts to all of this by trying to hide her zombieness. She uses special skin care products that make her look more "alive", and applies for respectable employment. Can she pull it off? Will the zombie underclass organize and revolt?
So far so good, right? The premise described above is an excellent one, and I found Zombies Anonymous to be remarkably engaging for the first 20 minutes or so. Sure, the film is obviously VERY low budget, but the ideas it explores in the beginning actually pulled me in, and I was feeling optimistic that, for once, my time would not be wasted. There was a lot of potential here for thought-provoking social commentary and dark humor. At last, it seemed as though an ultra-indie filmmaker had come up with a worthwhile expansion on the zombie genre! Hallelujah!
Then it all fell apart.
Rather than sticking with the good ideas introduced in the film's first act, Zombies Anonymous tragically switches gears and sends Angela into the underground world of a clandestine band of undead militants. They want to overthrow the old order, and breed humans strictly as livestock. For some reason, they need Angela to do all this, and she spends the rest of the film being tied up, beaten, and dragged around from seedy hideout to seedy hideout. The poor girl -- she's covered in blood and scared out of her mind, like, 90 percent of the time, and it's for no purpose that I can see. Why do these zombie revolutionaries consider her so important? There's also a gang of anti-zombie fanatics led by a spaced-out female martial arts expert that battles to prevent the undead uprising before it gains traction. I'm not sure if we're supposed to like these people or not, but I do know that they're almost as unpleasant to look at as the zombies.
By minute 90, the plot of Zombies Anonymous has grown so convoluted that it scarcely makes sense. The previous theme of zombie discrimination is all but forgotten, and what we get instead is a seemingly-endless barrage of woefully inept action sequences. Zombies and people fighting in the woods...zombies and people fighting in an alley...zombies and people fighting in a house -- the crap just drags on and on. The film by this point just SCREAMS for an ending, and the final 20 minutes, in particular, should have been cut entirely.
I once read that the golden rule for making a good low-budget film is to keep it simple. If all you've got is a good idea, but little money or technical expertise, then KEEP IT SIMPLE, the principle states. Zombies Anonymous writer-director Marc Fratto could have done himself a favor by listening to this advice. What started out as a promising spin on the zombie genre ended up as a bloated excersize in overambitious filmmaking. I'll give it a point for bringing a few decent ideas to the table, but on the whole, Zombies Anonymous is a real mess.
2 out of 5.
b.
i think you are awesome.
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