New Crap: Mimesis- Night of the Living Dead

I'll give you points for creativity, but take pretty much all of them away for execution.  Today's film is Mimesis aka Mimesis: Night of the Living Dead.  First, the good parts.  It's not just another Zombie film and it's not quite another Night of Living Dead Remake.  There are enough of them already, thank you.  It has a decent cast too, even if none of them really stood out all that much to me.  The bad parts, however, outweigh the good ones for me.  While the film starts out as a mystery, the explanation is a bit flat.  Never mind that it's so blatantly obvious and set-up earlier in the film by Haig's character.  The explanation is, well, I won't SPOIL it here.  If you really want to go into this film blind, that's your prerogative.  If you want to know enough to help make your decision beforehand, that's my prerogative to let you.  To find out more, read on...

At a Horror Convention, a pair of guys watch a Director (Sid Haig) give a pretentious speech about people copying films.

You should just literally have him say 'Foreshadowing' while waving his arms about if you're going to be this subtle.

A few of them wake up the next day in vintage outfits and get confronted by a Zombie.  You wandered into Midnight Movie, didn't you?

Just a quick side-note: in the previous scene, they use Day for Night.  We're really still doing that, huh?

On the plus side, this film's 'Barbara' does more than stare at the ceiling and/or appear to be in a coma for most of the film.  Hurray?

The group finally gathers together and realizes that their situation seems to be like that of Night of the Living Dead.  Naturally, only ONE of these people attending a Horror Convention can recognize one of the most iconic Horror Films ever made.

You know that your day has gone awry when Robert Smith from The Cure shows up.  It's gone right, however, when you stab him in the throat with some shears.  Good times.

What is the secret behind these Zombies that have showed up out of nowhere?  I won't tell...you that it's good.  Plus, no SPOILERS.

Will our heroes survive?  Will the Zombies win the day?  More importantly...

 Why was Bill Hinzman (R.I.P.) the only Alumni willing to appear in this film?  To find out, watch the film.

There is a very shortage of brains here.  I don't want to seem like I'm picking on these guys, but I just couldn't get behind this concept.  There are a number of ways that I think that this idea could work, but they chose none of them.  The story is both conceited and derivative, which is a rare one.  It seems like a unique concept...until they explain it.  I appreciate that they did, I suppose, but I almost wish that they hadn't.  I get it- Night of the Living Dead is a well-respected movie.  How about instead of trying to invoke its name to sell a few more DVDs, you make a more interesting movie.  While I'm on the subject, calling your film Mimesis is less clever and more silly.  It makes people not sure what your movie actually is, as opposed to being interested in actually buying it.  In summary: interesting idea, but a really silly way to go about it.  On the plus side, they plug Archive.org, so that's cool.

Next up, my final Project Terrible film features the return of two twins.  They're already Barbarians (apparently), so let's see them kill some Italians!  Stay tuned...