Review: ‘Melvin’

The world can’t seem to get enough zombies.  Fast zombies.  Slow zombies. Nazi zombies. Hare Krishna zombies. Blockbuster zombies. Indie zombies. With ‘Pontypool,’ we even had zombies that appeared to work for Merriam-Webster. With all these zombies running around in movie theaters, video stores, and TV sets, a filmmaker really has to do something special with his or her zombie movie to make it stand out in the crowd. Writer/director Henry Weintraub has given us the nerdy zombie, and, with his new film ‘Melvin,’ he offers up an entertaining gorefest with just a few problems.

Told in jarring and oftentimes baffling non-sequential order, the events in ‘Melvin’ center around two nerds, Melvin and Norton, who are seemingly unrelated.  They are both picked on by the same group of punks, and Melvin, who has been dead for three years, has a sister with whom Norton is madly in love.  In order to exact his revenge on those punks who put him in his grave, Melvin is resurrected, and he, along with Norton’s help, go about beginning a zombie apocalypse of vengeance against the world that made them outcasts.

The overall concept is one that interested me quite a bit when I first read the synopsis.  The idea of two outcasts, one of which is brought back from the dead as a flesh-eating zombie, who plot out a bloody and extremely graphic revenge against the people responsible for the death is ripe with potential.  The whole outcast in society aspect, one that was, actually, done with more ingenuity and style in ‘Deadgirl,’ is a perfect place to begin with any horror movie.  Throw in some zombies, some severed heads, and about a dozen buckets of blood, and you’ve got some excellent trimmings for a modern-day, coming-of-age, zombie romance.

Unfortunately, the idea to tell the film in a completely nonlinear fashion is where Weintraub makes his first mistake.  Put simply, the film didn’t need it at all.  Showing all of the events that happen to Melvin, then jumping ahead three years to tell Norton’s story would have done the overall experience wonders.  Weintraub never even lets us know the structure he has taken with his film, and, for the first good bit of the film, you may be completely confused.  I admit that there are things in films that I miss, but I never once knew that Melvin and Norton’s storyline were separated by three years until the image of Melvin’s tombstone and his resurrected hand bursting up out of the gave was thrust upon us. If the explanation was in there somewhere, and I missed it, I apologize, but it seems the filmmaker was going for a ‘Pulp Fiction’-style story structure. It flat out does not work in ‘Melvin.’

Luckily, though, that is where the big issues with ‘Melvin’ cease.  Once the resurrection occurs and people begin dying in brutal and graphic fashion, the fun really kicks in.  The main aspect that helps this level of entertainment along is the amazing special effects found in ‘Melvin.’  On the shoestring budget he was working with, Weintraub and crew put together some really nifty gore effects, some of which look like they belong in a zombie apocalypse film with ten times the budget.  There is absolutely no shortage of blood and guts here, either.  We gets heads lopped off, impalements, brains bashed in, and countless numbers of zombie bites that should put grins on the faces of horror fans across the board.

All of this horrific carnage is caught beautifully by the amazing camera work of Leif Fuller.  Fuller also serves as co-producer on ‘Melvin,’ and he plays the title role, as well, but his true calling here is in his photography.  Polished and just the right amount of color in each frame, the cinematography in ‘Melvin,’ much like the special effects, are much more accomplished than you might give a film of this nature credit for.

Speaking of the low-budget nature of the film, I’m sure the ADR work here was unintentional and was a result of not having enough money for boom mics or professional looping in post.  Having said that, even if they could have improved the sound, it shouldn’t be.  The way the dialogue is just slightly off-center from people’s mouths and the obvious sound effects done after the fact give the film a very Italian horror feel.  The acting is nothing spectacular here, either, but that just adds to the effect.  I’m sure these aspects of the film were not intended to come off this way, but they are happy accidents that give the film the tone that it truly needs to set itself apart.

Beyond all this, though, is Weintraub’s clear love for what he does.  You can tell from the start that, problems or not, ‘Melvin’ was made by people who love what they were putting together and who clearly were having a blast doing it.  The movie was clearly fun to make, and, as such, it is a lot of fun to watch.  Paramount in this fun department is the film within the film that Weintraub puts together.  It’s called ‘Night of the Driller,’ and it stars Mr. Troma himself Lloyd Kaufman as a serial killer who uses a power drill on his victims.  The mere fact that Weintraub includes a trailer for ‘Night of the Driller’ over the end credits of ‘Melvin’ is proof enough that he had a blast making those little snippets of a film.  You have to wonder, much like Robert Rodriguez and ‘Machete,’ if there are intentions to turn ‘Night of the Driller’ into a full-fledged feature film.

‘Melvin’ is a fun, indie zombie movie, a quick, little gorefest that was clearly made by and for fans of the genre.  At just over an hour in length, it doesn’t spend just a whole lot of time building character relationships or deviating into meaningless subplots.  Yet, the characters in ‘Melvin’ never really feel like they could have been, excuse the pun, fleshed out a little better.  Serious structure issues keep it from being a high recommendation, and you have to wonder if it is too late for Weintraub to go back and do a better job editing the first half of the film.  Regardless, once the true meat of the film kicks in, it never falls short on the entertainment aspect. ‘Melvin’ is a fun-filled gala of gore that fans of the genre should not let stay hidden for long.

For more information on ‘Melvin,’ check out the film’s official website right  here!