MISS ZOMBIE (2013) – The Blu Review

Review by Roger Carpenter

Sabu is well known as the director of popular crime, drama, and comedy films in Japan, often using the frenetic pacing of the cyberpunk style.  Titles such as Non-stop, Postman Blues, Monday, Drive, and Blessing Bell consistently score high marks with his fans. Miss Zombie is his first foray into horror territory.

Taking place in present-day Japan, it seems there has been an outbreak of a zombie virus.  While zombie viruses in films are no new thing, this particular virus is slow-working and affects humans differently depending upon the virulence of the strain to which one is exposed.  It often takes years for one to turn into a full-fledged zombie and even then there are different levels of zombie-fication.  For instance, some zombies are essentially harmless and can be used as low-level workers.  In the case of one wealthy family, the zombie is used as a domestic servant and is set up scrubbing floors.  Zombies even come with instruction manuals.  Again, in this case Miss Zombie is able to eat just about anything—the family feeds her the overripe or spoiled fruits and vegetables they don’t want—as long as it’s not meat.  Feeding a zombie meat can cause them to become feral.  If this happens, the instruction manual directs the owner to use the gun which was supplied along with the zombie for a quick dispatch.

While Miss Zombie can’t speak, she certainly has the ability to hear and understand, and follows simple directions easily, if not quickly or with gusto.  Thus, when set to scrubbing floors, it is a slow and ineffective process.  She is shown how to use water to help the scrubbing and picks up on that easily.  But independent thought isn’t necessarily present.  She also lives off property and must walk home each day with a bag of rotten fruit given her by the family matriarch.  The walks are long, slow, and made more arduous by the daily harassment she receives by various groups of “humans.”  There is a group of children who, much like playground bullying, wait for her each day so they can throw rocks at her.  Then there are the teenaged punks who hang out just so they can get their kicks by stabbing her in the shoulder or back with whatever sharp implement they have on hand.  Miss Zombie meets both threats with a silent, stoic resolve most likely imparted to her by her zombie-fication.

Each day she bends down on unfeeling knees, nose nearly to the ground, and scrubs floors.  Her slow, rhythmic motions cause her to sway gently back and forth.  It isn’t long until the two male domestics take notice of this motion, Miss Zombie’s hips rocking gently as the two salivate at her sexiness.  Before long even the family patriarch is using Miss Zombie for more than scrubbing floors.  The family dynamic slowly begins to change until one day a traumatic event occurs that sets events in motion that threaten to tear the family asunder.

Miss Zombie is a short film at around 85 minutes.  It’s a bit slow because Sabu is reaching for more than your standard horror yarn.  While there is likely enough blood to satisfy a horror-hound’s lust, the gore isn’t over-the-top as one might expect from a zombie film.  Indeed, that is because Sabu isn’t making a zombie film.  The zombie theme is simply the trope he uses to weave his family drama.  In fact, this is much more family drama than horror film which may not please all horror fans.  But if one looks a little more closely, delves a bit deeper than just the surface, and questions the motives of the characters, one begins to sense a theme:  who exactly is the monster here?

Miss Zombie is never violent.  She never denies anyone a request.  She cannot communicate verbally and, indeed, she may have no feelings, either physically or emotionally.  But how do we know this?  The humans in the film never stop to consider the consequences of their actions toward Miss Zombie.  Even though she can’t speak, Miss Zombie’s eyes and body language tell us she feels.  Does she have physical feeling?  Can she feel the stones from the children pelting her body?  The knives plunging into her back?  The men in her undead life who take advantage of her?  That question remains unanswered.  But her eyes and her body language tell the viewers all they need to know about her emotions.  She may not be able to verbalize, but each stone thrown, each sexual advance, her lonely existence in a dark, dank room, are emotionally devastating.  And the humans, with all their superior emotional intelligence, continue to ignore this, continue to ask for more from her.

Miss Zombie is fascinating look at a zombie “life” from the perspective of the zombie.  Horror fans may be slightly disappointed, but those who aren’t horror fans shouldn’t let the title deter you from seeing a film that is essentially a study of prejudice and misunderstanding.  In the end, Miss Zombie communicates much more than your typical zombies.

Kino Lorber has just released this film on Blu-Ray.  For a unique take on a tired genre, look no further than Miss Zombie.  The film can be purchased directly through Kino-Lorber at kinolorber.com or through Amazon.