Night of the Living Deb

At least for what it is. It's no "Shaun of the Dead," of course, but given that "Shaun of the Dead" is the de facto "Godfather" of zom-com (and horror comedy in general, for that matter), it's hardly fair to compare this movie to it.

The movie lives and dies by its lead actress, and more so than most -- she's clearly the standout performance (which is a shame when a movie has the great Ray Wise) and she handles the comedy, physical and verbal, very well. Not to mention being able to pull off cute even with the trite "beautiful girl playing plain by having messy hair and unflattering clothes" dynamic. (I almost said "beautiful young girl" but a look at her IMDb page reveals that she was *40* when this movie came out. Unless there's an error on IMDb or this movie was shelved for a very long time before release, she's aged really, really well. I mean, good Lord, I would have guessed mid-to-late 20s, tops.)

The movie's main flaw is that it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be straight-up comedy or camp, something independent/low budget comedies occasionally suffer from. It vacillates between the two, which can cause abrupt changes in comedic tone. Trying for both just hurts the flow and coherency of the movie. Overall, though, while it wasn't the greatest movie in the world and I did find the comedy/camp comedy transitions jarring, I quite enjoyed it, and it was solidly written and acted (primarily by the lead actress, as noted above), so I have no complaints about the time spent watching.