Unlike the often self-indulgent documentaries about Big Time professionals like Francis Coppola (HEARTS OF DARKNESS) or Terry Gilliam (LOST IN LA MANCHA), or even the behind-the-scenes blunders of a pair of stoners trying to get a horror movie off the ground (AMERICAN MOVIE), ZOMBIE GIRL offers us a glimpse into the creative process of a budding movie maker pretty much unhampered by her lack of money; in fact, her greatest obstacles are a lack of willing actors and the Time to get the scenes she needs with them when they DO show. Been there, done that. (By my reckoning, I've started half a hundred shorts over the years; only a dozen have been finished- and many of them were cobbled together from bits and pieces of unrelated efforts. More often than not, actors bailing out on me proved my undoing.) (I had the entire underage cast of one epic walk away when I refused to buy them a case of beer.) THIS is why I fought so long and hard for a Public Access channel on the local cable system when I hit town: budding, would-be movie makers DESERVE a forum. (As stated elsewhere, the local cable system has just recently kicked the Public Access channel to the curb. They made room for yet another Commercial channel, which they need, now, because they've set up in a nearby mall in an outlet that boasts no less than a HUNDRED TV screens.)
Review of Zombie Girl: The Movie
