I bought this on DVD at the Dollar Tree, as I often do to find obscure films. Upon placing it in my cart, my husband asked, "is that a drag queen? I think she was on Drag Race a long time ago" to which I said "I hope so, because that would be weird and interesting." Sure enough, it's a low-budget zombie film with a drag queen main character, alongside a broader cast of mostly queer folk. This movie doesn't take itself seriously for the most part, but abruptly whips out some shockingly competent scenes on occasion. Some shots look like a YouTube sketch from 2007, while others have professional lighting, VFX, and camera work. It's not just the cast that's diverse, but the style itself, which creates an unexpectedly compelling experience. I never knew what to expect from each scene, as underwhelming moments led to scenes that had me asking "how the hell did they do that without a budget?"
This movie was shot in 2013 on a budget of $7,200 after garnering just $500 on a failed IndieGogo campaign. As someone that's worked on a few low budget productions, I have nothing but admiration for the ingenuity necessary to make something of this "quality" on such an impossible budget. It took an infusion of $150,000 from IFC films to complete the post-production, and I bet that's also why the film has a rich soundtrack, albeit a forgettable one. Unfortunately, all the post production in the world can't fix a lack of budget during filming. The middle of the film is straight up missing, with a cut to black and text stating "Missing Reel." As the film resumed, I found myself growing confused about some plot elements. I'm sure they simply didn't have the budget in 2013 to film some necessary scenes, but with the IFC films partnership I feel they could've at least shown some narrated story boards or something. Also, there's definitely a stylistic clash between the editing and the movie itself. There's a pretty terrible 8mm film grain overlay across the entire movie, but the cinematography isn't trying to look like found footage or retro at all. In many places, the cinematography is actually trying extremely hard to look professional. Perhaps they could've saved this with better editing choices, or at least a believable film simulation. Hell, it might've worked better if they just copied it to a Video8 or DVCAM tape and back again.
Unfortunately, the final act is quite sloppy for various reasons. There's a bunch of location changes, and in some scenes the navigation of characters gets very confusing. Simultaneously, the final act also demonstrates some of the best cinematography and production value in the entire movie. The biggest flaw is definitely how the ending involves several characters screaming the t-slur, reminding the audience this was written in 2010-2012 and filmed in 2013.
Nonetheless, despite all it's glaring flaws, this movie is so memorable, which can't be said for a lot of it's contemporaries. This belongs in queer cinema lists for sure. I wish they had the funding for a blu-ray release, but the bare-bones DVD copy is decent as far as budget DVD's go.
