School of the Living Dead - DVD

Movie: Uber-nerd Eddie (Jacob Zachar) thinks his day can't get any worse when he's assigned to detention. Because while he's happy to spend his time around cheerleader Janet (Christa B. Allen) and ogle her without restraint, the presence of her boyfriend Brad (Jayson Blair) and his buddy Jimmy (Max Adler) noticeably dulls the pleasure. And the constantly stoned occasional dealer Ash (Justin Chou) and the goth girl Willow (Alexa Nikolas) don't exactly make the extra time in the classroom a pleasure either. But things get worse, as a creepy zombie plague has spread across the school grounds, turning teachers and students alike into bloodthirsty undead. For Eddie and the others, detention quickly becomes a fight for bare survival. They manage to take refuge in the library. But in the long run they are not safe even here from the zombies. But how are they supposed to find a way out of the completely besieged school? And just how far has this zombie plague actually spread?

Actor and filmmaker Alex Craig Mann has two great passions: Zombie movies and the '80s teen comedies of John Hughes. So for his debut as a feature director, he figured he'd combine those two passions and direct a sort of Breakfast Club meets Shaun of the Dead. With a low budget and lots of good ideas, he set to work and shot the zombie comedy School of the Living Dead in just three weeks in May 2011. Spiced with many allusions, such as to the George R. Romero classic Night of the Living Dead, the film repeatedly reveals Mann's passion for the genre.

The actors, known primarily from TV series such as Glee (Max Adler), Revenge (Christa B. Allen), Greek (Jacob Zachar) or The Walking Dead (Alexa Nikolas), sometimes seem a bit too old for their roles, but are definitely fun to watch. However, all the good intentions and all the heart and soul that has been put into this movie can't prevent you from noticing its trashy B-movie character very clearly. In some scenes this works really well, as this is exactly what increases the fun factor. This is especially the case whenever it comes to running from zombies or fighting them.

But when the dialogue is the main focus, the whole thing doesn't work very well. That's because the characters lack the depth, and the script simply lacks the cleverness, that made Mann's paragons of John Hughes the classics they still are to many today. Even though the character constellation in the classroom is certainly not coincidentally reminiscent of the one from Breakfast Club, the characters here remain completely colorless and interchangeable, which is why as a viewer you don't care much about their fate. The dialogues are trying to be funny, but are in most cases rather flat.

The real problem of School of the Living Dead, however, is that it literally conjures up the comparison to other films by the very open references to them and then often can't stand up to it. Because taken on its own, the movie is, apart from the not very successful dubbing, a thoroughly entertaining B-movie with some nice ideas and amusing moments. If you take it as just that and don't expect more, you can expect 84 entertaining minutes. But if you want to see a technically as well as dramaturgically polished zombie fun, you might quickly tend to want to give Alex Craig Mann detention. Worth seeing!

Image + Sound: The DVD's image reveals slightly exaggerated contrasts, but otherwise pleases with a coherent color scheme and good overall sharpness. Only in dark scenes and with faster camera movements can be made out there some small weaknesses. The sound is available in German in three different audio tracks, whereby these differ only marginally from each other. In all three cases, the dialogue is mixed very centrally, while the ambient noises and audible sound effects come across most powerfully on the dts track. Overall, there is a decent: Good!

Extras: As a bonus, there is an extensive look behind the scenes (about 42:02 min, without UT), where makers and actors talk about the shooting and reveal some of the tricks with which the undead were brought to life here. Then, in addition to the good making of, there's the trailer and other programming tips from the provider.

Conclusion: School of the Living Dead was made on a mini-budget and with a lot of passion. The result is not a highly professional glossy product, but a small zombie comedy, which the small financial resources are definitely noticeable. But if you don't mind that, you can enjoy the numerous allusions to various zombie and high school movies and some nice ideas. The DVD presents the film in decent picture and sound quality and also has a good making of in the bonus offer. With small deductions there is for it quite still a: Recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp