I desperately wanted to see this film last year during its brief theatrical run -- the film's unique visual style, zombie theme, and playful title all came together to manufacture a cinematic itch worth scratching. However, my fake busy schedule prevented me from doing so. Well, after a long and agonizing wait, I was finally given the opportunity to plunge head first into the absurd mire that is
Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love, a delightfully fucked up Canadian film, directed by
Elza Kephart, that perfectly combines my love of cheesy horror, leggy registered nurses, and art-house pomposity to create one fiendishly macabre sorbet that is chock-full of violence-based humour, organ eating, crazed Ukrainians, and, most importantly, unrequited zombie love. A frumpish nurse named Patsy Powers (a well-proportioned
Nana Mouskouri look-a-like played by
Anne Day-Jones) is a pariah at work, an uncoordinated spinster who leads a life of tedium: afternoons daydreaming about handsome doctors and evenings in front of the television to watch her favourite soap opera, Hope Hospital, on a television with a fuzzy picture. This all changes when a disheveled woodcutter (
Eric Kendric)--sporting a giant axe in his head--is admitted to her ward (axe in the head, by the way, is a treatable ailment in some parts of Quebec). Since they both have something in common; she's frumpy nurse, he's a woodcutter with an axe stuck in his head, the two strike up a bit of a friendship. And during a modest moment of intimacy, he nibbles her on the hand, leaving a slight abrasion. Soon afterward, Nurse Patsy begins to notice some changes in her appearance, as the dowdy nurse morphs into an attractive nurse seemingly overnight. Suddenly lipstick, when properly applied, looks fantastic on her, the sight of her legs encased in black silk stockings cause the orderlies to literally salivate like a lustful pack of stocking-obsessed dogs, and her posture has become a lot less slouchy.
Unfortunately, there's a catch to becoming a zombiefied health care vixen. You see, Patsy is starting to rot (her hands are showing signs of rigor mortis), so in order to stop the rotting process, she needs to consume human flesh on a regular basis.
Luckily for her, and her shapely figure, there's a freshly stocked morgue in the basement that is jam-packed with meaty corpses.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that her character was a bit of a pill in the early goings, but the alluring
Samantha Slan is wonderful as Nurse Goodie Tueschuze, a blonde woman who's engaged to the handsome Dr. Dox (
Karl Gerhardt), the hospital's top surgeon, and who dreams of becoming head nurse. And thanks to a brilliant turn around during the film's action-packed final third, the film's official "annoying character" suddenly went being a shrewish bully to the film's endearing protagonist by the time the halls of the hospital are brimming with zombies.
Filling the void left by the hospital's Ukrainian janitor/zombie expert, E. R. Kapotsky (
Roland Laroche), the sexy Samatha Slan brought a lot of plucky energy to role of Nurse Goodie.
Of course, I liked Goodie when she was an irritating hosebeast, yet the addition of pluck brought some much needed nuance to her character.
Looking like
Jennifer Baxter's mildly Québécois twin sister, Miss Slan is a gorgeous actress with a silent film star-esque face that is complete with expressive eyes and a scrunchy nose.
Oh, and the luminous photography really accentuated her laudable legs during the film's many nurse-on-nurse showdowns. At first, Goodie Tueschuze, R.N. and Nurse Patsy mainly battle over the ownership of Dr. Dox's cock. But as more and more patients begin to drop dead (the hospital's stats for this month don't lie), Goodie begins to suspect that Patsy is the one responsible for the spike in untimely deaths.
Bathed in glorious black and white, and utilizing shadows (the film utilizes ceiling fans to great effect) and flickering light superbly (a film like this has no business looking this stylish),
Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love turns out to be one of the best looking zombie love stories ever captured on film.
I desperately wanted to see this film last year during its brief theatrical run -- the film's unique visual style, zombie theme, and playful title all came together to manufacture a cinematic itch worth scratching. However, my fake busy schedule prevented me from doing so. Well, after a long and agonizing wait, I was finally given the opportunity to plunge head first into the absurd mire that is Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love, a delightfully fucked up Canadian film, directed by Elza Kephart, that perfectly combines my love of cheesy horror, leggy registered nurses, and art-house pomposity to create one fiendishly macabre sorbet that is chock-full of violence-based humour, organ eating, crazed Ukrainians, and, most importantly, unrequited zombie love. A frumpish nurse named Patsy Powers (a well-proportioned Nana Mouskouri look-a-like played by Anne Day-Jones) is a pariah at work, an uncoordinated spinster who leads a life of tedium: afternoons daydreaming about handsome doctors and evenings in front of the television to watch her favourite soap opera, Hope Hospital, on a television with a fuzzy picture. This all changes when a disheveled woodcutter (Eric Kendric)--sporting a giant axe in his head--is admitted to her ward (axe in the head, by the way, is a treatable ailment in some parts of Quebec). Since they both have something in common; she's frumpy nurse, he's a woodcutter with an axe stuck in his head, the two strike up a bit of a friendship. And during a modest moment of intimacy, he nibbles her on the hand, leaving a slight abrasion. Soon afterward, Nurse Patsy begins to notice some changes in her appearance, as the dowdy nurse morphs into an attractive nurse seemingly overnight. Suddenly lipstick, when properly applied, looks fantastic on her, the sight of her legs encased in black silk stockings cause the orderlies to literally salivate like a lustful pack of stocking-obsessed dogs, and her posture has become a lot less slouchy.
