MY FAIR ZOMBIE

The horror/lit mash-ups, still they come. When we live in a world which has seen Pride & Prejudice fused with the zombie genre, then you know damn well that this will cross into film. And, as literary projects keep appearing (why the hell haven't I written my Wuthering Heights meets Great God Pan yet?) then the potential for books which can be transformed into horror flicks will run out, or at least is going to mean a shorter book list...so the fact that we now have a horror version of Pygmalion shouldn't really surprise anybody. Folks, this is My Fair Zombie...

And yes, it's a musical.

We start with a lengthy preamble, in song naturally, from the streets of Old London Tahn where a lady flower-seller is bemoaning her lot; added into this song is the fact that zombies are a going concern, although no explanation is given for this. It's just a thing that Londoners have to take into account and that's that. She gets into a heated debate with two gentlemen about how she makes a living, and then about class, with them wondering aloud whether they mightn't be able to turn her into a proper lady. This is all a red herring, though, as the flower-seller is then bitten by a female zombie...

Why the two gents don't bring their wager to bear on the now zombified or at least zombifying flower-seller they were talking about in the first place I'm not sure, but they turn their attentions instead to the original biter – also female, and let us not cast aspersions based on the fact that the biter may be dead but is also clearly tall, blonde and elegant. They decide that, given the poor more or less communicate in grunts anyway, that they would be as well to try and turn the zombie into a proper lady, ready to present her at a dance some months in the future.

Think Bub from Day of the Dead then, but at a finishing school. Except the period of groaning and yelling 'brains' is surprisingly short-lived...obviously it wouldn't be all that much fun to watch the laborious process, so we go from basic elocution to polite tea parties, with the odd song (though thankfully not too many) along the way. Eliza (as she's now known, naturally) scrubs up rather well – probably too well, as the only indication of her deceased state is some grey eyeshadow and the ubiquitous white contact lenses, and goes to a host of social events until she is ready to try her luck for real. We get a little soul-searching after that, but essentially this is a strange bird. Clearly the filmmakers have done this on a budget. Clearly they have had a bit of a giggle filming it, and they've had a decent go at making it look conceivably Edwardian in terms of its costumes and furnishings, etc. However, I think my main issue with the film is that they needed to go more one way or another – either more batshit insane with added splatter and a lot more zombies in the sombie movie, or more into the jokes, as there is masses of dialogue in the film, a lot of which doesn't really add humour. It's often bloodless, the lead zombie just has some eye make-up awry and the acres of polite discourse can pad out some scenes unnecessarily and make the film feel long, even at 85 minutes total.

I'll say this: a Canadian team deciding to try their hand at a zombie musical with an Edwardian London setting says a lot for their ambition, and a fair amount of affection for the source material. It simply needs to settle on one approach, as it covers a little of a lot of ground where it would have been better-served going all-out, one way or another.

The DVD release has some extra features – a blooper reel, a slideshow, a commentary, a trailer reel (including one for this film) and some cast interviews.

Review by Keri O’Shea