David Anders | Through the Shattered Lens

rev

The Revenant …. nooooo not the one where Leonardo Di Caprio gets Bear Married (Bearried?)…this is the one where David Anders (iZombie- Blane) and Chris Wylde become crime fighting zombies in Los Angeles!!!! There are certain films that are just fun. So, pop open a PBR, hang with your buds or your SO, and enjoy a truly great Vampire/Zombie film.

The film was directed, written, edited, and special-effected by D. Kerry Prior. This film is totally in the same vein as Evil Dead. Many people making the film knew one another, D Kerry Prior wore many hats, and they managed to show it at many festivals and did well. This is a great example of how fun horror can be without a lot of money….IF you have a good script and dedicated people working with you. This is so amazingly over the top; there is even a scene where a disembodied head speaks with the assistance of a sex toy on his vocal cords. You just don’t see that everyday!

The film takes the idea that Vampires are basically zombies, but still sapient after their reawakening; therefore, they call them Revenants as in returning. Yes, they still drink blood, but they look like zombies with the rotting and the yellow eyes and such. D. Kerry Prior took the idea that if they are still sentient post-return maybe they’d use their invincibility for good. And what is best thing a person can be you ask????? A Zombie/Vampire/Crimefighter. Yes, they fight crime!

The film begins in Iraq with Sergeant Bart Gregory (David Anders) who gets shot and turned into a a Revenant (zombie/vampire) by a baby zombie/vampire who is pretty gross. Bart’s body is shipped home and reanimates. The only knock I give the film is that Bart goes from SGT to Lieutenant from one scene to the next, but you just have to let it go. Bart relies on his friend Joey to adjust to his new Revenant undead lifestyle. They learn that not only does Bart survive on blood, but there are a panoply of criminals in Los Angeles waiting to be tapped for Bart’s plasma needs.

Eventually, Joey gets shot during one their criminal harvests and Bart turns him into a Revenant to save him. Then, they have an awesome montage of killing and blood eating. It’s just great! All the while, there is a subplot of his relationship between Bart and his girlfriend Janet who eventually get turns as well. This creates a Yoko situation and Joey and Bart try to kill each other. Joey flees and tries to harvest on his own and ends up getting decapitated …. and the head lives! Bart has to put Joey down, leaving Bart with no reason to unlive. Bart tries to commit suicide in a number of interesting ways and it just doesn’t work. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s pretty interesting.

I’ve seen this film about five times and I’ve been entertained every…single…time. After I first saw it, iZombie premiered shortly after with David Anders as the main villain, making this movie doubly awesome because we got to see David Anders pre-stardom. There are a number of low-budget TERRIBLE horror movies and I’ve watched MANY of them. This film is testament to how far you can push this genre creatively and still do it on low-budget. I highly recommend it as a must see!

Pictured above, you’ll find Liv Moore (played by Rose McIver), the character who is at the center of the new CW show, iZombie.

Just a few months before the start of iZombie, Liv was a friendly and optimistic medical student who was engaged to marry the handsome and rich Major Lillywhite (Robert Buckley), whose personality can pretty much be summed up by the fact that his name is Major Lillywhite.

However, then Liv happened to attend a party where things went dramatically wrong. How wrong? Liv was offered a mysterious drug by a mysterious man. Liv turned the man down. Everyone else at the party took the drug and soon, it was zombie apocalypse time! Liv was one of the few “survivors,” practically bursting out of a body bag that she had been placed into and discovering that her arms were covered with zombie scratches. That would traumatize anyone, right?

Now, several months later, Liv is no longer in medical school and she’s broken things up with Major. She works as a coroner’s assistant, spending her time surrounded by the dead. Her skin is deathly pale. Her hair is nearly white. She no longer smiles and instead, she reacts to almost every situation with a sarcastic comment. Her family and former friends assume that she’s just going through a phase and that eventually, she’ll get over it and end up back with Major.

What her family and friends don’t know is that, at work, Liv eats the brains of cadavers. Eating brains is the only thing that keeps her own mind alert. Much like the lead character in Warm Bodies, eating a brain allows her to access both the memories and the skills of the brain’s previous owner.

As you probably guessed from the show’s title, Liv is now a zombie. She’s a walking, talking, and thinking zombie and she’s not particularly happy about it. Apparently, the only way that she can keep from turning fully into a mindless flesh eater is by eating brains.

She’s also a zombie who solves crimes! (And I’m just going to say right now that I’ve been waiting my entire life to have an excuse to write that sentence.) She does so with the help of her boss, Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) and Detective Clive Babinaux (Malcolm Goodwin). Ravi knows that Liv is a zombie and is overjoyed to have the chance to study her existence. Detective Babinaux, meanwhile, thinks that Liv is a psychic.

Ever since I first saw the teaser trailer in January, I’ve been looking forward to seeing iZombie. Not only did I think that the concept was a promising one, but I was excited to hear that iZombie was the latest from Rob Thomas, who previously gave the world Veronica Mars.

As well, and with all due respect to The Walking Dead, it was hard not to feel that it was time for a zombie show that was actually fun to watch. (The Walking Dead is a great show but, whenever I watch it, I’m always thankful for the knowledge that each somber and grisly episode will be followed the always funny and adorable Chris Hardwick. We need Hardwick there to keep the Walking Dead experience from becoming too oppressively depressing.) From the minute I first heard about iZombie, I thought it seemed like it would be a fun show.

And you know what?

Judging from the pilot, it is.

The first episode of iZombie aired on Tuesday night and it was pretty good. The procedural aspects of the pilot’s mystery didn’t really interest me but then again, the pilot really wasn’t about the mystery. The pilot was all about establishing Liv and her existence and it succeeded quite well in accomplishing just that. Rose McIver brought a lot of life to the role of the undead Liv and the pilot made good use of the show’s moody Seattle setting.

Add to that, the pilot features a great throw-away line in which Liv dealt with an annoying hipster by calling him, “Karl Marx.” Seriously, you can’t set a show in Seattle unless you’re willing to make fun of hipsters…

So, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where iZombie goes. Hopefully, the show will continue to mix comedy with drama and it won’t allow itself to get bogged down in the whole procedural format. Am I saying that I’m hoping that future episodes will continue to follow the lead of the pilot and turn out to be Zombie Veronica Mars? Yes, I am.

I’ve read some comments on the imdb from people who are angry that Liv is not a “real” zombie because she can think and talk and all the rest. Those people need to relax and stop taking their CW shows so seriously. Obviously it’s too early to say whether or not iZombie is going to live up to its full potential but the pilot was definitely a step in the right direction.