IndependentFilm.com

Just when it seemed that there could be no new twists to make in movies featuring flesh-eating monsters, along comes Zombie Honeymoon to prove us all wrong. Denise (Tracy Coogan) and Danny (Graham Sibley) star as two youngsters in love. Retiring, after their wedding, to a friend’s house on the New Jersey shore, they sit sunbathing on the beach. Their happiness is interrupted when an unsteady figure comes out of the water and spews viscous black sea filth into the groom’s mouth, choking him and rendering him unconscious. Although Danny is pronounced dead at the hospital, he later miraculously revives.

Realizing that Danny can no longer stomach “normal” food (instead he finds himself hankering after cuisine of a different variety), the couple have to come to terms with the fact that that their idyllic life together has taken a turn for the worse. As we watch Danny and Denise (portrayed touchingly by both actors) endeavoring to plan their overseas honeymoon amidst the former’s lust for human flesh, writer/director Dave Gebroe manages to veer intelligently between genuinely heartrending marital drama, witty asides (“Look, all I’m trying to do is kill as few people as possible before we get on the plane tomorrow, OK?”) and gore-soaked horror.

Though much of today's commercial cinema seems moribund, movies about the undead ( such as 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead and now Zombie Honeymoon) remain alive and kicking.

Review by Rod Armstrong / San Francisco Film Festival contact:rarmstrong@sffs.org