Review of Otto; or, Up with Dead People

Written and directed by Bruce LaBruce (born Justin Stewart), Otto is a confusing heap of zombie. The film won the Best Film award at the 2008 Milan International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and I suppose I can see why.

Otto; or Up with Dead People

Otto (Jey Crisfar) is a deeply troubled, rose petal eating, new zombie who is having trouble fitting in to a society who hates zombies with renewed fervor after having the new lot of them come out as raging homosexuals. He finds a small place to belong with a group of independent film makers who are making a movie about zombies. How convenient.

Otto eating roses

As we follow Otto around through his hardships, we learn he had a boyfriend, a family and used to be a vegetarian butcher. We then learn that Otto also used to be sane. That Otto was never a zombie at all. That Otto is actually a schizophrenic boy with a personality crisis who is eating road kill and gnawing on one night stands because he believes himself to be a zombie. Ahem.

Zombie Roadkill; Otto

This film does showcase a lot of gay bashing (along with flesh wound fucking) and I can feel the aspect of a political agenda behind it. Because of that, I’m more inclined to like it, but if you were to take away the homosexual part, it feels like a tourist trap. If that makes sense.

Otto; Flesh Wound Fucking; Zombie

It’s a good idea, but with false promises. We all enjoy a good zombie flick, but the movie within a movie thing was overdone about a decade ago and with there not being any real zombies at all, I was left with a “really?” taste in my mouth.It was much like eating a bad piece of candy: I will still eat it, and kind of enjoy it, but I will most likely complain the whole time.

There's also this strange aspect of the movie within a movie director, Medea Yarn (Katharina Klewinghaus), being in love with what I presume is a dead woman? I'm not entirely sure what that was all about but in every shot she is grained over with a black and white 35mm super old looking filter and never actually speaks. It seemed oddly out of place and entirely unnecessary.

Otto; or, Up with Dead People movie screening scene

Crisfar is strikingly beautiful, however, and that made the whole thing far more tolerable to sit through. I will say that this is a well executed bad idea and leave it at that.

My official rating: **