From the WARPED DESK OF MC BENJI---
It’s with a ghoulish horror honor I’ll be hosting with filmmaker Jorge Torres Torres, a very special WORLD PREMIERE AHITH 2021 Festival Screening of “Bride of the Shadow Zombie”---
this Friday, December 10th at 6:30pm at New People Cinema in San Francisco Japantown.
Get ya tickets AHITH.COM
Bride of Shadow Zombie (2021)
Directed/Edited/Shot By Jorge Torres Torres
Produced and Written by Jorge Torres Torres and Dain Marx
Between the shards of ice caked on chipped ceramic lawn gnomes and the black mold gathering around the graveyards of today and yester-years of the town of Crowley, New Orleans. A new film lies as the dark humored corpse call of a "mediative buddy horror" feature like Bride of Shadow Zombie.
A cajun gator tire pure as the swamp bog left of the bayou setting between two best friends of the past journey to get the band back together between lead actors, Kim Filth and Dain Marx. A relationship that dangles a literal switchblade flick between The Big Chill reunion through a Hi-8 VHS camera, the improvisation off beat characters of Stranger Than Paradise, and the pictorial faces Tobe Hopper and Kim Henkel would love to plaster onto The Texas Chainsaw Massacre walls.
From the bad brains of Jorge Torres Torres and Dain Marx who brought you, The Night of the Rumpus, an LSD soaked Basket Case gory love letter to monster movies—featured at WARPED DIMENSION FEST 2020. Bride of the Shadow Zombie is a movie set in the same world, the gore and creature goo is dialed back but the ghosts of the past and black molding graveyards of the present are here on the screen.
It’s very much a movie of today from the past two years we’ve collectively experience as community of beings. A sequence between Kim and Dain strolling through the deserted streets like a pair of Mari Gras pair Reservoir Dogs ready to jam and get down, only to realize quickly every thing is “FUCKING CANCELLED” due to the on-going pandemic. Only thing they can do for a reunion is smoke endless joints, drink Steel Reserve brown bags as they wax about the past. Kim and Dain talk way too much, absolutely! But the past weight like an atomic stone to Kim’s weak heart, the recent suicide of his girlfriend (Brandi Viator) and the death of his elderly father.
The tragic story of Brandi is the heart bleeding ghost that keeps the conjuring dread and love lost power to Bride. We only see and hear her in the passing of eyes of camera of past VHS youth and present day ghost. The reflections of our analog past of love and heart break to the memories of zombie boy named Shadow Zombie and dead nurse clown girl named Brandi.
A cabal in reflections of the past manifest themselves into bring out the dead to the millennial and Gen-X memories. From real recordings Hi-8 videology diaries and the garage band jam sessions clips of the actors then and now. An ascetic of Harmony Koraine’s Gummo brought to the tornado aftermath of Ohio’s youth. The time and age change not only Kim and Dain but their friends as the present dead are only wasted on the youth of the past.
The intercutting of these clips to the present day are what makes Bride the powerful haunting core. Time is the real monster here. The gravestones are the abandon gas stations, gutted strip malls, and rusted playgrounds passing by. Kim and Dain know they only have a little bit of time together and to bring the band back mega named, “Table Snot”. It’s a hilarious and crushing climax when they finally get a gig to play in a nearly empty bar for one last time.
This is why from a personal side I chosen Bride of the Shadow Zombie for its world premiere at Another Hole in the Head 2021. As a piece of “mediative horror” splicing together ghostly VHS memories of the past with the temperate of present as we experience the real life apocalypse outside our doorstep.
Just as Kim and Dain roam the empty streets, parking lots, and graveyards of Crowley, Louisiana. It has a present setting right at home in the backyards of The Sawyer Family
of Texas Chainsaw. The make up Kim wears as his alter ego Shadow Zombie feels like akin cousin to Bill Mosely’s Chop Top Sawyer.
As time the unforgiving monster, here catches up to Kim and Dain by the end—the last of moments take a punch to the gut and leave us with lasting memories are only those recorded before death is here.
Before this article ends—a special mention goest to the film’s director/editor/camera/and co-writer, Torres Torres. A filmmaker from Puerto Rico who has created a series of “revision” feature length cuts to classic horror, sci-fi, and action franchises. If you haven’t seen his revision masterpieces of "Friday the 13th" and "Death Wish Revision"—hunt them down as soon as you can. Death Wish Revision swag if you spot closely makes a cameo appearance in Bride. The deathly vanity of these filmmakers!
---BENJI (12/6/2021)
It’s with a ghoulish horror honor I’ll be hosting with filmmaker Jorge Torres Torres, a special WORLD PREMERIE AHITH Festival Screening of “Bride of the Shadow Zombie”, this Friday, December 10th at 6:30pm at New People Cinema in San Francisco Japantown.
TRAILER for Bride of Shadow Zombie---
Get ya tickets at AHITH.COM
P.S. I forget to mention this is a sequel to Jorge Torres-Torres first underground horror-music core Shadow Zombie. Absolutely no requirement needed to view the pervious installment before experiencing Bride.