Directed
by:
Flavio Pedota
Written
by:
Flavio
Pedota, Yeimar Cabral
Cast:
Rubén
Guevara, Leonidas Urbina, Genna Chanelle Hayes, Magdiel González
Cinematography:
Eduardo
Servello
Also known as:
Infección.
Anyone
remembers how it was like to be a zombie fan in the ‘90s?
If
you were into zombies, perhaps because you got hooked on the Romero flicks, or
on Savini’s excellent Night of the Living Dead, or maybe even on Return of
the Living Dead, you were the weird kid. Everyone was into Star Wars or Terminator
2, and you were the only freak
asking for videogames about the undead—believe it or not, there was a time on
this earth when zombie games were rara
avis.
All
of that changed with Resident Evil (the game). Then Danny Boyle refreshed the
concept with 28 Days Later and,
around that time, Robert Kirkman launched a zombie comic book that took itself
seriously, unlike the dreck we were used to read (that comic would become a pop
culture phenomenon, The Walking Dead).
By
the late 2000s, everyone was a fan. Being into guts and the apocalypse was
cool, girls wouldn’t sneer at you anymore on the school bus—or they would, but just
not about the zombie thing. We had been begging for more stinky munchers, and
now there was almost too much of ‘em.
Ever
heard about All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Zombies Ate My Neighbors or the old The Walking Dead, the one with Boris Karloff? Does the name “Murder Legendre” rings a bell?
That’s what we had before the mainstream decided our weird little niche was now
merchandisable.
I
don’t know if Flavio Pedota was a longtime fan as well, but he was fan enough
of the concept to try his hand at a feature-length movie done in pure guerrilla
style, with a very small budget and creativity that would make 1968’s Romero
proud.
It
has some flaws that may or may not kill the whole deal for you, though.
See,
Flavio comes from Venezuela, northern South America, where you really had to look around for the niche
horror stuff—it wasn’t censored, as in Britain, it was just really rare. TV
would show the Freddy flicks at night, or Pet Sematary, but if you strayed
too far from the mainstream, you were on your own (good luck finding The
Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue). Then the Internet came, and an oil boom
bonanza that galvanized Venezuelan cinema, yet only two horror movies came out
of it (three, if you count Carl Zittelman’s thriller El Vampiro del Lago): the horror gothic tale La Casa del Fin de los Tiempos… and Pedota’s Infección. There are other flicks, like El Silbón, but they’re very, very hard to find, even in Venezuela.
Infection itself isn’t that easy to get, and it wasn’t even premiered in its country of
origin. Have you seen HBO’s Chernobyl? You remember that scene where the
Soviet pricks decide to keep the disaster quiet? That’s exactly how the
Venezuelan government works, and that’s how they’re portrayed in the film.
Missing the fucking irony of it, the chavista twats at La Villa del Cine decided that a movie that’s so negative about the
government wasn’t apt for Venezuelan consumption. I don’t know why
dictatorships are so sensitive about this type of stuff—maybe it’s the whole
thing of “art is resistance.” This is how censorship tastes like, folks.
 |
| Effects are way, way better than expected considering the budget. |
And
what are they trying to censor? A classic scenario: Dr. Adam Vargas finds
himself in the beginnings of a zombie apocalypse. The plot plays it by the
numbers, with bitten people wondering what’s up, and the first encounters
showing that this isn’t just another flu. Dr. Vargas decides that, since the
world is going to shit, he should be close to his kid, in Caracas, right across
the nation. Venezuela isn’t that big of a place and from the Andes to the
capital, by road, it’s a trip of some 12 hours. Without flesh-eating creatures
going around, that is.
If
you recognize things here from classic movies, or even the whole father-and-son
quest from The Walking Dead, that’s
because Infection isn’t doing anything particularly new. Pretty much
everything you see here, you’ve seen elsewhere, and the flick seems to be more
influenced by 28 Days Later than it is by Day of the Dead (which itself influenced Danny Boyle,
because we’re all here in a cannibal circle). Remember the Spanish movie REC? I’m gonna spoil it for you a little and
say that those “zombies” are more than just zombies, but that’s something
you’re not gonna find in Infection. Pedota plays it as safely as possible,
recreating a scenario that’s 50 years old.
 |
| Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later infected these veins... or is it Day of the Dead? |
Which
isn’t to say there’s no creativity in the movie; it’s a wonder to see how these
guys recreated whole sections of Venezuela with an apocalyptic tint, in what I
guess is CGI, because there’s no way the local government is going to lend you
a major highway for you to make your little movie bloodbath. Pedota knows that
when you have CGI, you can’t look at it for too long or the spell is broken, so
he’s very careful about what he shows and how he shows it, so the illusion
works. The special effects are very well handled, is what I’m trying to say, in
a mixture of practical and digital that, for the most part, succeeds.
The
performances are more of a mixed bag. You can tell that this is the classic case
where a guy wants to make a movie and he asks all of his friends to help out.
Some of the actors, in consequence, are very
good—the kid’s grandparents, the military leader in the second half, some
of the doctors. There’s this bit where Adam comes across a couple of survivors
who are, as Bob Kirkman would say, too far gone, and have transformed into
human monsters. The old lady of that couple is either very talented, or actually
insane.
Other
actors, not so much. Maybe the weakest of the bunch is our star, played by
Rubén Guevara, who I guess got the role on his looks. I don’t wanna bash too
bad on the guy, because perhaps he’s better in other type of movies but fellas,
if I can tell that you’re reciting your lines from memory, that’s not starring
material.
So,
in the end, we have a mixed bag where, to me, the good outweighs the bad. If
you compare this to Re-Animator or Dawn of the Dead (either version), of
course it falls short, but then again most movies do. Instead, Infection plays out like what I imagine would be
a season of The Walking Dead: The
Venezuelan Chapter, meaning it’s well done and it technically passes with
flying colors—but that script needed to take more risks and a bit of doctoring. Infection goes on to prove that movies are a miracle of manufacture, and a
lot of stars must arrange themselves right for your little project to go well, and
this is true whether you’re in Hollywood, or in the backyard. You don’t need crazy
lots of money, or terribly elaborate special effects, but you do need
dedication. Flavio and his buddies pulled this movie without major financing
and it’s better than some theatrical releases and direct-to-video stuff I’ve
seen.
Because, sure, we have seen this stuff better done before… but we have seen it hell of a lot worse, too.
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