Andrew Parkinson's debut feature is a brave try at making the ultimate existentialist zombie movie, following a graduate student (Giles Aspen) infected by the zombie disease during a country walk and his progressive yielding to the hunger for human flesh. Intercutting "present-day" TV-style interviews with his girlfriend and the friends he lost touch with after his disappearance with his own experiences as he progressively succumbs to the primary urge to survive, there's much to admire in the straight-faced approach to the premise and in the bold clinical way in which Parkinson documents the gradual loss of Mark's humanity. Not surprisingly, the amateurish home-movie visuals (the film was actually shot in 16mm over a two-year period) lend some power to the conceit; the basic problem with "I Zombie" is that the script is insufficiently developed for a feature and should have stayed just under the hour-long mark. Alternatively you may try and see it as a laugh, but you'll be surprised just how quickly the laughs die down under the film's dark spell.
Review of I Zombie: The Chronicles of Pain
