On the surface, this movie appears to be a about a 13 year-old girl who made a feature length zombie movie, but once you sit down to watch it you realize that it’s about so much more than that. It’s about parenthood, childhood, families and, most of all, hopes, dreams and potential. Directed with a very sensitive eye by three clearly talented gentlemen, Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall and Erik Mauck this movie is a must see for the zombie fan, but more importantly, for people who understand what it’s like to have the drive and potential to do something.
The movie begins with the basics of the story: Emily Hagins is a 13 year-old girl (12 when she started) from Austin, Texas who is a film junkie. She and her mother, Megan, started going to movies together when she was very young, but it really took off with The Lord of the Rings, which they saw an estimated 30 times. Emily wrote to Peter Jackson to tell him how much she enjoyed his movie and told her to call his friend Harry who lived in the Austin area and he would help her get involved in filmmaking. As it turns out, Jackson’s “friend” from the Austin area is Harry Knowles from Ain’t It Cool News. Harry took Emily under his wing and invited her to a “But Numb a Thon”, a festival he does occasionally. He intended for her to come and see Return of the King and leave feeling uplifted at the genius, but instead she came away with Undead, a New Zealand zombie movie. She is referred to some independent filmmakers who she “interns” with for the summer, after which she insists that she must make a zombie movie, called Pathogen. She writes a feature-length script, something that’s impressive for most people let alone a 12 year-old, and begins the process of casting.
As we follow Emily through this process, we discover not only just how difficult it is to make a movie on a literal shoestring, shooting on weekends with her friends and figuring it all out as we go, but also a complex and interesting family life with her parents. It becomes apparent that Megan, Emily’s mother, loves her very much and will do almost anything to support her, but her need to support her daughter also comes at a great cost – she needs to learn to let go and allow Emily to do what she feels she needs to do with the project. Family fights, yelling moms, paper mache, temper tanrums and a homemade banjo all figure prominently in this fascinating look into the lives of some pretty regular folk.
For me, the most fascinating thing was the dynamic between Emily and her father, Jerry. Literally left behind by the process and running to catch up to the even changing young woman that his daughter is becoming, I found that I wanted to see more of this relationship, even though it was apparent that there was no time for that.
I must say that the most admirable quality of the film was that it was completely self-aware. many adults chipped in to help Emily achieve her goal of creating a feature film and a number of them were either involved in the film industry, or had wanted to be at some point. You can see that their zeal to assist her isn’t always benevolent, at one point admitting that their desire to help Emily has more to do with their own feelings of wasted potential than about just simply helping, as though helping Emily succeed will somehow wash away their own feelings that they have wasted time – if only they had started earlier, what could they possibly have achieved?
Also commendable was that there was not a single shot of Pathogen, Emily’s finished film, in Zombie Girl: The Movie. During the Q&A all three directors noted that that was a tough decision for them. I was also very impressed that they showed no “reaction” shots from the various audiences, instead choosing to focus only on the making of the movie itself, rather than it’s watchability. In discussion with director Aaron Marshall after the screening, he said that this decision had led to some interesting distribution reactions, with a number of possible distributors indicating that they would pick it up, only if it had footage from Pathogen, which was something they were thinking about, but would prefer not to do. I would tend to agree. He noted that he thought it was too soon to tell if Emily was going to be a star. He indicated that he knew she would make movies for the rest of her life, but he didn’t know just how she would fare.
Zombie Girl: The Movie is without a distributor presently and that is a shame. This is a smart and insightful look at a journey, that just happens to include the making of a zombie movie. I hope that it gets picked up soon.
