Guy’s Guide to Zombies should be an excellent little film. On paper the idea of a short film about zombies done in the style of those 1950s public information films should be either comedy gold or wryly subversive. Sadly, this is not the case. It’s not a terrible film, not even a bad film, its just somehow disappointing.

Technically it’s a well put together little film, visually aping the conventions of the propaganda/public information films. The voiceover is excellently done, the tone and content of the announcer’s speil hitting most of the right notes. Maybe I’ve just not seen enough of them to appreciate the little in-jokes and tell-tale references scattered throughout the film. The music, perfect for the opening yet grating after constant repetition, may well be a reflection of the musical stylistics and usage of the originals but it grew annoying quickly, which is worrying in a film as short as this. Just who Guy is and why he is giving his wisdom to us is never explained. Presumably he acts as the director’s animated alter-ego but in the end the contrast between the animated sequences and the archive footage is too stark, crying out for a lighter touch in juxtaposing the two for greater impact.

The problem could well be that we’ve already seen those public information films lampooned far more skilfully. There are plenty of Loony Toons efforts that manage to twist and mock the very methods and ideology that they themselves used and reinforced at various points. Tipping a knowing wink to the audience while spouting the patriotic doggerel. And therein lies this film’s problem. It lays its pastiche on too thick, leaving no room for the audience to think about what’s really going on in those films. It’s picked an easy target and exploits it mercilessly to little effect. The genre it is aping has always been faintly ridiculous, even in its own time, a gentle push and it can be made to show its fully flawed and preposterous nature, it doesn’t require neon signposts to show those failings to the audience. Perhaps the director just doesn’t trust the source material’s inherent ridiculousness to carry through, which is a shame.

By half way through the joke feels like its been stretched too thin, yet the film is barely three and a half minutes long, ending suddenly and without providing the audience with a satisfying resolution. The film sort of just ends, as though they ran out of ideas and gave up, leaving this particular part of the audience thinking is that it? Is that all they could manage from that idea? I wanted to like this film, I really did but it was just too much of a let down too much like a lazy take on a clever idea to win me over. A little bit more subtlety would have gone a long way.

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