Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

ryanpseudo Might I start out by saying I will watch almost any zombie movie on repeat regardless of 'corny-ness', 'hokeyness', or gore. This is not a zombie movie. If the title were renamed "american leper who eats raw steak" you would need to change less than 3 lines in the movie. The movie starts out hopefully enough with the cast wanting to make a documentary about zombies in LA. They develop the undead were all killed violently, and no longer remember their past lives. They also find zombies all have some glowing blue goo that seems like it could get really interesting, and then never does. It is completely never explored. Never mentioned again after they encounter it. Random blue goo swept into the plot hole pile.Then they start developing there might be something sinister happening at a zombie party, but they cant get in as humans. This too seems like a chance for zombie dress up or a spy entry plot, but it doesn't. They get permission and go into a zombie ren-fest thats just as boring as they're trying to make it look. You could name anything that would have made that scene more interesting, but I defy you to think to something more boring. You can't. They could be trading limbs or eating grotesque or walking on the bottom of lakes or something zombie-esquire. nothing at all out of the ordinary ren-fest.Something ravages their tent and seems to be surrounding the crew in their tent and seems like it could be getting suspenseful, but then nothing happens. Its like the boy who cried zombie for an hour. No plot line is continued or sought out. At this point you are 3/4 through the movie and still can't find a plot line.They get kicked out for the final night but they just walk over a hill and they're 30 feet from the center of everything, so..not really kicked out. Something happens I wont ruin, but its not scary, there's no blood or gore, and it doesn't tie into anything thats already happened. Then there a bunch of aftermath interviews that just as easily could have been shown anywhere else in the movie and made as much sense, perhaps more. The last of these, and in the last 10 min, is when the possibility of a zombie movie arises. For no explained reason a lesser character attacks someone nonthreatening, and then after the whole team makes a decision, they do the opposite. In summary: This movie has no plot at all.

tomsspam101 I just signed up to IMDb simply to express my delight in how refreshing this film was. It is an exploration of how groups are marginalised by society, and labelled with negative connotations, causing not only fringe group extremists but self fulfilling prophecies.John represents the world view of the Zombie group, and as the film progress you can see how this world view is pushing the zombies away from integration, into the fringe of society and into the arms of angry primarily labelled and conforming leaders who's angry voices are the only ones to be heard at such an extremes of social exclusion.People have said that the movement of the Zombies at the end, into the expected "typical" behaviour of that group ruins the film, and any sympathy for them dies with it. It in fact shows how having pre-conditioned ideas of how a people behave actually creates a self fulfilling prophecy.Excellent film. Bravo.

Coventry "American Zombie" is probably the biggest pleasant surprise I encountered in quite a few years and I urge every fan of cinema – whether horror or films in general – to check it out as soon as the opportunity occurs. The film is an odd and unconventional mixture between a zombie film (duh!) and the so-called "mockumentary" (people with hand-held cameras registering the unusual situation they find themselves stuck in). Just because of this label, I approached "American Zombie" with extreme caution and low anticipations. Let's be honest, the market for zombie movies already suffers from over-saturation since many years and the Mockumentary forms a suddenly unstoppable trend ("Cloverfield", "rec", …) that yet has to prove its stability. George A. Romero also joined in on the combination of zombies and shaky cameras with his latest effort "Diary of the Dead". Now, he's an acclaimed director and even the founding father of zombie cinema, but what to expect from a bunch of inexperienced documentary makers? Well, I love being proved wrong when it comes to innovating and new film projects! "American Zombie" is refreshing, original, intelligent, well structured and far more stylish than it has any right to be. The subject matter may sound ridicule, but writer/director Grace Lee presents everything in a convincing style and even the cast members, who have the difficult task of depicting plausible corpses, play their roles with a constant straight face. The script uniquely introduces resurrection from the dead as some sort of congenital defect, caused by a substance in the brain that is activated in case of a violent death. There are several categories of "Revenants", varying from the absolute braindead to the living dead with most of their vital brain capacities still intact. Throughout a period of several days, a Los Angeles film crew follows four of these "intelligent" zombies and illustrates how they live their everyday afterlife, deal with all sorts of discrimination and desperately attempt to oppress their physical decomposing. Just like normal people, these revenants have different personalities, hopes, desires, sentiments and goals to achieve. Meanwhile the film also centers on the arguments between the filmmakers mutually, as Grace wants to maintain an objective viewpoint whereas John continuously confronts the revenants with provocative questions. The revenants' stories and the crew's constant quarrels are already fascinating to behold, but the script is uplifted to an even higher level of quality through interviews with other groups. There are scientists listing the characteristics and history of the Living Dead, Zombie-haters (displaying various ways to destroy a dead brain) and Zombie-chasers (similar to people who write love letters to convicts on death row). Seemingly without much effort, "American Zombie" succeeds in bringing a biting satire that subtly mocks modern social issues and media sensationalism, but simultaneously doesn't lose track of story depth and character drawings. There are multiple powerful scenes in the film and you honestly come to care for the revenants … even though the maggots occasionally fall out of their bodies. "American Zombie" is also a rather atypical "Mocumentary" (since there are still professionals in charge of photography, sound and editing) so the amount of shaky camera movements and extreme close-ups are thankfully kept to a minimum. Highly recommended to open-minded cinema lovers.

Adam Donaghey When asked if there are flesh-eating zombies out there, Joel--an undead political activist--quickly retorts: "are there flesh-eating humans?" Grace Lee not only directs American Zombie, but plays herself in the film. She teams up with John Solomon--also playing himself--to film a documentary project about an undead community living in L.A. The duo quickly find out that some sort of virus, brought on by a violent death, is plaguing its residents, and ultimately zombifying an entire community.American Zombie is a veritable slice-of-life of four "revenants"--Joel, founder of Z.A.G.: the Zombie Advocacy Group; Judy, who naively searches for true love and denies her zombiness; Ivan, a convenience store clerk who aspires to be a writer; and Lisa, a florist specializing in funeral arrangements for other people--who secretly longs for her own. Each character represents an average person with average emotions and average problems, showing us that the undead aren't too different than the living. Well, except for their rotting flesh, of course.What's really great about the film is the absolute mockery the protagonists make of themselves. Grace, the ever-so-astute naturalistic documentarian, and John, the bumbling investigative reporter, are at odds with each other throughout the film, and ultimately to a fault. What makes this film not-so-great is twofold: the running time and the conclusion. I think the film would have been better as a short. While it's in-depth look at each character is interesting, I'm not sure if its compelling enough to steer the audience towards anything meaningful. And even worse is the ending, after which, the audience can no longer sympathize with the plight of the community. Unfortunately, what could have been a provocative social commentary, becomes nothing more than a sensationalistic--albeit unique, comedic and funfilled--mockumentary.