Zombie TV Trailer Is A Surreally Sublime Japanese Splatterfest
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This video is rated TBCFW, which stands for Too Batshit Crazy For Work. I’m not sure if it’s safe or not, though. There is a lot of gore involved. You’re a grown up, make your own choices.
We follow a lot of zombie fiction here at Giant Freakin’ Robot, from the slow burn drama of AMC’s The Walking Dead to the fast-paced intensity of Marc Forster’s World War Z, and every offbeat or derivative flick in between. But I think I can safely say we’ve never come up against something quite as distinctively surreal as Pony Canyon’s Zombie TV, a quasi-anthology film from Japanese filmmaker and special effects master Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police), Hell of the College Girls director Naoya Tashiro, and artist/animator Maelie Makuno. This trailer and these stills, via DreadCentral, have given me faith that we haven’t quite seen everything the zom-genre is able to give us. They have also given me daymares about Pink Zombie. Pink Zombie. Pink Zombie. (shudders)
It’s almost impossible to describe this hodgepodge of undead weirdness without just repeating that phrase over and over again. Like an ADHD-fueled mash-up between a sketch show and Weird Al’s UHF, Zombie TV is comprised of short films, animation, instructional videos, and the bloodiest comedy imaginable, with a focus on showing just how normal and everyday zombies have become, and how they would adapt to today’s society.
The press release poses such questions that the film may answer. Wouldn’t humans want to join zombies if they became so commonplace? Do zombies have idols or gods? Do the undead have less emotional quandaries than humans? And how do they have sex?
Considering that watching this film is akin to channel surfing, I really hope there’s an infomercial on there. It all looks like it came straight off a 1980s VHS tape, and I have to wonder how the tonal roller coaster will work with most Americans. It shouldn’t be too hard, considering a few of Nishimura’s films have gained cult followings, and with contributions to recent anthology films The ABCs of Death and The Profane Exhibit, his work has gained more noticed here in the States.
Zombie TV premiered recently at the Melbourne, Australia Monsterfest and will make a larger festival circuit in the beginning of 2014. Now enjoy the stills below, in all of their gory, er, glory.
