It’s the love story that every woman dreams of. Boy meets girl. Girl wakes up in boy’s bed. Boy kicks girl out. Girl realises that a zombie apocalypse is upon them… Eek! Deb (Maria Thayer) and her awkward one-night stand Ryan (Michael Cassidy) then band together and take off on a mission to ensure to ensure the safety of their loved ones.
While Thayer and Cassidy bounce well off one another, most of the comedy weight rests on Deb’s more than capable shoulders. Her verbal diarrhoea begins as excruciatingly humiliating, but her unique spirit and oddball nature soon become as infectious as the zombie epidemic, making her a refreshing source of comic relief. Even her shoes are ridiculous as her hideous wardrobe puts one in mind of a 2-year-old that has just raided her mother’s closet to play dress-up.
She is allowed some well-deserved relief when Ray Wise finally emerges with that wicked glint in his eye, having last appeared on the horror radar in Adam Green’s Digging Up The Marrow (2014). He plays Ryan’s villainous father who may know more about the current crisis than he leads our two mismatched heroes to believe…
EXTRAS:
Where the Bloopers are concerned, the antics are more of the pale Grey’s Anatomy variety – the kind where you “had to be there” to get it – as opposed to any of the side-splitting improv you might find on Anchorman (2004). The Making Of on the other hand is a true bonus, as the gags and the humour filter through nicely. And, of course, you get to see more of Ray Wise, who is just as funny in person as the characters he plays, if not funnier.
LAST WORDS:
As consistently funny as this movie is, for me it did something that I have never seen before in comedy. They saved their best joke for last, by turning a firm staple in zombie mythology on its head, whilst at the same time satirizing the AIDs crisis. And with that I finished watching Night of the Living Deb laughing harder than I did than when I started. Now, that’s the best way to go out. That’s the way a comedy should end.