The Revenant, D. Kerry Prior’s sophomore feature, is an account of a young soldier, Bart, killed in combat coming back to life and roaming the LA night with his friend Joey in his thirty year old camaro, guns in hand, in search of criminals and their blood to suck. This sounds like just another Zombie-parody, but it is not; with a long while of production and, to the director’s own admission, over a year and half of post-production, the film is an auteur’s work—and it shows.
The film, funny, heartwarming and, in Prior’s own pre-screening words, in many ways about “friendship”, is quite possibly the most laborious undead work of love I have ever scene. Where elements of campiness pop-up, a patient and consistently and, admittedly, languidly evolving storyline keeps them from taking over and becoming gimmicky. Although elements of the goofiness expected in zombie-kind are explored, they never become the essential point of the film; Bart, the eponymous “Revenant”, is never an object of ridicule. The film is, as mentioned above, reliant on an exploration of the importance of friendship—of a man, dealing with the sad, weird and, often, comical existence (or nonexistence) of his new afterlife as one undead, with friends—and the inevitable strain its absence creates. The film is a serious attempt at explicating the psychological process behind a revenant (a human person come back from the dead, neither living nor dead, and feeding on the living) gradually loosing its humanity and becoming no more than undead, a creature, and no longer a person. The film is, ultimately, about the “undead” psychosis loneliness inflicts.
This I get from Prior’s film, and I dig it. But the director here writes, directs, produces and edits, and one is inclined to disagree with this approach. The film, as commendable an achievement as it is, is just too long and, to a certain extent, handicapped by its auteur’s love for and over-involvement with it. Perhaps as many as 40 minutes could have been shaved off the film’s final cut, without hurting it in any way. To the contrary, it could have emphasized its point. Instead, one can tell the parts the director simply couldn’t cut, out of sheer affection for the script—like a young writer still learning about sacrifice. I, personally, understand and feel for him, but I also personally avoid this like the plague. Prior’s film is good, but I left the theatre knowing it could have been great. I bet he knows it too.
The film, funny, heartwarming and, in Prior’s own pre-screening words, in many ways about “friendship”, is quite possibly the most laborious undead work of love I have ever scene. Where elements of campiness pop-up, a patient and consistently and, admittedly, languidly evolving storyline keeps them from taking over and becoming gimmicky. Although elements of the goofiness expected in zombie-kind are explored, they never become the essential point of the film; Bart, the eponymous “Revenant”, is never an object of ridicule. The film is, as mentioned above, reliant on an exploration of the importance of friendship—of a man, dealing with the sad, weird and, often, comical existence (or nonexistence) of his new afterlife as one undead, with friends—and the inevitable strain its absence creates. The film is a serious attempt at explicating the psychological process behind a revenant (a human person come back from the dead, neither living nor dead, and feeding on the living) gradually loosing its humanity and becoming no more than undead, a creature, and no longer a person. The film is, ultimately, about the “undead” psychosis loneliness inflicts.
This I get from Prior’s film, and I dig it. But the director here writes, directs, produces and edits, and one is inclined to disagree with this approach. The film, as commendable an achievement as it is, is just too long and, to a certain extent, handicapped by its auteur’s love for and over-involvement with it. Perhaps as many as 40 minutes could have been shaved off the film’s final cut, without hurting it in any way. To the contrary, it could have emphasized its point. Instead, one can tell the parts the director simply couldn’t cut, out of sheer affection for the script—like a young writer still learning about sacrifice. I, personally, understand and feel for him, but I also personally avoid this like the plague. Prior’s film is good, but I left the theatre knowing it could have been great. I bet he knows it too.
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