Juan-dead on Arrival

JUAN OF THE DEAD (2011, Alejandro Brugués)

Juan of the Dead (aka Juan de los Muertos) has been gaining some buzz on the film fest circuit, and I was lucky to get a chance to see it during a midnight screening at a local fest called Cinetopia, which has a focus on international independent cinema.  Seriously lucky, because we rarely get screenings of new horror movies around here. 

As reported in every pretty much every mention I’ve seen of Juan over the last few months, it’s the first feature-length horror movie from Cuba.   I’m too much of a slack-ass to look into whether that’s actually true, but I do know that I haven’t seen a Cuban horror film before, so I'll believe it.  Much has also been made of the political bent of the movie, whose tagline is “50 years after the Cuban Revolution, a new revolution is about to begin.”  Of course, zombie movies have offered us social critique since Romero introduced us to re-animated-but-not-through-voodoo zombies in Night of the Living Dead. And of late, we’ve even had politically satirical zombies in films like Homecoming, American Zombie, and Zombies of Mass Destruction.  It’s not exactly a new approach in horror, zombie or otherwise; however, surely the unique political and cultural history of Cuba could lead to a fascinating recipe for a zombie allegory.

And, of course, Juan of the Dead's title references Romero’s other classic, Dawn, as well as Edgar Wright’s ingenious parody, Shaun.  So anybody could hazard a guess that this is going to be 1) about The Zombie Apocalypse, and 2) funny.   Well, it gets one part right, sort of.

Like Shaun, Juan (Alexis Díaz de Villegas) is an “everyman” slacker with an obnoxious loser sidekick, Lazaro (Jorge Molina), who gets him into trouble at every turn.   When the zombie shit hits the fan, the pair initially runs around like a couple of morons, but eventually they find a groove and realize it isn’t so hard to make your away around the living dead; in fact, things aren’t much different than they were before (political allegory alert!).  So Juan and Lazaro try to capitalize on the epidemic in a sort of “we exterminate your dead (again) so you don’t have to” way.   They recruit other survivors, including their adult children and a ridiculous, diminutive cross-dressing fighter and his mammoth muscle-dude protector.

This premise is indeed funny for a bit, but the plot devolves into basic zombie apocalyptica, with the characters wandering the streets of Havana fighting zombies and other random nuisances.  Cuba does give the film a one-of-a-kind landscape and atmosphere (much of the film takes place during the daylight hour, capitalizing on the sun-soaked scenery), and the homeland pride exhibited by the lead characters is undeniably charming; however, you’ll feel like you’ve seen everything else before (but better) thirty minutes into Juan.  The biggest crime is that the zombies aren’t threatening or scary, and in some scenes there is not much make-up to distinguish humans from zombies.  Whether it is intentional, or whether it’s due to budgetary constraints, it doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t make for an effective zombie romp.   Yes, Shaun is hilarious, but it also has its creepy moments due to effective make-up and brilliant timing.

But if the horror is sub par, surely the comedy can save this, right?  Nope, most of the attempts at humor fail.  I laughed once or twice, but spent most of the movie feeling a tad uncomfortable with the mean-spirited nature of much of the "hilarity."  I’m not saying I don’t like my comedy nasty, because I often do, but it seems like a weird approach here.  Perhaps some of the other quizzical jokes may actually be funny to a viewer with a Cuban perspective, or a better understanding of Cuban culture and history.  But some of the gags (e.g., a woman dies in a zombie raft attack, and nobody notices, despite being transfixed by her boobs a couple scenes earlier) don’t seem that much different from what you would find in typical bro movies from America, etc.  There’s also an ongoing joke where one of the characters accidentally kills humans who obviously aren’t zombies.  Yes, this happens in movies in this subgenre so often that it has become cliche.  My guess is Brugués is probably parodying that, or maybe trying to make a “are things really all that different in a post-apocalyptic Cuba?” commentary; however, the recurring random murders are played for laughs, as evidenced by the characters’ lethargic reaction to these violent incidents.  Like most of the other repetitive "laughs", it's just not that funny.

That said, hopefully Juan finds success and opens the doors for more films, particularly horror films (but please, let's leave zombies out of it!), to come from Cuba.  Though it was DOA for me in both the horror and comedy departments, it is clear that the filmmakers put their heart into this, and I have to respect that.

My Rating: 3 zombie dissidents out of 10.