Shatter Dead

I first saw Shatter Dead on an internet streaming website hosted by one of my friends from the US, and ever since seeing it I've been obsessed with it in an unnatural way. Shatter dead is very much a b-movie that has a Dogme 95 feel to it (mainly due to a low budget) with scenes that are both amazing yet sickening. 

We are introduced to an Earth where the dead are alive and walking around with the living. Susan, the main character of the film, is walking down town to her car with some groceries she has picked up, and passes by a number of undead who ask her for money. One asks her for money to get surgery on his [badly prosthetic wearing] face which has been terribly marked, she gives in and he blesses her for her kind behavior (which seems to be a rare occurrence between the living and the undead in this World). She goes to a payphone just by her car to make a call (which we later realise is to her boyfriend). As she does this, the first undead to ask her for cash tried to empty her fuel tank but before he gets away with the hole tank Susan catches him and shoots at him, causing the fuel tank to explode, and set him on fire (which is one of the best technical effects of the film).

Susan retreats after being threatened by a bible basher to a nearby house which a fellow living soul informs her about. In this house we see mostly undead staying there with the occational living, like Susan, there too. Susan retreats to her room, which she shares with an undead who asks to borrow her soap to cover the smell of her flesh decaying. We then learn why so many people have chose to be undead since the world became a place in which you lived even after you have died; to have youth, strength and to remain attractive with no real human waste or consumption*

After this a wild group of reckless people turn up at the house and shoot it up, disfiguring the undead (since they can't heal) and 'killing' the living, apart from Susan. At this point we see a bad yet still gruesome part where a pregnant mother gets shot in the belly and her unborn spawn (which is totally convincing... if you're a 2 year old) half comes out of the open wound. This scene is full of blood and bath scenes, which you all know I am a huge fan of, which carrys on to the next, and more or less ending of the film. 

Susan finally gets to her boyfriend's apartment, where she finds a bathtub full of blood (ugh, it was the most aesthetically pleasing shots of the film for me) and her lover sitting in a dressing gown in the kitchen. She asks why he did it and how it felt to die, which he expresses, and after a not too long reintroduction and a understanding of the situation, they express the desire to have sex (oh hi darling, you're dead? Oh... Let's fuck!)

He basically tells her without any blood, he can't get an erection, and so her first thought is to get her trusty gun out and strap it to him (who wouldn't want to stick something inside them that can go off at any minute and kill them?) Anyway, we see the love making happen, in some versions we actually see the gun thrust in an out of Susan, and after the sweet lovemaking session the boyfriend puts poison in her milk and tells her she's going to die. Susan is very displeased with his actions, understandably and pushes him out of the window (a beautiful act of revenge!). Here we see the bible basher help him up via wood planks, that amazingly replicates Jesus on the cross, and takes him back up to his house. Here we see Susan die and come back to life and look at her newly undead skin disappointingly in a mirror.

Shatter Dead is a mix of things for me. I love the way it is shot, the characters (even through the less than A class acting), the, in my opinion, necessary gore and to some extent the plot, even though it isn't exactly new age or unique. The length (1h 24 mins) is perfect for you to understand the plot and understand it all fully whilst getting the links to actual world paranoia and not being too grossed out by the explicit scenes of nakedness, lesbianism (with a hint of antichrist theory?) and despair over the amount of hopeless and potentially tragic outcomes of the World. 

Shatter Dead is a film I love, and will continue to love for a long time. 

Until next time, 

Jessiefer.  

*I have noticed that many horror films have links to real world worries in them throughout the era's recently, such as the boom of monsters in the 30-40's which symbolise the nazi's and other enemies the World had, through to zombies, which coincides with mass hysteria over the unknown information about everyday chemical's (such as fluorine in our drinking water) that our governments' hide from us. and ghosts which express that an unknown force, who we are powerless against will eventually get us.