Though it’s shorter than most of the films I’ve covered recently, Michael Varrati’s There’s A Zombie Outside is one of the more ambitious films I’ve seen this year, given its runtime and what it’s trying to tackle within it. That, and it’s coming from an independent source (shoutout, as always, we love our indie horror filmmakers). It’s new, it’s different, and it really nails its goal, or at the very least what I think its goal was: presenting the struggles of filmmaking and wrestling with how that art reflects you and your life. But it manages to do that in a very strange and very fun way.
Adam’s birthday weekend getaway to a cabin in the woods isn’t what he envisioned. His friends are looking for something more scintillating to do. His boyfriend is looking for more quality time. And Adam is stuck, sleeping, watching old horror movies, and ruminating over his successes and failures. But when Adam sees a zombie outside the cabin, his mind becomes fractured as he starts to lose touch with reality, and ends up somewhere familiar—with safety nowhere to be found.
I’ll be honest, I’m a bit close-minded to films that pitch themselves as meta-horror outright. However, the way Zombie Outside does meta-horror felt cool to watch because the film does a great job of disorienting you between the layers of reality and unreality presented in the film. Twenty minutes in, it hits you in the face with a wild punch you never see coming, and then follows it up for a one-two jab just minutes later when it gets even stranger. It’s a skillfully drafted narrative, and though sometimes it gets a little flat in telling its message with very straightforward dialogue, I enjoyed the story of Adam being haunted by the past and rapidly losing his grip on reality. I particularly enjoyed the dark comedy Varrati uses to address it.
The driving force that makes the story enjoyable is the cast, who all fit nicely in their roles. Adam is written well with some very relatable struggles that can get a bit too real, but it’s really thanks to Ben Baur’s great performance that that struggle comes to life. He plays especially well off of his partner Ollie, played by Ty Chen, whose brutal relationship issues make for a very uncomfortable scene that might have been my favorite part of the movie performance-wise.
Taryn, played by Phylicia Wissa, is also fun as the voice of reason and stability in a movie where everything is going off the rails. She has some great line deliveries here that made me laugh pretty hard, and I would love to see her in more horror films going forward. She strikes me as a very slept-on player – along with Baur.
The movie’s biggest hindrance is its runtime, really. While engaging and paced pretty well, it barely clocks in at a tight 60 minutes, not including credits. I know I constantly complain on here about wanting movies to shave off some time, but Zombie Outside would definitely benefit from going a little longer.
I wish we had gotten to see more of the over-the-top, truly insane layer of the film that is only really glimpsed at briefly; there’s an additional 30 minutes of b-movie somewhere out in the void where Varrati could get into a wild DeCoteau or Corman style 80’s creature feature to intersperse through the movie. The effects here are good, with the titular zombie’s makeup being some of the better monster prosthetics I’ve seen in a while; I was just hoping for that zombie to get more action than what we see in the film.
There’s a joke somewhere in here about that, but I can’t put my finger on it. I guess you’ll have to watch it to understand!
Here’s to hoping the crew that worked on this can find a budget to make that a reality, because it really would be nice to see this film get expanded on somewhere down the line.
There’s A Zombie Outside is a very New Nightmare kind of venture into the rich inner worlds of misery we cultivate to make a name for ourselves. It’s a movie, about making a movie, that is in turn a movie about people making movies. It highlights how exhausting it can be to create a piece of art and be left wondering what happens next once it’s made. It, of course, also has a zombie. And if any of that piques your interest, it’s definitely worth the watch, so you should keep your eyes peeled for when this releases.
