Product Description

Otto is a handsome, sensitive, neo-Goth zombie with an identity crisis. He wanders the streets of the city, never sleeping, until one day he auditions for a zombie film. The director, an eccentric bohemian, begins making a film about Otto, while simultaneously shooting a film about a gay zombie revolt against consumerist society. As the final, orgiastic scene of the film is being shot, Otto struggles to access the human emotions buried beneath his zombie exterior. Director Bruce LaBruce toys with genre conventions, combining different media, including a humorous film-within-the-film, while creating a new, sexy, hyperpoliticized zombie mythology.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44347 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-02-10
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Amazon.com
Bruce LaBruce’s feature Otto; Or, Up With Dead People will either thrill or repulse, as it is tailored to the rather specific sexual tastes that this art film director has spent his career elucidating. Otto does, however, vary from pornographic past LaBruce fetish films such as The Raspberry Reich and Skin Gang in that Otto will appeal to camp horror experts and those interested in conceptual links between abjection, fashion, and desire. As LaBruce fans may suspect, Otto; Or, Up With Dead People has a far-fetched plot that exists seemingly to provide framework for his visual explorations of homosexual identity. In it, a young, sexy zombie, Otto (Jey Crisfar), wanders Berlin streets until filmmaker Medea Yarn (Katharina Klewinghaus), whose name is Maya Deren with a twist, casts Otto in her upcoming zombie flick. Paired with actor Fritz Fritze (Marcel Schlutt), the viewer wonders throughout if Otto is a true zombie or another actor amongst the several he is filmed with. In this, there is the constant meta-film, an external narrative that asks the viewer to assess one’s own willingness to believe in monsters. With the help of her brother/DP, Adolf (Guido Sommer), and her girlfriend, Hella Bent (Susanne Sachse), who appears only in vintage looking, black and white footage as if she’s a ghost transmitting from the past, Medea directs Otto in various insalubrious settings, such as the Berlin dump. The effect is humorous and extremely odd. Not until Otto dials up ex-boyfriend, Rudolf, to meet on a park bench does one begin to understand the roots of Otto’s past, which has led to existential crisis.

Structurally, the film is quite scenic and abstract, and its cool soundtrack, which includes CocoRosie and Antony and the Johnsons, reinforces the music video, Kenneth Anger aspect of this stylistic movie. Several times throughout, in fact, are mock mentions of the high fashion industry’s vampiric way of thieving style away from those who wear clothes as sincere expression. Zombie fashion, in Otto’s world, is totally in. While the plot falls in an out of focus, scenes lend a picturesque, dream-like setting to several recognizable Berlin hotspots, such as the abandoned amusement park, Spreewald, and the Badeschiff along the Spree River. This is to say that as much as Otto; Or, Up With Dead People is a horror film, it also captures and meditates on trends in current fashion and art communities. As mentioned before, there is less sex in this feature than in LaBruce’s previous, yet a warning should be issued that the erotic scenes in Otto are straight-up gruesome, porno-updates of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Blood Feast and other gore fests. --Trinie Dalton

Customer Reviews

More than a typical zombie movie
When I saw that there was a "gay zombie movie" being shown at my local film festival, it sounded hilarious and I knew I wanted to see it. Zombie movies have always scared and intrigued me , and are usually silly and campy to boot. However, this movie delivered much more than mindless thrills and gore. It's hard to go into too much detail about why this movie is so incredible without spoiling the ending, but this movie has heartwrenching commentary on homophobia, mental illness, societal alienation and much more. Many issues are brought to the surface and there will be at least one that will strike a chord with viewers. Not to say this movie didn't have screamingly funny or gory moments - it delivered in that department, too. Something for everyone!

Bruce LaBruce Triumphs Again!
This film is easily my favorite Bruce LaBruce work to date. Everything about it is more than I had expected and left me totally satisfied with my new LaBruce fix. A unique storyline and soundtrack - superb timeless costuming - beautiful locations around the city of Berlin - it all came together for a sometimes humorous and very touching gay Zombie story and their gay Zombie sexcapades. The bonus stuff include the Director's insightful commentary - deleted Zombie sex scenes (equal to those in his feature "Skin Gang") - alternative campaigns and the original theatrical trailer. What more could I want? Bruce has brought together a group of talented Bohemians to create this work of art as only Europeans can provide. Needless to say I love it. Six Gold Stars.

Otto, or up with dead people
disappointing, to much junk and not enough flesh. this is not a good follow-up to his last film, Raspberry Reich. worth a 3 for all the hard work his actors did.