Melvin (2009, Review)

Published on December 3, 2009 by Steven Tee · 1 Comment

Director: Henry Weintraub

Cast: Leif Fuller, Patrick O’Driscoll, Llly Maher, Yanatan Schultz, Hudson Hongo, Ben Chinburg, Shane Cohn, Lloyd Kaufman

531 Productions / Region 1 / Not Rated / 16×9 Anamorphic Widescreen / 2.0 Surround Sound / Color / 64 minutes

Melvin is a film that speaks and teaches vindictive lessons and those lessons are to never, ever fuck with the nerdy kids! You may end up accidentally 187 by the person you thought was the biggest-bookworm-brown-noser of your middle school, high school or college dorm. Then, their rotten, deteriorating brain just might devise a zombie-plot from beyond the grave to take their murderous revenge on you, those you care about and even against the folks you’ve met only once. I wish I had a time machine in my possession right about now. Director Henry Weintraub develops an unholy bible about these teachings, putting them on video as a guide to help us halt our teasing, our bullying, or willful desire to purposefully harm those who are weaker, smarter and not as physically attractive.

Melvin Purvis is a quiet and studious high school boy; that was until he was kidnapped by three careless thugs as part of a cruel joke which eventually led to his unexpected demise. Back from the dead as one of the undead, Melvin takes a savage bite out of the leg of a fellow geek, the unquiet Norton Pinkus, in order to seek cannibalistic revenge upon those jocks, those bullies and those who exploited him in his previous life. Norton, practically terrorized by the same factors, turns into a zombie every night and stalks victims, ripping them apart limb from limb and eating their flesh only to throw it all up the next morning! Not knowing what to do, Norton turns to Melvin’s sister Wendy for help as bodies pile up and turn into the stiff walking, flesh food craving corpses!

Whenever I watch an indie film and the end results consist of me being wide-eyed and wondering just what will happen in the next scene, I conclude myself as thoroughly entertained. For me, that statement is really hard to say (or even come by) nowadays with most of the thrown together crap being pieced together at the last minute and distributed, only to have it being handed to some prodigy at marketing and reaching too far a hype level that one must see it or die trying and end up yearning for a milkshake full of rusty nails and broken glass. Henry Weintraub’s Melvin yells low-budget film making, but with fantastic editing, charming dubbing and foleying and sheer will of making something fun, Melvin turns from being a plain old low-budget film to an interesting low-budget cult worthy project.

The special effects are the tip of the iceberg when watching this “zomedy.” With the use of quick cuts and scene changes, we can effectively imagine each bloody and brutal death. The death by mop scene is the best example. While Trash and his whore girlfriend are sucking face, zombie Norton comes from around the corner with mop in hand. He throws the mop like a spear, piercing the necks of the two punk lovers. We never see it fly through the air or penetrate the necks, but we can create it happening in our minds all thanks to the quick cuts.

All the homages were neatly placed and constructed and were done justly without it seeming like a total rip off. There could be more but I counted only three homages. The first is probably a stretch, but the zombies are very familiar in looks with their deep socket raccoon white eyes and their fatality producing actions resemble much of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. The second homage comes straight out from John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London. When zombified Melvin bites Norton, Norton starts seeing the spirit of Melvin – kind of like when David was haunted by his dead bud Jack. The third homage that I recognized was from a movie created within a movie. The faux movie “Night of the Driller” is supposed to relay how similar Melvin and Norton are by both of them having possessed the same VHS. “Night of the Driller” is a creative play on the Abel Ferrara exploitative film The Driller Killer; both films pretty much have the same premise except “Night of the Driller” has Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman! Like I mentioned before, there are probably more homages, but I just didn’t pick them up on first sitting.

531 Production’s DVD release is a solid yet standard release. With a strong 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen presentation and a well-balanced 2.0 stereo sound, the technical side of Melvin is pleasing. Melvin‘s custom comic like cover art is eye catching; it apes a bit of Shaun of the Dead yet it has its own bad ass quality about it. I’d welcome this entry into any fan’s collection of the “zomedy” genre. It provides dry humored laughs and gore effects that can make Greg Nicotero shit his pants – in shorter words – pick up Melvin because you will like it!

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Readers Comments (1)

CutshawKane says:

December 4, 2009 at 1:08 pm

Aside from the great indie tracks in the film, we were the composers for the score——-Thanks for supporting indie film and handing out kudos when they are well deserved …………….Keep up the good work——Brad Hord & Chris Ferree
(CutshawKane)

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