Mimesis (2011)

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Really loved the idea of this movie, but it just never got off the ground running. I kept watching Mimesis because it was really giving respect and praises to the original Night of the Living Dead. But the movie didn't really do anything that made me feel anything other than reminding me that I love the original Living Dead. I think that it had potential but because of the low budget, it didn't get there. Plus some of the acting got so bad that it was distracting. Wouldn't be a big deal to pass on this one.Please like me on Facebook! We love getting suggestions and warnings on everything horror: http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Heart-Horror/338327476286206

It's refreshing to see a film that knows the true meaning of the word "homage" -- something done or given in acknowledgment or consideration of the worth of another -- rather than "rip off," which is something we see far too often in films, especially horror movies.Douglas Schulze's Mimesis is a clever homage to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead on one hand and a modern "thrill killer" movie on the other. After an opening scare starring Courtney Gaines, the audience is taken to a horror convention where Alphonze Betz (Sid Haig) rails against the media blaming horror movies for real life horrors. In the audience are Russell (Taylor Piedmonte) and his unlikely pal Duane (Allen Maldonado).Russell is a horror fan while Duane is more keen on meeting some of the hotties at the con including Judith (Lauren Mae Shafer), a goth girl who invites the boys to a party later that night. Thinking he'll get some, Duane convinces Russell to drive out to the spooky farmhouse where they encounter some out-of-place regular people and a number of silent, spooky dudes all made up in makeup. Before the party gets too "dick in the mashed potatoes" crazy, Russell and Duane are down for the count, waking up dressed in different clothes and hanging out in some eerily familiar settings.There's no "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" line in Mimesis but much of the rest of Night of the Living Dead is there as our protagonists find themselves cast in a living remake of the film, complete with flesh-tearing zombies.Thus, Mimesis becomes a film with disparate characters trapped in a farmhouse with a menacing presence outside but the presence isn't supernatural, it's psychotic. Additionally, the script by Schulze and Joshua Wagner is incredibly self-aware, playing with and against the plot of NOTLD along with more current films where strangers toy with innocents (Them, Inside, High Tension, etc.).

Caught this clunker at its premiere in 2011. Then I completely forgot about it until I needed to look up some information about its crew. When I came to IMDb and read three glowing reviews, I wondered what those reviewers were smoking that night. I remember Mimesis as a very low budget horror flick that neither horrifies nor entertains. Ridiculous premise, dumb plot, wooden one-dimensional characters and all the usual zombie film clichés. Bunch of twenty-somethings cower in a farmhouse while (spoiler alert) phony zombies shamble around outside, trying to lure them out and pick them off one by one. Problem is, there is only a handful of "zombies", they move as slowly as tortoises and lack any weapons that might pose a real threat. Here's a tip for the guys in the house: open the door and stroll down the road. You can even walk backward and thumb your nose at the zombies as they recede into the distance. This is an altogether failed homage to the Night of the Living Dead, listlessly directed by Douglas Schulze, who did not impress me as a very capable director. One good shot in the movie, the rest bland and boring. And the performances, with a few exceptions, were just plain awful. Production design totally lacking. The film had decent makeup effects, though. Awful sound. Cameos by Sid Haig and Courtney Gains do nothing to save the film from the obscurity it deserves. Overall, Mimesis looks and feels like a high-school film project.

Two positive reviews so far, and here's a third. Why it has a 2.4 rating? You got me. From start to finish this movie either had me laughing or jumping out of my seat. It blends the two nicely, but doesn't try and force anything. A big part of the laughs comes from the actors, who seem to get the scripts subtle hints at comedy, and the scares come from Douglas Schulze's direction; this being his fourth feature,(all horror) he seems to have grown into a master of the genre. There is little proof from watching this movie that it was made on a shoestring budget, much like "Night of the Living Dead" the movie that inspired the script for "Mimesis" a love letter to Romero. The script is very self aware, however much like today's horror fan, the characters in the movie are not familiar with the classic zombie film, except for one character who keeps everyone informed, audience included, on what might happen next. After watching this movie I immediately went out and rented "NOTLD" which I'm sure will be the reaction of a lot of other people, thus making "Mimesis" even more cinematically relevant than I'm sure it intended to be by re-introducing a classic in modern story telling. Did I mention that Sid Haig (House of a Thousand Corpses, Kill Bill 2), and Courtney Gaines (Children of The Corn, The Burbs) also appear in the film. Fun for all. I recommend.