Review

Philip and his best friends Konrad and Weener are the three biggest dorks at the wonderfully named Friedrich Nietzsche High School. Philip wants to hit on the hottest girl in school Uschi, but standing in his way is the school stud muffin Wolf, Uschi being uninterested in losers, and about anything else you can think of. And we aren't even up to the zombie stuff yet. Philip's childhood best friend Rebecca still holds a candle for Philip, but since she's gone all Goth the relationship isn't what it used to be. Besides which, Mom is giving a running commentary to Rebecca on Philip's morning wood situation.

Rebecca and her Goth pals decide to hold a voodoo ceremony in the local cemetery in an attempt to raise the dead, as a sort of mock trial before flying to Seattle and raising Kurt Cobain. Philip and team decide to attend the ceremony because Rebecca promises to make with the hoodoo love potion number 9 afterwards, through which Philip will of course win Uschi.

We are then presented with a voodoo ceremony of the Kmart cut-price kind, though there is one authentic ingredient. Firstly the Goths have got confused and painted a Star of David rather than a pentacle onto their altar. The hair of the murderer obtained by Rebecca is her mom's, cause mom got a parking ticket. And the sacrifice turns out to be a pre-frozen chicken, with gizzards intact. However, the lead Goth dude has scored the genuine ashes of an honest to goodness zombie from eBay; we know this due to the excellent prologue to Dorks. A sudden gust of wind later and our three dorks are covered in zombie ashes, which clearly can't be good. Driving home the threesome run off the road, due to a malfunctioning bong, and hit a tree. Later they wake up in the morgue, to the discovery that they are zombies.

Our uber-nerds discover that being a zombie is pretty cool: you have superhuman strength and don't feel pain. Off setting this is the inconvenience of body parts falling off, remedied by a judicious use of a stapler, and an insatiable appetite for human blood and meat. Will Philip and his posse come to terms with their new condition? A pretty enjoyable movie ensues. Ready to check out if there are any missing bodies down the morgue?

Seems with the U.S. dollar in free fall against the Aussie peso, we are going to start seeing all those Indie horror movies being imported finally. It's taken two years but Night of the Living Dorks hit the DVD shelves this month to an apparent waiting market - my local seller of all things horror did their stock within a week. The really cool thing is the DVD is on par with the North American release, meaning someone has finally worked out local genre fans are getting irritated by the lack of extra goodness on region 4 releases. So I really wanted to see this movie after it raised its awareness in horror circles eighteen or so months ago. Was my wish granted or should I have kept my door firmly locked against this German Zombie Comedy?

Probably a movie for the teenagers in your household rather than one to put on for a beers, horror, and chips night

I guess the first thing you need to do with Dorks is decide which setup you want to run the movie in. I initially watched with the English language track turned on. Not bad, though it's noticeable that the voice overlays don't match what the actors are saying. I then decided on a second viewing with the German language version and English sub titles turned on: freaking hilarious in places, in my opinion the better option to go with. And for added "value for money" there's an alternative ending, which is actually an alternative, and not five minutes of "slightly" different. The DVD producers have your arse covered with this release; plenty of extras to play with, and a nice mix and match with the various setup options. Uhmm, okay guess I should talk about the movie some, huh?

Dorks can be viewed as a teen comedy with zombies, rather than a zombie movie which doesn't take itself seriously. Sort of a junior version of Shaun of the Dead without the all-out horror referencing. I actually don't mind movies like Revenge of the Nerds or Porkies, so was hip with Mathias Dinter's beat in Dorks, though at stages I was wondering why exactly he had Americanised his vision. Pretty much this movie could have been made in the US without losing anything in translation. I have no idea about the German school system, but would imagine it's not a dead ringer for the US scene; who knows, maybe it is. Considering the movie is German language, you have to wonder if Dinter missed the boat slightly with this US-styled approach. Hey, if you are a German teen, take some time out from your invasion of Poland and write in and tell me what you thought. Dang, there's another round of emails for the site owners to deal with, adding a big oops in here.

Dinter opens his movie with what has to be one of the best kick-arse prologues ever. A family are sitting down to dinner when an uninvited guest shows up. Yep, Night Of hits the opening runs on the zombie front. Just when you think someone isn't going to make dessert, it's some voodoo momma to the rescue. The chick is packing, and it's a flame thrower. Her line is classic, and the look on the zombie's face is worth the price of admission alone. From there on Dinter keeps the one-liners rolling, and half the fun in Dorks is all the throwaway lines being delivered by minor cast members. The humour quota in the movie is actually pretty good, though I would have liked at least some horror referencing. Not Dinter's outlook in Dorks, and that left me slightly disappointed to tell the truth.

The rest of the movie operates in pretty tried and true fashion. Three losers suddenly get popular, spend half the movie delighting in being the in-crowd, before working out it's not really worth it. Though in defence of Dinter, not a lot of teen comedy flicks involve a character having his wedding tackle falling off, and then being stapled back on. The only thing really missing is an apple pie scene, though the Director/Writer tries his best with the mom character keeping a running commentary on Philip's boner situation.

For horror fans this is pretty much in the basket of comedy. Yes there are zombies, yes one of them eats a few people, no there's not a whole lot of gore or tension being ladled onto that dinner roast. Zombie fans, as opposed to Rob Zombie fans, will at best be nonplussed with some of the plot devices, and at worst will throw the DVD in the bin. So don't dial in if you are expecting a horror movie, Dorks is pretty much teen comedy.

Full marks for Dinter having a pretty decent rugby game scene. Okay, Wallaby, All Black, Bokke, and Six Nations supporters will be shaking their heads, but I'm all for the game they play in heaven getting a jersey in a movie. Insert US Football if from North America and you'll get the vibe.

Behind the camera, director Dinter isn't exactly going to be shocked by an Oscar nomination. The dude is pretty much spot on in keeping things on the straight and narrow. There's nothing new being tried but there isn't a single scene that is cringeworthy from a technical aspect. Pretty much straight angles, with the Director at least avoiding lagging, and keeping things moving. The pace picks up when it needs to, nothing is surplus to requirements, and all in all a pretty decent effort on clearly a small budget. Some of the props are clearly props, but you get the feeling that was the look and feel Dinter was after rather than being a weakness.

Of course there are a few moments in the movie that make you wonder if Dinter missed the plot. The hot chick Philip is lusting after looked like Tori Spelling's backwoods cousin to me, and is the total evil bitch the losers at your college inherently hated. Not that I would know, and am sure Nancy Haywood ended up with five kids in a trailer park. Philip's next door neighbour, who clearly carries a candle for him, is smoking hot and actually has a personality. Don't know about you but if I was given the choice of dating either Tori Spelling or Jessica Alba in some alternative universe then Ms Spelling would be needing a date for Prom night. My wife doesn't read these reviews, right?

The sports coach was pretty much a dead ringer for the one in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. You know, the sadomasochistic homo; didn't enjoy that aspect of the Elm Street flick, and pretty much thought it was surplus to requirements in Dorks. Been there, seen that before; Dinter loses a point for an obvious rip he thought he would get away with.

Acting all round is pretty decent for a cheap Indie production. Tino Meews (Philip) is pretty spot on, acts and looks like a teen, and handles himself pretty well. Was digging the guy's work here. Manual Cortez (Wurst) pretty much stole every scene with his "stoner dude" character, in a sort of cut-price Paulie Shore performance. Thomas Schmieder (Konrad) was also pretty decent as the complete dork out to take revenge for past wrongs committed against him. Was dialling into his character, who really had his groove thing on in the zombie stakes. Collien Fernandes (Rebecca) was smoking hot, and emoted pretty well. She really kicked some goals and should be getting a phone call from Hollywood real soon now.

Of the minor characters, Hendrik Borgmann (Wolf) played the rich arsehole to perfection, Nadine Germann (Uschi) didn't quite hit the high notes with the "hot babe" role, and Sissi Perlinger (Frau Fleischhacker) was a riot with the best punch lines in the movies. Stand out though was Henry Grundler (Herr Fleischhaker) as the staid Germanic dude. He looked and acted just like what you would expect from a "bubbling Berliner".

T&A as expected, teen comedy, gets a run though in a minor capacity. Nadine Germann gets the girls out in one scene, and the arguments about whether silicon enhancement went down there will be long. Personally I'm on the side of the non-enhancement boobs, but what the heck, make your own call. Collien Fernandes prances around in her undies at one stage, and I was biting the side out of my beer can with those knickers. Smoking hot, hey maybe I'm on one of those theme things with this review and Collien. The ladies get three tight bums to be going on with.

Andreas Grimm did the score that was totally overshadowed by a fair swag of German pop/punk numbers. Another aspect of the movie that was par for the course in teen comedy, some fetching pop shite that you can bet your arse is pretty safe and adult approved in Volkswagen land.

Okay, I admit it, I had a lot of fun with Night of the Living Dorks. I was expecting pretty much a cheese ball movie and got more than I had hoped for. End of day, I was looking out for the movie, it finally got delivered by the Distributor, and the wait was worth it. Not the best horror/comedy I have ever seen in my life but it certainly took me back to my misspent teen years where this sort of comedy seemed to hit the cinemas every couple of weeks. Definitely on my "will watch again" list.

No box office figures to hand for Dorks as it wasn't distributed to the cinemas in any of the major markets, though I assume it would have got a cinema release in its native Germany. The movie is available in all regions on DVD, though you may have to check out a specialty store in order to track it down. As day follows night, Boredwood have of course announced a remake scheduled for 2010. Since the time frame is pretty much long-term, three years is a generation in the movie industry, this may simply be one of the Studios grabbing the rights in order to deprive anyone else having them. We'll keep you informed.

If you like teen comedy then I would recommend Night of the Living Dorks as being worth your time viewing. There's nothing new here but director Dinter doesn't drop the ball and managed to have me smiling in places. Besides, notch one up on your "foreign movie" chart to keep that snotty neighbour in their place, the German title is Nacht der Lebenden Loser, Die for those interested. Possibly the only zom-com you will see this year, go on have a ball with it (that's a funny but you need to have seen the movie).