Dead at the Box Office (2005) Indie Horror Movie Review

by Crypticpsych
(New Jersey)

Dead at the Box Office: A Charmingly Hilarious Indie NOTLD Homage

In Shawn Stutler’s indie zombie comedy, Dead at the Box Office, the director and cast springboard from the ideas and themes of the original Night of the Living Dead into a concept a bit more unique and a whole lot funnier that makes for a highly entertaining experience.

Night of the Living Dead is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a classic. Nothing shocking about that. In the more than 40 years since it was released, it’s become an inspiration for probably hundreds of other films on some level, mainstream or independent. Some are good, some are bad, some shameless rip-offs, but that’s the way with any genre or subgenre. Some, however, take the original core of NOTLD, add to it, evolve it, and end up producing something that, while still undeniably cribbing from NOTLD's playbook, also has its own identity. Such is the case with Dead at the Box Office.

The movie begins in the past. We see someone conducting a mad experiment on an imprisoned victim, though his apparently sinister motives (given the Nazi stock footage during the credits) are as yet unclear. He seems to realize he’s in trouble, though, and hides the evidence of his actions shortly before the authorities arrive and he commits suicide rather than be taken willingly. Meanwhile, in the present day, employees at an independent movie theater are getting ready for a midnight showing of NOTLD (it’s both public domain AND a convenient plot element! BONUS!). While the janitor, Curtis (Isaiah Robinson, who you might remember as Pockets from the movie Hook), and the assistant manager, Rich (John Paul Puglisi), clean the projection room, they stumble across an old movie reel in the ceiling panels called “Dr. Eisner’s Experiment”. They think that it’s an old grindhouse trailer and decide to play it in front of NOTLD for the audience. Elsewhere in the theater, the other employees gripe about having to work so late, and another movie the theater is showing (a brilliant fake b-movie called Blood of the Vampire featuring a hysterically over-the-top Lloyd Kaufman cameo, cheesy lines, and campy gore) plays out to a fairly underwhelmed audience. While the employees clean up afterward and prepare for the midnight movie, they talk about NOTLD itself with one particular person, Eric (Casey Kirkpatrick), basically filling the role of horror geek, extolling its virtues and quoting it, much to the annoyance of everyone else. While most of the characters kind of dismiss him as a general supergeek, this sequence is important because it feels like Eric isn’t just conveying his own opinion of the film, he’s conveying how the people who worked on it feel about it and how you the viewer probably do too.

Slowly, the theater fills up and the projectionist plays NOTLD with the “trailer” preceding it. Eric, because he loves the movie so much and is interested in the “trailer” goes in as well. Shortly after the movie begins, the audience undergoes a transformation into flesh-eating zombies. Eric leaves the theater first and attacks one his coworkers, Page (Elyse Soto). This, needless to say, scares the hell out of the rest of the employees and, as the rest of the zombies shuffle out of the theater (these are slow zombies, by the way) to devour Page, the team, panicking, splits up and hides in either a broom closet or their sleazy, tyrannical manager Mr. Gordon’s (Michael Allen Williams) office.

As the movie goes on, more people get chased and attacked by the zombies as Homeland Security surrounds the building to contain the situation at any cost. When our trapped heroes realize that they’re not only threatened by an army of the walking dead but also a battalion of government agents willing to kill them to keep secret the events of the evening, they must band together to figure out what caused this whole incident to happen and find a way to escape the building safely.

On the surface, Dead at the Box Office seems pretty by-the-numbers and standard in terms of stereotypical zombie plot. But what elevates this film above so many more unoriginal pieces are its self-aware respect for the genre itself and its liberal use of comedy, intentional and otherwise, to turn the film into a funny, wild ride for the audience. In terms of the reverence for the genre, it’s about little things: the Fangoria cup at the concession stand, the discussion of the value of Night of the Living Dead that sounds like it could come right out of a fan discussion at a convention or a fan trying to explain horror to the uninitiated, the zombie wearing the Return of the Living Dead shirt, the other zombie wearing the Rob Zombie shirt. It’s about how, when the group comes up with a plan for survival, part of it includes a self-referential discussion of how movies now have too much violence and should have more sex instead. It’s about the brilliant method by which they attempt to escape which is too original and hilarious for me to want to spoil at all but which also shows deep respect for the midnight movie crowd. It’s about the halfway decent gore given the apparently extremely low budget.

In terms of comedy, it’s about the visuals at times. For example, it appears that there was no dress code for the zombie extras since, besides those already mentioned, one has a shirt with a giant pizza hut logo on the back (product placement?) and another has crazy multicolored hair braids that seem like they might’ve been put on by a hairstylist with no hands. It’s also about the little spins on the zombie subgenre as you see the zombies interact with modern technology. One plays with a gumball machine and stares at its flashing lights before moving on to fiddle with a pay phone. Another tries to figure out how to work the soda machine behind the counter of the concession stand, initially scaring himself with the noise it makes and the liquid shooting out. It’s also about the elements of Night of the Living Dead and even Dawn of the Dead that are redone here in a new light. Shots of the zombies wandering around the concession stand call to mind the shots of the zombies in Dawn as they shuffle around the mall in a haze of consumerism. NOTLD had tension over leadership between Ben and Harry Cooper, Dead at the Box Office has tension over leadership between Curtis and his white boss. Where NOTLD's tension ended up later being linked to racial undercurrents in retrospect, Dead at the Box Office goes at that full bore through rampant racial humor as Curtis and Mr. Gordon verbally spar with hilarious results. Further comedy even comes from the DVD itself which contains 7 and a half minutes of bloopers that show everything from a series of yo’ mama jokes between Robinson and Williams to a deep throat contest (seriously) between the director and Robinson, to really bizarre ad-libbed sound tests, all seemingly brimming with that same atmosphere of fun that carried over into the movie.

For an independent movie, the acting is above average for many of the cast, particularly Isaiah Robinson, who basically steals the movie; Jennifer Popagain’s Molly, the assistant manager who has to take on a secondary leadership role and deal with Mr. Gordon’s sexual harassment; and Chris Fitzpatrick’s Michael who discovers the secret behind what’s going on.

The movie’s not perfect, though. At times the script suffers from what I call “overexplain-itis” where characters feel the need to blatantly state ideas and thoughts that are patently obvious to the audience. Also, while I liked Michael Allen Williams’ character, he seemed to play it a little too over-the-top, making Mr. Gordon a bit overbearingly annoying rather than just a character you loved to hate. Also, Melinda Lawson’s “Gayle” seems to have issues with line delivery, particularly in comparison with the tone of the other characters. But my biggest gripe has to be the last shot of the movie. My problem is that I saw the ending coming a mile away on some level and that it didn’t seem to make any sense in terms of the story. When NOTLD ended, it was a great gutshot surprise twist that kind of left the audience in shock. Here, the ending is also a bit out of nowhere and makes sense only in terms of what we’re seeing an homage to, but it doesn’t seem to mesh with the hysterically funny scene that comes before it and, to an extent, doesn’t even seem to fit the entire movie we’ve been watching. Retweaking that last 10-20 seconds of movie would have allowed me to probably praise this movie even more.

Dead at the Box Office is recommended for people who love horror comedies and the indie aesthetic and who can appreciate a movie with heart and soul. The film seems to have been a serious labor of love, worked on by a cast and crew who love the genre and had great general chemistry with each other. The special features on the DVD drive this point home when Lloyd Kaufman intros the DVD (a rarity given Troma itself had nothing to do with this) with a hysterical “Dead at the Box Office is an excellent film. I know it's excellent because I've never SEEN Dead at the Box Office”. If there’s one thing Mr. Kaufman has always championed, it’s the concept of having a vision and following through on that vision to make a form of art that you love. With Dead at the Box Office, Shawn Stutler and his cast succeeded.