Director: Luchina Fisher
Writers: Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes
Before I get started, I’d like to point out that Steven Barnes has writing credits for The Twilight Zone, The Real Ghostbusters, The Outer Limits, Stargate SG-1, Baywatch and Andromeda. That’s a terrific collection of shows.
Danger Word is based on “Devil’s Wake”, a YA novel written by Due and Barnes. I had never actually heard of the book, but, after reading about it, it looks like something I would love. This short film is an episode from the book, but it works really well as a standalone story.
The story revolves around Joe (the always terrific Frankie Faison) and his 13-year-old granddaughter Kendra (Saoirse Scott), trying to survive during a zombie apocalypse. Over the course of the 19 minutes we spend with them, we get to know them as characters, and we also get to see the depth of their relationship. For such a short period of time, I really felt like I got to know them well, and cared deeply about the both of them (this is in stark contrast to my recent review on Godzilla).
We also got to know a little bit about these specific zombies. There are different classes of zombies: slow and fast. We find out that the more recently turned zombies are fast (and seem to retain at least some of their brain functions), and they get slower the longer they’re dead. A sliding scale of quickness.
I could spend more time talking about this, but I don’t want to ruin anything.
As I mentioned above, this clocks in at a little less than 19 minutes, and it’s well worth your time to check out. It’s a really cool short film, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.
You can find Danger Word through their website, on Facebook, or on Twitter.