Reel Society

Tribeca 2010: Zonad

While checking the tweets on my Twitter page I came across a link to a review for Zonad. I decided to check it out since I had just watched it the other night. The review from www.ifc.com starts out with the following paragraph:

"Around midnight in front of the Village East Cinemas, a group of friends in front of me were saying they might be inspired to finish that documentary they've been kicking around after seeing something as "half-assed" as "Zonad" get into Tribeca."

This caught my eye because that group of friends was Ryan, myself and another friend of ours. Of course it is in the realm of possibility that another group of friends went to the same showing of Zonad and proceeded to discuss similar intentions upon exiting of the theater. This is quite unlikely, however, and at this point I'm still motivated to film something--anything--and get it into Tribeca next year.

The creators of Zonad attempted to make one of those "it's so bad it's good" movies--or at least I hope they did. They ended up with an "it's so bad it's still bad" movie. The premise involves two men who have escaped a center where they were being treated for alcohol abuse. One man is dressed as an alien and the other as a gorilla. The man dressed as an alien enters the small village of Ballymoran and, of course, everyone is instantly convinced he's an intergalactic alien.

Ballymoran is full of morons. Zonad takes residence with a family and continuously gains favor with them all the while, "eating them out of house and home like a parasite" according to one of the few members of Ballymoran with any brains. Eventually Zonad becomes a God-like figure in the town. He gets women, free beer and they even make a statue in his honor. Conflict arises only after the man dressed in a gorilla suit arrives and decides he wants his piece of the pie. He puts on blue spandex and calls himself Bonad. Of course the village ain't big enough for the both of them.

If you've read this far you might as well go watch the movie. It isn't long and does have its funny moments--if you are willing to leave logic at the door. Zonad is shot as a 50's film both in terms of picture and acting. The actors ham it up like the days of old and they also portray characters much younger than themselves. The film is also surprisingly crude. There are multiple scenes of a police officer pissing on people.

All in all this film is a poor production that a bunch of film school students could have made for less of a budget. If Zonad is lucky he will find himself being criticized and lampooned by the Mystery Science Theater guys one day. The hope of that alone is worth one star out of five.

1/5

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