Dead Memories is a 2012 short film, made by Gene Aversa in 2012, about a white-collar family-man type turned zombie. The film follows this man, credited as “Husband” (Rollin Blanton), as he had just inexplicably turned into a living-dead, flesh-eating monster coming home to his horrified “Wife” (Lyndsey Lantz).
After instinctively killing and devouring her, he shows signs of remorse or conflicting emotions and starts wandering around his house trying to make sense of things.
We are then treated to a back and forth of present-day scenes of Husband as a zombie, shot in black & white, as he is possibly trying to remember who he was or find out what happened. Then flashback scenes, shot in color, showing important or memorable moments in our protagonist’s life that might or might not be linked to his current situation.
“…he had just inexplicably turned into a living-dead, flesh-eating monster coming home to his horrified wife…”
On a technical level, Dead Memories is quite ambitious with its dual “before/after” approach alternating color and black-and-white scenes, but unfortunately, it greatly suffers from lack of professionalism as many scenes, especially those featuring Husband and Wife in the past, are clearly shot from wrong — or inadequate — angles, are out of focus and display some harsh substandard lighting.
Likewise, the film “after” sequences are silent yet complemented by a solid fitted score, but then, again, they are offset by the quite noticeable poor sound quality throughout the dialogue-heavy scenes in the “before” sequences.
So, this combination of things coupled with imperfect editing and other flaws are, sadly, enough to kill the movie spooky atmosphere or desired effect that could have materialized for keen viewers.
Going back to the story, one interpretation of the parallel between Husband’s state now, as a monster scaring its own child to death, and then, could be that in some way he was always a zombie; as before Husband was nothing else than the tedious cliché of a man working too hard to provide for his family. This metaphor of a kind seemed quite obvious from the beginning, and although it is doubtful Dead Memories strived to offer a deeper meaning.
Dead Memories (2012) Directed by Gene Aversa. Written by Gene Aversa, Andrew Santacruz, Diego Crespo, Jeremy Ornelas. Starring Rollin Blanton, Lyndsey Lantz.
1/10
