Christopher Webster [Celluloid 05.29.09] post apocalyptic movie news short horror thriller drama



Newcomer Tim McClelland's first film may be a no-budget effort with all kinds of technical hiccups, but you have to admire his dedication to trying to bring something new to the PA zombie genre. In Fugure State, McClelland uses traditional zombie apocalypse tropes and combines them with the amnesia angle to create, as he says; "a mood of pervasive dread, not so much through the threat of physical violence as through the much more unsettling psychological horror of identity loss and the unreliability of memory and even reality itself."

About Fugue State
In "Fugue State," there occurs a sudden and widespread outbreak of insanity and violence among ordinary people, believed to be caused by an “Amnesia Plague” of unknown origin. While the most noticeable of the infected are those that resort to murder and cannibalism, there is in fact a great variety of symptoms experienced, including, but not limited to, inability to remember names and faces; inability to form new memories; inability to recall long term memory, coupled with a perceived ability to see the future; complete loss of speech and cognition; identity loss/confusion; and an apparent formation of a "gestalt mind."

The narrative is seen through the eyes of Luis, a security guard in downtown Albuquerque, and one of the uninfected, as he attempts to cope with the outbreak of the “Amnesia Plague” and the social disorder that ensues, followed by his westward journey through the desert (on foot) to find his wife, Cassandra. Upon reuniting with her, he is heartbroken to find that she doesn’t have any memory of him, an apparent victim of the "Plague." It is later revealed that she seems to have knowledge of future events, which she foresees the two of them sharing "until the end of time."

I don't think the trailer really does the amnesia concept justice. There's no hint at what's going on at all so it just looks like a typical low-budget zombie apocalypse film when obviously there's something more transcending going on here. The shot of the zombies coming over the crest of the hill is subtle and pretty great though and I hope McClelland's got more films up his sleeves.

Trailer after the break.


Fugue State

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