“Do you have a demonic side? Have we got a job for you!” claims the trailer for Arthur de Pins’s big screen adaption of his graphic novel, Zombillénium. The irony is that they probably don’t have a job for you. Why? Let’s just say you don’t have the right credentials. From the graphic novel’s teaser:
Francis von Bloodt, a vampire and good family man, operates the one-of-a-kind theme park Zombiellenium. But this unique amusement park doesn’t just hire anyone: mere mortals need not apply—only genuine werewolves, vampires, zombies, and other citizens from the undead community are employed.
This certainly sounds interesting in its own right, but the movie’s synopsis gives newcomers a deeper look into the darker aspects that will be showing up in the film.
In Zombillenium, the amusement terror park, monsters have the blues.
Not only zombies, vampires, werewolves and other demons are real monsters, whose souls belong to the devil forever, but they are tired of having to entertain consumerist, voyeuristic and selfish humans…
However, when little Lucy, a nice 7-year-old girl looking for her dad, is found by the skeleton Sirius and quickly adopted by all monsters, she will reveal their humanity and give them a good reason not to give up.
Souls sold to the devil? The negative impacts of consumerism? Those sound like pretty intense issues for what’s being advertised as a children’s movie, but I can completely get behind a kid’s film that’s willing to tackle said issues.
What do you mean kids can think critically about things? Preposterous! (Art by Arthur de Pins)
Any movie touted for children that doesn’t treat their younger audience as idiots is a blessing. And this isn’t me being selfish—I’m probably going to end up watching the movie for pleasure, along with a sizable portion of older viewers, regardless of the film’s intended audience. This is about raising standards of children’s media in general. The point of media should be to challenge our ideas while simultaneously bringing new ideas to light, an aspect that many companies seem to have forgotten—or are all too ready to ignore—when it comes to children. So if zombies are going to be taken once more from their tired and trite grave to get little ones thinking about important things à la ParaNorman, I’m ready to wholeheartedly support that.
Basically me.
(art by Kate Beaton)
Beyond my high hopes, the animation and artistic style for this film are beautiful. Lineless cell-shaded art is my weakness and ugh, everything is so fluid I might just shed a tear. I’m furious that I have to wait until August at the very earliest to see the film—as if I needed something else to add to my “I will sit here consumed with lust anticipation” list. However, I have heard nothing but good things concerning the source material, so I have high hopes that Zombillénium will be well worth the wait.
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