After Dark 2007: Mulberry Street

Mulberry Street

“By the numbers” was probably the watchword for Day 2. Our second film, Mulberry Street, was a by-the-numbers modern zombie flick, only instead of zombies/ghouls, we have wererats.

But that description doesn't really do this film justice. It excels in some ways and falls down in some others. First of all, this film is New York. Lower East Side, Bowery-type New York City. I'm no expert on the city, but it felt completely authentic to me.

The characters are drawn wonderfully, too. Co-writer Nick Damici plays ex-boxer Clutch, single father to war vet, the striking Kim Blair. The feminine touch in the parenting done by Coco (Ron Brice) a gay black man with feelings for Clutch, and no hidden resentment toward aging beauty queen Kay (Bo Corre). We have a cranky superintendent, a Vietnam war vet, an Anzio(!) war vet, and just buckets of local character.

This stuff is mostly lightly touched upon as the story unfolds of Manhattanites being infected by rats with a disease that turns them into flesh-hungry were-rats. That's the good.

It's so clearly New York, that the introduction in the middle of a long montage accompanied by a blaring folksy tribute to New York makes you want to say, “OK! We get it! It's New York! It's weird!”

But the thing that really sinks this film is its lack of focus. It's sort of 28 Days Later in the Bowery. The rat-people are killing people for food, but in the worst tradition of the zombie flick, they're also turning them into rat people, and only the needs of the plot determine who gets what treatment.

It's really a shame, too. This is a movie you just want to be better. Apparently, it was made on $60,000, but I didn't actually see that as it's weakness. In fact, the video is made deliberately grainy and cheap looking to considerable effect.

It just needed a tighter plot.