''Otto; or, Up with Dead People'' is a 2008 Canadian and German

queer cinema "New queer cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in '' Sight & Sound'' magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s. It is also referred to as the "queer new ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

. The film was directed by

Bruce LaBruce Bruce LaBruce (born January 3, 1964) is a Canadian artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer, and underground director based in Toronto. Life and career LaBruce was born in Tiverton, Ontario. He has claimed both Justin Stewart and Bryan Bruce a ...

and stars Jey Crisfar, Marcel Schlutt, Nicholas Fox Ricciardi and Gio Black Peter.

Plot

A young gay man named Otto believes that he is a

zombie A zombie (Haitian French: ; ; Kikongo: ''zumbi'') is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folkl ...

and has hitched a ride to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and begins to explore the city. Otto is discovered by underground filmmaker Medea Yarn, who begins to make a

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

about him with the support of her girlfriend, Hella Bent, and her brother Adolf. Medea is trying to finish ''Up with Dead People'', the epic political- porno-

zombie movie A zombie film is a film genre. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror g ...

that she has been working on and convinces its star, Fritz Fritze, to allow the vulnerable Otto to stay in his guest bedroom. Otto discovers that he has a wallet that contains information about his past life, remembering details about his ex-boyfriend, Rudolf. He arranges to meet him at the schoolyard where they met. It becomes clear that Otto is human, but dealing with

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

- the

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

and visual background repeatedly feature discontinuous sounds and abrupt flashes of light. As Medea prepares to finish her film with a climactic gay zombie orgy, Otto is queerbashed. He makes his way back to Fritz' flat and the two of them make love. Medea finally ends her project with the fictionalised version of Otto burnt to non-existence. However, offscreen, Otto decides to leave Berlin and is last seen hitch-hiking out of the city.

Cast

* Jey Crisfar as Otto * Marcel Schlutt as Fritz Fritze * Nicholas Fox Ricciardi as Man in Hooded Sweatshirt * Keith Boehm as Man in a Suit and Hat * Olivia Barth as Woman in Black Burga * Christophe Chemin as Maximilian * Katharina Klewinghaus as Medea Yarn * Gio Black Peter as Rudolph * Bürger P.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack (released on CD and as a Limited Double LP on the ''Crippled Dick Hot Wax'' label) contains an eclectic selection of pieces by contemporary musicians. Among them:

Antony and the Johnsons Anohni and the Johnsons (previously known as Antony and the Johnsons) is a music ensemble originally based in New York City that presents the work of English singer-songwriter Anohni and her collaborators. The band released its self-titled de ...

, CocoRosie, The Homophones, Othon Mataragas and Ernesto Tomasini.

Reception

Critical reception for ''Otto; or Up with Dead People'' has been mixed. On ''

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

'' the film has an approval rating of 50% based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 5.00/10.

Awards

Merlinka festival The International Queer Film Festival Merlinka or Merlinka Festival is an annual LGBT-themed film festival which is annually organized in Belgrade (since 2009), Sarajevo (since 2013) and Podgorica (since 2014). The Belgrade edition is organized ...

International Queer Film Festival, Belgrade Serbia - Best Queer Film

References

External links

* * 2008 films German horror films 2000s German-language films English-language Canadian films Pornographic zombie films Films directed by Bruce LaBruce Canadian LGBTQ-related films Gay-related films German LGBTQ-related films 2008 LGBTQ-related films LGBTQ-related horror films Canadian zombie films 2000s Canadian films 2000s German films {{LGBT-film-stub