At the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival, the mockumentary film American Zombie written by Grace Lee and Rebecca Sonnenshine and directed by Grace Lee was received by a very enthusiastic audience. "We played South by Southwest next, and then festivals in San Francisco, LA, Hawaii, Sitges in Spain," says Grace Lee. "Apparently the reaction in Spain was really good as well, which surprised me since I feel like the references and humor are very American. On the other hand, the film is a kind of commentary on American culture right now and it's many deadening elements...maybe that is what they were responding to."

A story that places Grace and co-star John Solomon in Los Angeles with actual zombies who are part of society, American Zombie is about a documentary within a mockumentary; Grace and John are making a movie about how zombies live today, and the social repercussions that their dead-ness has for all of us. But I know what you're thinking; go ahead, replace "zombie" with "illegal immigrant" or "Communist" or just about any other minority title and you'll get the same result (only you won't have a cast dressed like zombies, so not as fun. Grace didn't miss an opportunity to use the zombie metaphor we're so used to in Romero's films. Only American Zombie seems to have something a little more..."better" than Romero's last two films. Director Grace Lee stops by Pretty/Scary to let us know why...

"There's not a lot of well-researched information about zombies out there, so they can serve as a sort of blank slate for whatever social or political meaning one wants to ascribe to them.  There are so many references we make to being zombies in our daily lives anyway. Whether we're sleep deprived from having to work too much, or because we're raising an infant, it's not much of a stretch to imagine a world where the living dead are amongst us. I think American society today is obsessed with identity, the politics of identity, identity crises. I wanted to make a film that looked at these issues and zombie identity didn't seem too far-fetched a lens through which we could tackle them."

Even Zombies are against the war, which has led to a sudden increase in the Zombie population.

Traditional zombie  fans will not get a raunch-o-rama gorefest (unlike the crappy P.O.S. Automaton Transfusion, also released this month on DVD UGH). Will they be turned off from the movie because it isn't straight horror?

"I like to call American Zombie a personal horror film." says Lee. "It combines elements of personal documentary, comedy and horror (although more of the horror is psychological than gore). I think most horror fans will be able to identify with my 'co-director' John, as he is constantly searching for the 'true' zombie. Horror fans looking for a new take on zombies won't be disappointed."

In the film, Grace Lee plays herself as a filmmaker making a documentary on the zombies. So how much of what we see if the real Grace, and how much is fake Grace because a camera is on her? Can Grace herself even tell?

"I guess only the people who really know me will be able to tell you for sure!" says Grace. " Like the Grace Lee in the film, I AM a maker of documentaries and I'm a bit obsessed with identity issues and documenting 'marginalized communities.' And John Solomon (my fellow director) is a good friend of mine from film school. I'd say we are both playing extreme versions of ourselves."

An avid scrapbooker, Judy desperately tries to assimilate amongst the living scrapbookers

With the recent surge in zombie horror movies, though most of them suck, I would think your distributors would have  hard time deciding whether this was a horror movie or not, and how to market it. Because they've kind of gone the opposite route of marketing it as a horror film. It's presented more as a social comedy/commentary. Do you think it's a difficult film to sell because it's not horror and it's not not horror?

"Cinema Libre (the distributor) got very excited about the movie when they saw it and have been really open to ideas about how to market it," she says.

"It is fitting that their company distributes a lot of social issue documentaries as well as independent feature films, so American Zombie fits quite well in their catalog. There might be some people out there who would be worried about how to market the film because it's not a straight horror/zombie film or even a 'mockumentary'. It's a film that can't quite be categorized which is what we think makes it original."

American Zombie has some really strong characters (some of them zombies) and it's easy to start caring about them and get into their stories. Grace and John spin an interesting story about a maligned group of people alienated because they can't help who they are physically. Even if horror film viewers despise it and social/political film fans think it's a joke, Grace is proud of her documentary.

Carnage, in tasteful moderation.

"I set out to make a movie that I wanted to see and I'm happy with the final piece. I think it builds on and refers to my previous work while at the same time takes me (and my audience) into new territory."

I think it was... Rob Zombie? who once said "Art is not safe". No, I'm not kidding, he had the gall to say that. But anyway, Grace, Art is not safe. Rob Zombie would not know.

www.americanzombie comes out in theaters 3/28/08! zombiemovie.com