An admitted calling card project that received an enthusiastic blurb from Stephen King, who proclaimed 1993’s DRAG “the best short horror film I’ve seen in twenty years.” Completed in 1993, DRAG got its writer-director Mark Pavia a job directing the 1997 King adaptation THE NIGHT FLIER, although his career since then has been somewhat erratic.
Pavia’s earlier film work included the 1985 student short UNEXCUSED ABSENCE, shot by future Steven Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski. DRAG was made for a reported $25,000, and stunningly well filmed in sepia toned black and white by future AVATAR cinematographer Maruo Fiore (then Kaminski’s gaffer). Nowadays the film suffers somewhat from the fact that (by post WALKING DEAD standards) it’s no longer as fresh or unique as it once seemed, being yet another zombie apocalypse movie.
October 26, 1998, it seems, was “the day that it happened,” i.e. the day the dead started rising. The film takes place several years later, when a young woman named Victoria traverses this nightmarish landscape with only a rifle for company. She happens upon a young man—a young living man—and promptly shoots him for reasons that aren’t immediately made clear. She then drags the corpse with her through forests and over a pipe bridge, getting into skirmishes along the way with several zombies who want to devour the dead man’s flesh—they themselves, it seems, are dying of hunger, as there are so few mortals left alive for them to feed on.
Eventually Victoria manages to get the dead guy where she wants him: to her now-deserted house in the suburbs. There we finally learn what she was up to all along.
DRAG is among the most ambitious zombie films of the nineties, with a scope that belies the non-budget and a real sense of otherworldly desolation. Further pleasing elements include some audacious Sam Raimi-esque visual flourishes (a hurled rock POV, etc.) and a skillfully crafted narrative that begins in standard horror film fashion but gradually morphs into an eccentric but affecting—and unremittingly bleak—love story, with brief splashes of well-placed gore (this being a rare zombie film that doesn’t OD on the red sauce).
The acting, in common with most short films, could be bit a stronger overall, although Ellie Cahill essays the lead role quite ably—which, as it turns out, is enough to fuel a robust and ingenious piece of work that may not seem as cool as it once did, but fully retains its underlying excellence.
Vital Statistics
DRAG
Dementia Brothers Pictures/Nadjafilm Productions
Director: Mark Pavia
Producer: Daniel Curran, Jennifer Leigh Howe
Screenplay: Mark Pavia
Cinematography: Mauro Fiore
Editing: Daniel Curran
Cast: Ellie Cahill, Jack O’Donnell, Marty Sanderson