"A Father's Day" by ALTER

“A Father’s Day” A short film by ALTER 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzdWLiaY7yo&has_verified=1

Introduction

The film “A Father’s Day” was created and released by “ALTER”, a Youtube channel creating short horror films mostly having thriller, dark comedy, mystery, psychological thriller, dark fantasy, and  parallel universes as genres, last June 15, 2019, just 6 days before Fathers’ Day, which is very timely.

Summary

The story is about a reunion of a father and daughter duo as zombies trying to live in a zombie apocalypse; or maybe it's more than that?

Analysis

The Exposition

The film begins with a young female zombie who has happened to come across a group of zombies eating a corpse. She came closer, hoping to get a share, but most of the zombies in the group refused to give her some food.
This portion of the film introduces zombies as selfish creatures having the brain of a pig, caring about merely their physical needs.

Luckily, one of the zombies, who happened to be an adult male, who was eating the corpse, looks at the young female zombie intently. After a few seconds, the zombie which is an adult male, tore a part from the corpse and gave it to the young female zombie. She took a bite, which then was immediately taken from her by the other zombies who were eating the corpse. The male zombie got furious and roared at the other zombies eating the corpse, and the anger was reciprocated by the other zombies. Although there was still a lot of guts left for him to eat with the others, he decided to leave. The young female zombie looked at him as he did so.
This scene introduces the main characters of the story, the young female zombie, and the male zombie, which is specifically, an adult male. The scene showed that some zombies may be selfless after all, or maybe, some zombies have conscience. It shows that zombies still remember their life as humans- the people they were with, the emotions they felt, their morals and principles, and the schema that they had about things.

The second scene showed a skeleton in a severely damaged car. Through the car’s windows, the audience can see that the male zombie was walking slowly, and behind him, was the young female zombie. This portion of the film shows that the zombies are trying to survive in a zombie apocalypse. The skeleton in the car wouldn't be a skeleton for such a short amount of time if it weren't for the zombies who fed on its flesh. The settings of the film did not look that dilapidated- it just looked abandoned and destroyed by hoards of zombies.

Both of them went to a playground, wherein the male zombie saw a hand that was detached from its body, still holding on to a monkey bar. He took it and gave it to the young female zombie. She reluctantly accepted the detached hand and licked it once; she was not appetized. She licked it twice hoping she would like it, but unfortunately, she didn’t like the taste of it, thus, giving it back to the male zombie, refusing his offer. Without taking the detached hand from the young female zombie, he didn’t hesitate to take a bite off of it, and he was delighted. This scene finally introduces the father and daughter duo. The father is the male zombie and the daughter is the young female zombie. The father is concerned that his daughter has not eaten enough, so he takes the detached hand that he saw and offered it to her in a heartbeat; although zombies don't have functioning hearts, these two might have! Continuing, the daughter didn't like the taste of the food, so she gave it back to her father, even if she already licked it. The father wasn't disgusted at all, apart from the fact that they're zombies- but they seemed so comfortable with each other. He even took a bite off the detached hand from his daughter's hand.

An old female zombie walked up to the playground where they were, and looked surprised. She saw the male zombie rotating the playground roundabout for the young female zombie who was sitting in it. Another zombie passed by, this time, holding a corpse’s head, and looked just as confused as the old female zombie. They couldn't believe the sight they saw. The male zombie did not mind being seen, and continued to rotate the playground roundabout for the young female zombie. After a few moments, the two zombie spectators decided to go on about their day and left. The young female girl thoroughly enjoyed the playground roundabout and looked at the sky in relaxation. This scene shows that zombies don't really care about emotions or relationships; they only care about their physical needs, which is why the zombie spectators went about their day, maybe about to feast on the human head that they've got; the Father and the daughter zombie duo cares about these things though, and they continued to enjoy their time together relaxing on a playground. In this part, ironic to the first few paragraphs written, the father and daughter zombie duo are now trying to live in a zombie apocalypse instead of surviving.

Rising Action

A few moments later, the male zombie and the young female zombie decided to go to the swing. The male zombie gladly pushed her repeatedly, in which the young female zombie enjoyed. A few pushes after, she got off the swing, and so the male zombie got surprised why she disappeared. He looked further in front of him and saw the young female zombie hurt herself, and had an open fracture in her arm. The male zombie quickly goes up to her, worried, and gently took her arm. He knew what has to be done, and it could be painful; thus, he looks at the young female zombie first, then pushed the bone back in the arm gently. She then looks at him, and noticed his face injuries. She feels it gently using the back of her hand, and looks at him with great concern and sadness. Both of the characters put their heads together, as the camera pans behind a barricade, where a stuffed toy was located. This scene is the rising action of the film for it shows a bit of conflict, but then shows how the characters deal with the situation. This portion confirms that these two characters aren't ordinary zombies- they have emotions, and they were becoming more human, maybe even more human that they were before. The world has been moving fast, the economy has to flow, the workforce has to work, and the children has their gadgets to play with. Bonding time with family members are rare, and humans cared more about themselves. In comparison to these two zombies, they started to be more human than the humans that are in the present day.

Climax

In the next scene, it showed that the young female zombie was walking with the male zombie. An human, which was an adult male, was presented in the scene, but he wasn't seen by the two zombies. He took this opportunity to take his aim. At first he aimed at the young female zombie, but realizes that his target would better be at the male zombie. This scene shows that humans are very defensive. They unconsciously destroy things indirectly. It is understandable that zombies are studied to be evil creatures who kill humans for their guts for food, and obviously, humans would want to kill zombies so that they can survive.

Falling Action

The two zombies were enjoying their time together, until a bullet went through the male zombie's chest. After being shot, he immediately looks at the young female zombie and reaches out to her. She saw the sight, and was paralyzed by it,and stood like a statue. The male zombie fell along with the stuffed toy she was holding previously. She immediately stood in front of the male zombie and repeatedly screamed in anger and pain at the male human taking aim. There is a bit of symbolism in this part. The stuffed toy somehow represents the father. Children are very fond of toys and it makes them happy- and the situation is the same for this girl. The stuffed toy represents the father since the father is the source of happiness for the girl, and when the stuffed toy fell out of her hand, the father fell with it. Anger and pain was heard in the voice of the girl screaming at the human who shot her father, and at that point, she didn't care about herself. She stood in front where her father laid and stood her ground that if the human was going to kill her father, he had to go through her first.The bravery of the daughter stemmed from the love that she had for her father. He took care of her and made her happy, and maybe, she thought that this sacrifice would suffice for the things he did for her, or maybe, she couldn't stand the thought of not having anyone by her side- or maybe, she simple doesn't want her father to die, because he makes her happy, and he's precious to her.

Resolution

The male human was ready to pull the trigger to shoot the young female girl, until a young female human told his arm, signaling him not to do so. The male zombie was able to stand up at this moment, and he growled at the two humans with the female zombie, and the film ends there. However, philosophy argues that every creature can feel pain and happiness, and it is obvious that the zombie feels that too. If humans don't deserve pain, then zombies shouldn't deserve pain either. If humans deserve to be happy, then zombies deserve to be happy. This film shed a light into a new perspective of how people see zombies, that they shouldn't be seen as having a lower moral value than humans do. Because of the emotions and movement in this film, it can be comparable to the movie "Warm Bodies" by Isaac Marion, except with a father and daughter duo that are both zombies.

Opinions and Conclusion

There obviously is a lack of language in the film, but that gave the audience an opportunity to think about a lot of interpretations for the film. The moral of the story in summary is that, humans shouldn't be defensive all the time; sometimes, humans should simply be humans again. Regarding the film itself, the actors were incredible, and the sound effects and special effects were outstanding. The writer of this review would rate the movie 10/10.