Otto; Or, Up With Dead People

Gay director Bruce La Bruce, demon seed of Pasolini and Romero, predicts that there is going to be a wave of gay zombie movies. Always ahead of the artsy porn curve (like he was with say "Hustler White,") he gets the balls rolling with Otto: Or Up With Dead People, just released on DVD by Strand.

"Otto" stalked the gay film festival circuit last year for those brave enough for explicit zombie on zombie action, with cannibalism and necrophilia thrown in just for funsies.

La Bruce, whose cult following never softens, continues tracks in "Otto" that he started with unhinged features like "Super 8 ?" and "The Raspberry Reich." He may be epically depraved, but that doesn't stand in his way as a stylish and satiric auteur. His subtext is always homophobia, not to mention a mocking of prurience in American filmmaking,

In many ways, "Otto" is La Bruce's most reined-in and extravagant film. Even if Otto (played lovingly and gruesomely by Jey Crisfar) lapses into sexual blood feasts, he is a Byronic figure, driven to recover his emotions, if not his entrails. Otto gets typecast by filmmaker Medea (Katrina Klewinghaus), who rails against capitalism while she films zombie skinhead orgies.

A big DVD bonus is La Bruce's commentary track. He proves a consummate filmmaker as he talks about his set-ups, actors and working on low budgets. "Otto," he explains, is a summing-up of all his previous work and his homages from after school specials to Goddard. How many filmmakers can calmly explain how they work low-budget, but still manage to make disembowelments ungratuitous?

LaBruce, who describes himself as "the reluctant pornographer," tells us that, "This is my tiny Salo homage. Most of these guys are porn stars. I like this kind of very straightforward idea of equating porn with meat. It seems so appropriate."

For theater of blood fans, the already-infamous b&w film "Zombie Orgy" (with an elegant ballad score) is shown in its color version in the deleted scene section of the DVD. You have to wonder what was really cut.