City of Rott is a full-length animated zombie movie - yup, you heard right. Disney, however, it ain't.
Imagine Peter Jackson's splatterfest Braindead, only in cartoon form, and with twice the gore, and you are halfway to what City of Rott is dealing to us horror fiends.
Rott City is an American metropolis that has been wiped out by a zombie infestation of biblical proportions. Hordes (and I mean HORDES)of undead stagger around Romero style, searching for the few survivors eking out a meager existence.
Fred is a gnarly old dude, who just wants to find a new pair of slippers. His companion is his trusty walker, which talks to him. Or more precisely, it bitches at him a lot, warns him of zombie attackers, and acts as a lethal weapon against any ghoul who dares to mess with Fred.
This is Fred's story.Poor guy just wants some quality footwear and to be left alone.
City of Rott is funny, trippy and very, very, gory. The animation is kind of basic, almost South Park style in its execution. It's the artwork itself that is incredibly striking - uniquely stylised and full of over-saturated colours and grotesque creations. It's unlike anything I've seen before, and all the better for it.
Rott is a whole bunch of fun. The humour is sublimely weird, and the setup strangely fresh in such a tired genre. The holocaust has been caused by nasty little parasitic worms, that arrive one day in rainfall. They kill the host, reanimate them, then set them on a search for more food to sustain them. There turns out to be more than one type of worm, which leads to an interesting plot twist.
The movie has its problems. Its 70 minute runtime suffers from padding and repetition, and it has more false endings than Lord of the Rings. The ultimate conclusion, in fact quite a bit of the 'third act', went over my head. Maybe a second viewing will clear things up.
Ultimateley, though,City of Rott is a triumph of sheer gruey imagination, and was put together pretty much by one guy. I hope we get to see more.
