Night of the Living Deb Synopsis: After a one night stand Deb wakes up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
After a drunken girls’ night out, eternally optimistic and bright-eyed Deb wakes up in the bed of Ryan Waverly, a cute guy she hit on at the bar the night before. Ryan deems the evening a mistake and struggles to get the cumbersome Deb out the door. Unfortunately for both, the streets are full of zombies and the two head for Ryan’s father’s mansion to figure out their next move.
I have never heard of Night of the Living Deb before, but thanks to a recommendation on Reddit, I decided to give it a watch. It has a cute title and I enjoy Maria Thayer, plus… zombies! So it seemed like a no brainer to watch this during the spooky season.
Blah. Regret! Almost from the get-go, Deb rankled me. She assumes a drink Ryan orders before they’ve even said hello to each other is meant for her. She overhears him on the phone with a friend, trying to figure out how to get her out of his apartment, and decides to stretch out on his bed and offer to hang out in his apartment while he goes to celebrate Labor Day with his family.
Deb reminded me of Mary Horowitz in All About Steve – a woman meant to be endearing in her awkwardness, but instead, it just comes across as exasperatingly clueless. As with Mary’s cutesy red rain boots, Deb has her cutesy clothes, too, designed to make her stand out from the rest of the cast. Thayer does far Too Much with this particular personality trait, to the point where Deb should have just been wearing a sandwich board that said “I’m so quirky!”
As I said before, I like Maria Thayer, but the acting in this movie was all-around dreadful. Michael Cassidy, who plays Ryan, is quite wooden despite his attempt at physical comedy. Syd Wilder overdoes it as Stacy, Ryan’s one-dimensional, shallow ex-fiance. Ray Wise is Night of the Living Deb’s saving grace, but even he can’t carry it to a mediocre result. We can blame it on the bad writing and/or bad direction, I guess. But the dialogue is absurd, and very few of the jokes actually land.
Night of the Living Deb does its very best imitation of Shaun of the Dead, but unfortunately fails at every level. It focuses more on romance than horror, which is fine with me if it’s two characters who are appealing and share chemistry, but Deb and Ryan are not and do not. I can see that this movie does have its fans, and that’s great, but I just found this to be an all-around disappointment. One star for its name, because despite my feelings on the movie, the name is a clever take on a classic zombie film.
Watched: 10/14/2024
Notable Song: I’m Right Here by Spencer Albee (feat. Kat Wright)
