Oscilloscope Laboratories Tabs Nov. 17 For The Domestic DVD And Blu-ray Debut Of Writer/Director Makoto Nagahisa's We Are Little Zombies

There they were, in the dark, laughing, but still serious … laser-focused.   It was January of 2019, the Sundance Film Festival and those in the audience were not all just festival-goers out to have a good time, some in audience were working … and losing their collective minds in the process.

It used to be that the Cannes Film Festival was the premiere acquisition market, where films were screened, and film-buyers made deals.   It got old, stale and too expensive, Sundance and SXSW moved in and surpassed Cannes as the place to be, the place to see exciting new films and make deals.

At this January of 2019 premiere of Japanese writer/director Makoto Nagahisa’s We are Little Zombies were the Oscilloscope Laboratories team and they liked what they saw.   A twisted, weird, dark comedy — not a zombie movie — a film that could not be shoved into any particular category.   The Oscilloscope team banked the visceral experience and the Dentsu/Robot Communications production continued on its merry way with a full-year of festival screenings.

News arrived one-year later that Oscilloscope had acquired We are Little Zombies for distribution in the domestic market and plans were put in motion to launch the film theatrically.   Of course, those plans got sidetracked when the Covid-19 pandemic shuddered theatres … it became a wait and see game.  

That changed this past week as Oscilloscope Laboratories has selected Nov. 17 as the street date for both DVD and Blu-ray editions of We are Little Zombies.   Domestic audiences will finally get to see and savor the film that drove the Oscilloscope folks wild nearly two years ago.

We are introduced to Hikari (Keita Ninomiya) at a crematorium, where his parents — who died in a bus crash — are being incinerated and he, we learn, is now an orphan.   There he meets Takemura (Mondo Okumura), whose parents killed themselves and there too is the chubby Ishi (Satoshi Mizuno), who lost his parents in a “gas explosion.”    And finally, we meet Ikuko (Sena Nakajima), whose reason to bid farewell are a little sketchy, something about a serial killer or something.  

In any case, our four young teen protagonists are now orphans.   Instead of shuffling off to foster homes or those of distant relatives, they decide to form a band and make their way in the world as musicians.  

Their music is a blend of hallucinogenic visuals played to the sounds of “vintage” video games — imagine the sounds of Pac Man “wakka wakka” being played at a fever-pitch volume.   Against this backdrop of “Little Zombie” music is their stories and it is not pretty … they are scared, dysfunctional childen, but they are on a mission.

Of course, they become successful — which says quite a bit about Japanese culture, which has made Hentai an artform, baseball games can last five hours, food is sensual and people can feel alone and isolated in a crowded city.   They, these “Little Zombies” are off-putting and their music is load and annoying, which bakes in both their rise and eventual fall.   But the ride, the visceral experience, makes Makoto Nagahisa’s We are Little Zombies a trip on the wild and weird side well worth taking.

We are Little Zombies is presented in Japanese with English subtitles and features the music video titled “We are Little Zombies” as a bonus.