They Day They Came Back - 2005

The Day They Came Back centers around a conflict in trio—the government (headed by Paul Kratka of Friday the 13^th Part 3, 1982), a commando (Chico Mendez of Troma’s PDA Massacre, 2004), and the group of young people stuck between the two while zombies have risen and are taking over. These zombies stem from a private research laboratory in which there were experiments in DNA mutation, toxic testing, and blood cell incubation—all of which, the fan will agree, are acceptable ingredients in the zombie flick recipe.

The Day They Came Back is part of what you hope for in a zombie short. Director Scott Goldberg has obviously taken the time and care to make it look slick, which is so much more than what we can usually expect. The Day They Came Back has good cinematography and the atmosphere is brought forward and kept up throughout, aided by an original score by Brazilian composer Marinho Nobre. This is an especially nice touch that sets it apart from the usual thrash-metal score that accompanies low-budget zombie films.

It does, however, run into some problems, but they’re not really the kind that one with $3,000 and 22 minutes can fix. The Day They Came Back runs less like a short film and more like a long trailer. This is only really bothersome in the sense that you really wouldn’t mind watching the feature this could be, if only there was one. It would have been interesting to see what Goldberg could accomplish with a little more cash and a little more time.

Frankly, most other troubles are really too trivial to mention in the face of Goldberg’s accomplishment—which is having made well an intriguing and well shot little zombie flick that I believe that fans of the apocalypse zombie story will appreciate and enjoy quite a bit. Goldberg, who admits to being relatively new to the zombie sub-genre (his introduction was in early 2003 with Day of the Dead!), does better what a lot of people who claim to be zombie fans from birth have done. This is fun to see and will maybe lay to rest the one-upmanship that is often seen on message boards and websites.

According to Goldberg’s website, The Day They Came Back 2 is in pre-production for Fall of 2006. My own advice to him would be to save those dollars and use The Day They Came Back to acquire additional funding. Instead of a short sequel, give us this one again, but in feature form.

To watch it yourself, just click the pic below.

For a ZAGG interview with Scott Goldberg, click here.