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| Images courtesy of American Genre Film Archive |
We’ve all seen zombie films and television shows to death by
this point, it is a mainstay of all things American horror related. The idea of a viral outbreak turning the
living and the dead into undead walking flesh eating acolytes lurking the
streets and alleyways is as old as cinema itself. But have you ever heard of little kids,
particularly a twelve-year-old girl named Emily Hagins, writing and directing a
violent and gory regional zombie film.
Such is the question posed by Hagins’ 2006 shot-on-video zombie outbreak
horror film Pathogen, in release on a collectible blu-ray disc through
Vinegar Syndrome and partner label AGFA or the American Genre Film Archive.
In a secret lab a new pathogen is being studied under a
microscope when the plate slide containing the disease is inadvertently thrown
in the trash only to further slip into the sewers, contaminating the community’s
water supply. Within hours, people
drinking the water start emitting nosebleeds followed by paleness and a gradually
building thirst for human flesh and blood.
All the while fourteen-year-old Dannie (Rose Kent-McGlew) starts
noticing people acting strangely including but not limited to her own family
and she recruits her closest classmates in an effort to fight off what is
turning into an epidemic of zombies young and old roaming the streets. Their only hope lies with a medical
researched named Sue (Rebecca Elliott) who knows the origin of the outbreak and
might be all that stands in the way of further spreading.
Shot on digital video by Emily Hagins herself on a budget of
$7,000 and completed over the course of a few years, Pathogen is a
remarkable feat for presenting the world of distinctly adult oriented horror
through the eyes of a teenager raised on scary movies. Though a bit rough around the edges here and
there, this Austin, Texas based short feature running just over an hour while
not as dangerous to watch as Raiders which involved kids remaking Raiders
of the Lost Ark does a lot with its preteen cast and crew. Aided by her parents who worked alongside the
shoot as well as starred in the film, Pathogen is unique in just how
many of its adult participants wanted to ensure the young Hagins’ vision became
realized onscreen. For ostensibly being
a video film with high-school kids running around, it received a lot of help
from the grown-ups.
Despite setbacks including but not limited to integral post-production
equipment being stolen, the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund stepped in around
2005 with a grant allowing her to replace lost supplies and alongside her film,
a documentary crew shooting Zombie Girl: The Movie chronicling the
production process also received financial support. Around 2006, the film was finally
completed. Replete with gory kills
including an eye being poked out with a sewing needle, an axe decapitation and
hordes of zombies swarming around young kids, Pathogen despite its
preteen réalisateur and cast members is surprisingly really violent. Though some of the effects are a bit rough
around the edges, you don’t see kids starring in let alone mounting film
productions of this sort. But it’s not
just splatter and guts strewn about the screen.
Hagins’ film is also surprisingly mature for her age at the time and says
a lot more about what’s on kids minds than most adult filmmakers dramatizing
children onscreen would think.
While the acting is amateurish and the quality of the filmmaking
isn’t stellar, nevertheless Pathogen for what its preteen
writer-director and cast and crew of kids and adults alike is kind of
astounding. There’s something in all of
us that wants to see budding talent, however young, succeed and it is always
exciting whenever a once-in-a-blue-moon child prodigy emerges onto the cinema
scene. Though initially just a local
production heard about through word of mouth and the help of the founder of Ain’t
It Cool News, AGFA and sublabel Bleeding Skull have given Pathogen a
wide blu-ray disc release so people across the world can have a chance to see
what a zombie film made by a teenager looks like. Also included on the disc are a short film by
Hagins called Party Killer and the feature length making-of documentary Zombie
Girl: The Movie. For basically being
a backyard home movie by a young girl, Pathogen is a mighty little feat!
--Andrew Kotwicki
