Plaga zombie: zona mutante: revolución tóxica

IN 1997, A GROUP OF TEENAGERS FROM HAEDO

IN THE WESTERN AREA OF THE BUENOS AIRES SUBURBS,

MADE THE FIRST LIVING DEAD MOVIE IN ARGENTINA.

THIS IS THEIR EPIC AND BLOODY STORY.

I see it and say “man, we were boys having fun, making movies...

We weren't even 20, and we were doing that. So strange!”

We started Plaga in the middle of 4th year,

and in 5th year, everyone we met in the senior trip became zombies.

For me, it was a movie as the ones we saw in Hollywood.

Although we were 17, we were serious and fully committed.

Why aren't any more home-made movies as Plaga Zombie,

which is ok, a movie with music and everything,

but you can tell it's done in a house,

with people wearing their own clothes.

At some point, our big dream

was seeing Plaga Zombie among other VHS.

That was our dream:

Being part of those movies we used to see.

A MILLION ZOMBIES

THE PLAGA ZOMBIE STORY

COPYRIGHT MMXXI. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

A documentary by Nicanor Loreti & Camilo de Cabo.

With Pablo we met when we were two in a daycare, a kind of nursery.

Called Seo'ora Luna, in Haedo.

Our parents took us there and we became friends.

Then, we did the kindergarten together.

We were close, we drew

and were really noisy.

They say we did what the other one was doing.

After the kindergarten, we remained friends forever.

We must have asked our parents to go to Pablo's

or Hernán's, whatever.

And we met to play.

We drew.

We would spend the afternoon drawing and eating cookies.

When computers appeared, the Commodore 128,

we started drawing with it, making animated films.

We understood what animation was when we were around 10.

We recorded Popeye's cartoons from the TV in VHS

and then we analyzed how they had animated each thing.

They did a magazine, I helped them. They did radio shows

recorded in a cassette.

Later on...

my brother Diego was dating a girl who had a VHS camera.

That was something new. It was like "Wow!",

being able to shoot and see the result instantly,

making short movies.

When he was around 11,

Pablo wins a motorcycle

in a raffle,

and decides to exchange it for a camera.

So he trades it for a Panasonic.

A semiprofessional VHS camera.

It was good, because it included a title maker,

so we could add titles at the beginning and the end

of the short films, and we could replace the music.

Once we had the camera, we started making more short films.

First of all, we liked to use it, seeing through the viewer,

making tests with the iris, the light, the focus.

And that gave us ideas of things to record.

We've always been real fans

of the mainstream product.

So, if you make a magazine it has a publishing house.

It has the credits about the team, the text about where it was printed.

To add all that information to the fanzine we were making,

so that it looked professional, we made a publishing house up.

We did the same with the short films,

and it was Farsa Estudios, or Farsa...

Farsa Productions appeared from the beginning.

There was obviously always a friend from school that joined us

in our adventures.

And we met people in different places.

In fact, the first one I met was Hernán

and our relationship was like any kid's friendship,

playing with He-Man dolls, etc.

I met Pablo in 7th grade,

just before secondary school.

And I went to Pablo's one day, and Hernán showed up.

And it was like, "Hernán, Pablo, great!"

"Let's make short movies."

And, of course, the big guy had arrived.

I was always big size, so they said: You'll be the bad guy.”

I tricked so many idiots today. Amazing!

Dance! Dance!

- Dance! - What are you doing, boy?

What are you doing?

Dance! Dance!

Well, I...

since I am Spanish, from Asturias...

I came to Argentina at the early 90s.

December 1990.

And, at the School 8 in Haedo,

where I finished the primary school, only 7th grade

the adaptation was really hard,

and I had to fight three or four times

because they told me a couple of things.

And I remember that the day I met Pablo,

I fought a boy, and ended up making a short film at his house.

I was like the king of nerds. You had the most popular ones,

and I had my group of nerds, who saw movies, videogames.

And Walter first went with the band of the coolest ones,

but one day, he had a fight with another classmate,

Roman Waldoni,

and since I kind of hated him,

I defended Walter and became friends,

like in Back to the Future.

I remember the whole school was cheering on the other one.

I thought: “What is this nightmare?”

And, since Pablo hated this guy,

was the only one on my side. That's how I met him.

Exterminate him!

We copied what we saw on TV.

We used to watch movies in, say, Super-action Saturdays,

and they used a neutral language: “Hey, Bill, you know,

you have to go to your brother's...

So we thought that was...

the correct way of sending a message.

Listen, Ray, I don't want you to kill any more people.

I've heard you killed many people and I didn't know it, Ray.

And that makes me really angry.

Because that made it credible.

There wasn't a great culture of local movies in Spanish,

with horror, science fiction stories.

So the neutral tone was a way of getting in the mood,

belonging in that world.

The ideas for the movies were based on what we were wearing,

If we were all in black, Let's play ninjas!

We put a cloth here, and we created something with that.

Optimizing our resources, in a very natural way.

What do feelings have?

They used everything they had at hand to film.

They would call any guy, anyone, not even an actor,

anyone who was eager to get involved

became part of Farsa to do things

and had some kind of role, based on what they were able or wanted to do.

They were, precisely, kids

proposing ideas constantly,

and saying: “No, wait, wait!” One of them always shouted,

suggested an idea, we all laughed,

and improved that idea.

Or, let's say, we opposed to it.

The idea was always there

and we would create around it.

You are finally here.

During the 90s, you could edit with two VCRS connected,

you put REC in one and PLAY in the other,

and shoot one scene after another.

Or in the same camera.

You shoot one scene, rewind,

go back exactly where it would end, and shoot the next scene.

In the first short movies, we did the edition with the camera.

We were kids playing, and we were lucky to record our games.

It was our way of escaping.

Instead of playing football as kids do

when they are 13 or 14 years old,

we got together to do short movies.

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! How are you?

Here we are, once again, to receive together

the best Farsa Academy Awards celebrities.

The fact of ending up in Haedo in 1990,

meeting Pablo and his brother Diego,

who would download from Akira to the Eternauta.

It's like, I couldn't be more grateful.

Haedo was our place,

the blocks we knew.

I lived two blocks away from Pablo.

It was always a residential area, with single-story houses.

A small business area that still has 3 blocks.

Haedo has always been our home, the city itself.

So we always felt comfortable

filming on the street, anywhere.

We filmed a lot at Pablo's house, on the street, the sidewalk.

Pablo seemed to be a kind of millionaire,

because he lived in a big house in Haedo.

In Spain, the people who lived in a house like that were rich.

Pablo had a basement with tools,

his brother was a cartoonist.

So for me, it was a house with many stimuli.

I feel part of that first stage,

as a helper, a supporter,

being there with the boys.

There was no Internet.

So you were isolated in a kind of Springfield with your friends.

The only way to express yourself back then was doing this kind of things.

Pablo Parés, for The invisible man.

VHS was everything.

It was basically going to the video store

and see everything that was available.

We were fans of seeing movies and staying up late watching them.

We saw Acción Mutante for the first time

in a VHS that Walter's grandma brought from Spain.

And, for us, seeing Acci-n Mutante was like.

“Oh my God, I can't believe I am watching this

in Spanish, our language! I am seeing a movie..."

We couldn't believe it.

One day I went to a video store inside a Shell gas station,

and I saw a cover, kind of Robert Crumb style.

"What the hell is this?" It was Bad Taste.

We took it home, and the guys flipped out.

The stranger, the better.