One of the weird things about Horrorfest 2006 was the lack of zombies. With nine movies’ worth of material, how do you not have a zombie outbreak? There were slashers and vampires, as well as ghosts a-plenty, and let’s face it, there aren’t all that many scenarios left after you’ve gone through such a list. But I guess the important part is that there was a zombie movie this year, so I’ll just focus on that.

I think it’s fair to say that Mulberry Street was the most technically impressive film of the weekend. Shot on grainy color film stock, usually with a video camera look, it had the same documentary-style feel to it that helped to make Night of the Living Dead so famous. And the acting was every bit as solid as anything I saw in Borderland the night before. Other than an odd choice for the premise, everything about it was done right.

In short, the rats in New York City start biting people, for no apparent source cause. And those who are bitten become first ill, then insane and violent, and eventually start to, you know, eat other people. Who, if only bitten without dying, turn into zombies themselves. Unfortunately, they turn into zombies who look like rats, also with no real explanation. It doesn’t really affect the movie in any way, which is good; it’s just an inexplicable stylistic choice that, for me, failed. Like I said, though, I can let one odd premise choice slide. All that said, the movie is actually about several people in a tenement on Mulberry Street downtown affected by these goings-on, including a retired boxer, his daughter returning from the war, a single bartender and her teenage son.

Despite these victims being neighbors instead of strangers, the comparisons to Romero’s original classic are inevitable. It has the feel that so few zombie movies have anymore, of that first whiff of panic and the turning tide from optimism into determination in the face of hopelessness, and then into despair. In point of fact, I still like Night of the Living Dead better, by virtue of the fact that Mulberry Street is a little too bleak for my tastes. It hits all of the notes right, though; if you’re looking for a powerful movie about people trying to make it through adversity, you could do a lot worse. (To a larger extent than is explainable by these all being horror movies, that’s an ongoing theme throughout the weekend’s films.)