TRIZOMBIE: Down Syndrome in the Apocalypse
Director Bob Colaers has created a conversation piece in the new Belgian film TRIZOMBIE (2024), premiering at Fantastic Fest this week in Austin, Texas. The film follows a group of people with Down Syndrome as they survive a zombie apocalypse where only people with trisomy 21, an extra twenty-first chromosome, are immune to the virus.
The film was originally a TV miniseries and has been cut together into a film with surprising success: It never feels as if you are watching a shortened version of a TV show. The story follows Luka (Jelle Palmaerts), Kelly (Gitte Wens), and George, aka The Slasher (Jason Van Laere), as they battle zombies to save Robin (Tineke Van Haute), who has recently left the care center to live in assisted living (essentially, independent living).
Robin is a huge fan of invented-for-the-film popstar Will Murray, who sings catchy pop Oktoberfest rhymes in the genre of “Schlager” songs. (The soundtrack is available on Spotify.) After saving Robin, the crew decides to head out to the singer’s theme park as a safe haven.
With excellent humor and a hilarious soundtrack, Trizombie hits all of the expected zombie tropes. I was struck by how the film pairs these obstacles as a metaphor for the obstacles people with Down Syndrome face when learning to live on their own. For example, the characters have to learn to get out of the care center safely by bypassing the security gate. They learn to drive a car, figure out that one should probably lock the front door, and seek out shelter and food. These are all things that can be tricky for people with mental disabilities, let alone in a disaster where survival is key.
Survival is not a given for people with Down Syndrome. In Belgium, where the film was made, 94% of doctors support after-birth abortion for children with disabilities. The rate of pregnancies terminated for Down Syndrome is around 90% there. Down Syndrome babies often have other health conditions, including congenital heart disease, conditions of the eye like cataracts, hearing loss, and hypothyroidism, to name a few (NIH).
Despite these facts, the film doesn’t sugar-coat the experiences of its characters, nor does it expect them to be perfect. It allows the characters to fail, to make mistakes, to curse, and to be flippant. Zombie films are not cutesy, and this film, while being heart-warming, is no different. Diehard zombie film fans will find a lot to enjoy here.
The performances in TRIZOMBIE are a lot of fun to watch. I particularly enjoyed Jason Van Laere, who plays the tropey, macho-machismo sledgehammer-wielding Slasher, who reminds me of a mix between Shaun of the Dead and Rambo. The cast is part of the Turnhout-based Theater Stap, a theatre company that serves the disabled community and that does not shy away from putting its actors in sometimes controversial productions. According to its website, the goal is “putting first the actors’ authenticity, increasing the visibility of disabled people and livening up broad discussions about theatre.”
All these positives aside, I wonder about the film’s premise. Does it fall into the “mystical disability” trope, where characters with disabilities are often magical plot devices? The characters here are “safe” because of their disability, inherently making them special. The film would, in my opinion, be just as successful without this status. Audiences would still be interested in seeing how people with a disability survive a zombie apocalypse. Does it diminish the stakes of the film if we know the characters can’t be killed? I, for one, think it would be cool to see zombies with disabilities — but perhaps the filmmakers thought it would be a step too far.
Nevertheless, Trizombie brings disability representation to a wider, zombie-loving audience, and that makes it worth a watch and worth talking about.
This film is part of our coverage of Fantastic Fest, 2024, taking place September 19–26, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Interstellar Flight Magazine publishes essays on what’s new in the world of speculative genres. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin, we need “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.” Visit our Patreon to join our fan community on Discord. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
[image error]TRIZOMBIE: Down Syndrome in the Apocalypse was originally published in Interstellar Flight Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
