ZERO STARS/****
starring Cal Robertson, Andre Keuck, Serataren Adragna , Melissa Banks
written by Ben Coccio & Christopher Coccio
directed by Ben Coccio
by Walter Chaw Obviously inspired by the discovery of videotapes made by Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold, the grating and amateurish Zero Day is sensationalistic and prurient, offering nothing in the way of insight while falling uncomfortably into the exploitation camp. Shot on digital video in a style popularized by The Blair Witch Project, the picture makes weak-kneed attempts to address the media-makes-killers controversy, hoping to find poignancy in the pointed incineration of CDs, DVDs, and Lord of the Flies. (Points for not zooming in on a copy of Catcher in the Rye, but it occurs to me that if they really wanted to be clever, they'd have burned a copy of Book of Ruth or some other similarly brain-sucking pod product of Oprah's Book Club.) Its performances horrible and obviously improvised, Zero Day gives no explanation for the obvious editing and dated title cards of its "found footage" as it searches in vain for something chilling in extended scenes of the née Kleibold/Harris musing about the beauty of a dying campfire. Ending with 15 minutes of mocked-up footage from school surveillance cameras as our two teen anti-heroes rampage through suspiciously familiar halls, Zero Day is exactly the kind of broad, simple-minded exploration of the root causes of violence that its protagonists purport to despise.
