Clay Tatum, Whitmer Thomas, DeMorge Brown
A collaboration between filmmakers, comedians and musicians Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas, The Civil Dead is a sweet, shaggy buddy comedy with an existentialist bent.
A schlubby, lackadaisical freelance photographer, Clay (Tatum) enjoys a mundane life with his artist wife Whitney (Whitney Weir) in Los Angeles. Before Whitney goes away on a work trip, she urges her creatively stagnant husband to go out and be productive, and while doing so, Clay happens upon an old friend, Whit (Thomas), who’s now a failed actor in desperate need of company. Whit also has a secret so unsettling that when he discloses it, it not only puts a strain on Clay’s marriage, but causes him to question his very sanity.
Co-written by Tatum and Thomas and directed by Tatum, shot on a shoestring budget, it’s a goofy, meandering story about friendship and “two knuckleheads walking around, talking” (Thomas) that finds uncommon humour and a touching melancholy in their unusual situation.
