If there is one person Matthew Lancit can’t get out of his mind, it is his uncle Harvey. Dark rings around his eyes, pale, blind, his legs amputated. Like Harvey, the filmmaker also suffers from diabetes. He has the disease under control, but one question is always nagging at him: How much longer? His long-term (self-)observation reliably revolves around fears of infirmity and mutilation. He translates the feared body horror into film, stages himself as a zombie, vampire, a desolate figure. Lancit playfully anticipates his potential decline, serving up a whole arsenal of effects which – as video recordings prove – go back to his youth. It is not for nothing that the “dead” in the title is also reminiscent of “dad.” Because “Play Dead!” also negotiates his own role as a father.

In this prospective pilot, Mick Jade, a tennis bum-turned-Las Vegas-song-and-dance man, doubles as a private eye with two female dancers, Ebony and Ivory. The trio go undercover to protect a lady scientist from international hitmen as she heads for Washington D.C. from the near-East with her super-secret formula.