Movie Review: Kill Zombie (2012)

Oh, boy. It’s a horror comedy. I’m not opposed to the genre blending, of course, but sometimes it fails so spectacularly that I’m put off that particular brand of film for hours. Even days. The Nordic peoples have proven themselves capable with Dead Snow so when this film came along from their neighbor, Amsterdam, Holland (dude, I’m so baked...), though I am dubious, I am also hopeful.

Kill Zombie is a horror comedy about the zombie apocalypse. The movie begins with a man covered in green goop, brandishing a gun, as he tells us his story in flashback.

Aziz lives a life of drudgery in a corporate office. If it wasn’t for the gorgeous Tess, his life would be completely miserable. She asks him on a date, much to the chagrin of his boss, Mr. Douchebag. When Douchebag chews out Aziz for taking personal phone calls, to which Aziz explains it’s his brother who is very ill, a phone call comes in from said brother, Mo. Mo is partying up like there’s no tomorrow. Aziz is fired on the spot.

When Aziz arrives home to find his brother hosting a house party at Aziz’s house, naturally he’s a bit upset. Mo softens Aziz’s anger with a brilliant idea for them to start a business together, even though Mo is a perpetual clusterfuck-up. When Mo accidentally hits the date of a giant black man at the party, the offended guest sicks his posse (two very not scary dudes, Jeff and Nelson) on Mo and Aziz. Everyone ends up in jail.

While locked up, all hell breaks loose. Mo, Aziz, Jeff, Nelson, Joris (random banker thrown in jail for who knows what) and pretty cop, Kim, are the only survivors in the police station. They band together to fight their way to the militarized safe zone on the other side of town.

By the way, Aziz is the only one who doesn’t hit on the beautiful blonde cop AND he’s the only one who doesn’t get tasered. Heh.

As they leave the station, the entire town looks like Raccoon City. And when an old woman in a motorized wheel chair attacks, while Jeff takes a cell phone pic, they realize that zombies have taken over.

What do you mean I can't get the Senior discount before 4pm? I demand to see the manager!

Aziz has several messages on his phone from Tess. She’s trapped in their office building, it’s surrounded by zombies, and she needs help. You see, the space station crashed on the roof of that building and it brought some kind of space virus with it in the green slime that’s covering all the dead people. It’s also attracting every zombie in the city directly to it. Needless to day, the group is less than enthusiastic to help Aziz save a woman he hasn’t even gone on one date with yet.

Kim literally tries to beat some sense into Aziz while Joris convinces the other three they need to rob the bank where Joris works. Mo will get his start up capital for the business venture and the others will just be rich. I’m sure this will work out for the best, y’all, so why not listen to him?

Eventually they get to the office building to save Tess and when Aziz gets her on the phone, she’s fucking another guy who got there first. Apparently she’s the office slut and has banged every guy in the place. She then proceeded to call each conquest in the hopes someone would rescue her slut bag ass. Don’t worry, folks. She gets what’s coming to her.

There a shit ton more stuff that happens in the movie but this review would end up being 10 pages long if I even try to sum most of it up. You just need to know this: a Russian is sent to destroy the fallen space station which will create and explosion so big as to wipe out all the zombies roaming around. Not all our band of merry makers gets back to the safe zone but the ones who do discover it’s been overrun with vampires.

Wha…?

I have to say the majority of this film was entertaining. The humor was of the slapstick, silly, overthetop hammy jokes style that works most of the time. A few examples: Douchebag tries to convince Tess to work late with him and he’ll make it fun for her. He grabs a file folder she’s holding, tosses it to the side, and the loud crash and cat screech startle him. When the group have to fight zombies in the police station, they throw staplers, computer keyboards, ink stampers, any and all office supplies which obviously don’t work well. Jeff tasers himself. Nelson gets bowling balls stuck to his hands and discovers they work very well at dispatching the dead.

Parts that I thought were just too silly were the stop animation stills as they fought zombies. It looked like they were trying to marry a video game and a late night informercial. Even the deep voice overs of “PUNCH”, “JAWBREAKER”, “FINAL ROUND”, “GAME OVER” were a bit juvenile and felt like they were trying too hard to be funny.

At some point I just felt Aziz was being an idiot over Tess. I suppose if my husband were still alive I’d go through a sea of the undead to get him out of a building that’s about to come crashing down any minute but for that bitch? Granted, Aziz doesn’t know she’s a whore but come on.

Aside from that, the main characters are very fun. Aziz and his brother are very sweet and even though things get messed up all the time between them, they care deeply for each other’s well being. I actually cried at one particularly sensitive moment between them. Kim KICKS ASS all the time and she’s gorgeous, too. She’s a bit like a superhero. Jeff and Nelson are the comic relief at every turn. They’re even built like Laurel and Hardy: big fat guy and tall skinny guy. They act like they have serious game but they seriously do not. Ever.

How I feel every time I hear Hollywood is remaking another movie.

The CGI effects are cheap but get the job done. The story is nothing new but who doesn’t like a man in love running through hell to rescue the damsel in distress? Even if in this case it’s the Whore of Babylon. For me it was so surreal, and pretty cool, to watch a movie where the actors are clearly different ethnicities (African, Arab, Nordic) but they’re all speaking Dutch with a bunch of English cuss words peppered in. Most of the time that kind of melting pot only spews out English.

Overall I had fun watching this film. Not sure if I feel the need to watch it again but if you’re looking for something not from the usual suspects (Asian, American, Spanish, etc.) why not check this out?

3 Hatchets (out of 5)