Better than expected Z-Movie, but could have been better
7 August 2020
Years after a world-wide zombie outbreak humanity has regained control of itself, the zombie populace has declined to the point that the remaining zombies can all be found on a Mediterranean island. Along comes a businesswoman and decides to monetize the situation, she creates the worlds first zombie resort/ zombie safari. Paying members of the public can come to the island, stay in the luxury hotel, and enjoy hunting and shooting the undead. Some people enjoy the sport, some people find its good therapy to get over the memories of zombies killing their loved ones.
As the story progresses, a group of zombie safari hunters (“Zafari”) are put into the same group, they all have their own backgrounds and reasons for being on the island. Events occur which break down the safety features of the park and soon the group are left fighting for their life to escape the island. Worse still, it soon becomes a race against time too – safety measures put in place mean that in the event of a breakout the whole island will be bombed by drones. Will anybody escape?
The film is kind of “Jurassic Park” meets “Westworld” and “Night of the Living Dead”, meets “Die Hard” and (if you have played it on games console) “Dead Island” too. I went into the viewing experience with low expectations, I thought it would be a trashy B-Movie with no redeeming features and a large serving of cheese. I have to say though, it was a lot better than I expected. There were some cliché moments, the story was not all that original as it borrowed heavily from other movies, and the characters were not all that relatable – but it was still a decent film. On the point of the story not being that original, I must clarify – in terms of films of the world, yes, not that original. In terms of zombie films, then, this has not been done like this before. The script was not by any means sophisticated and intricate, you can pretty much guess what is going to happen or be said as events unfold. It also does not compliment the characters being portrayed much either, giving them expected lines rather than great narrative drive. The cast do a decent job without really being totally relatable, the standouts though are De Gouw, Scott, & McCann. The pacing of the film is decent, it moves on quickly from scene to scene, so the film manages to fit a lot of journey into its 93min run time.
I enjoyed the film more than I thought I would. The zombies were a cross between “28 Days Later” and “Night of the Living Dead” – occasionally fast and ferocious, but occasionally slow lumbering and brainless. Even though the action and effects aren’t overtly OTT I would probably go against recommending this as family friendly (young children and grandparents), but it’s definitely a teen friendly film with moderate violence and gore, very little sexual content and moderate bad language. I am going to give this film 6 out of 10. The reason being is that I felt that the film, while being better than expected, could have been a lot better too, it was almost like it was a great opportunity, but not fully executed to it’s potential. It felt clunky in places, almost like the writers had put 10 white boards out, and then decided what happens in one scene on one of them, then considered what goals or outcomes are required to progress to the next scene/ whiteboard. It almost felt like it was a video game narrative – hence why I’ve said earlier on this review that it’s also like “Dead Island”. My rating therefore reflects that I thought it was ok, but also reflects that it could have been better too. It is a decent attempt with a lot of potential. Maybe, given a better investment and budget this could have been a better proposition, at the moment it’s main hope is that it becomes a cult movie of the future by proxy, rather than actually displaying the necessary requirements to actually be a cult movie.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (6/10)
Distracted by Films 