Kill Zombie

The zombie movie as a genre has been spreading like an epidemic over the past year

The zombie movie as a
genre has been spreading like an epidemic over the past year. The good and the bad of the genre
have shuffled through the box office in recent months with hits like Cockneys vs.
Zombies and lesser attempts like Zombie
108, Juan of the Dead and War of the Dead. Premiering in the UK at FrightFest 2012, Dutch horror/comedy, Kill Zombie (Zombibi) unfortunately falls in to the latter category.

In Amsterdam-West, hapless average joe, Aziz (Yahya Gaier) lives out his life as a
humble office worker, infatuated by a stunning colleague and pestered by his
layabout brother, Mo (Mimoun Ouled Radi)
to start up a joint business.
Meanwhile a Russian space station crashes in to the city, releasing a
virus which swiftly turns citizens in to flesh-craving zombies. After inadvertently landing themselves
in jail, Aziz and Mo must team up with a pair of cack-handed criminals, a bank
worker and a sexy, kick-ass policewoman (Gigi
Ravelli) to battle the undead and rescue Aziz’s love from the office
building.

Kill Zombie is The Netherland’s blatant attempt to reprise
the successful merging of horror and comedy in Shaun of the Dead. It certainly
does not pretend otherwise but it does fail in nearly every respect. In Shaun of the Dead the slapstick and
tongue in cheek comedy is entertaining and hilarious. In Kill Zombie, despite the fact that some of the jokes may
be lost in translation, the humour just comes across as amateur and
tedious. Most of the characters,
such as one chubby dude who bizarrely gets his fingers stuck in a bowling ball,
are so idiotic and irritating you find yourself desperately willing them to become
zombie bait. They are lost in an
underdeveloped narrative, with the hero of the story more like Jason Biggs’ character from Loser futilely trying to rescue the
ungrateful damsel in distress.

The protagonists in Kill Zombie certainly attempt to massacre
the walking corpses in a range of absurd but inventive ways, pounding and
mauling them with various items of office stationery and sports equipment and fulfilling
everyone’s dream of shooting the moronic boss in the head. However, while there is definitely an
abundance of zombie slaughtering, limb-ripping and flesh-munching, there is not
really enough blood and gore to satisfy the average zombie movie fan. In this day and age, a group of students
could probably do better in a high school film project. Although the film has made use of
various actors, rappers and other celebrities well-known in The Netherlands, perhaps
utilising the directing talent of Paul
Verhoeven would have made this film a lot more interesting.

Although low-budget Nederhorror Kill Zombie is fast paced and
improves ever so slightly as it moves on, mediocre zombie action, inferior
actors and dull attempts at humour just do not cut it when up against zombie
movies with real bite.