The zombie
marathon continues with this oddly named flick. When I was digging thru my
Amazon Prime list I noticed Zombie Spring Breakers. With a name like that I
figured I would either see a crazy fun flick or at least be able to tear into a
piece of garbage, which can also be fun. I didn’t really get either.
The movie
is set in a world where a zombie outbreak has occurred but has been contained.
You get the occasional flare up here and there, but it is more like a disease
than the end of the world. They even have pamphlets on how to protect yourself
in case you encounter a zombie. Here we are introduced to our three main
characters. Jim, Alex, and Az are on holiday and end up heading to a club run
by Karl. To make his club different and popular Karl puts on “live” shows with
zombies. Of course, things go sideways, and the living dead get loose. Combined
with a shipment that got away and crawled up on the beaches the island is soon
covered in zombies. The boys and some friends they meet along the way spend the
rest of the movie trying to escape.
I didn’t
like this movie, but I also didn’t hate it. There are attempts at humor that
work sometimes and fall flat other times. The juvenile rantings of the Big Jim
character are part adolescent fantasy and part annoying teenager that needs slapped
upside the head. If it weren’t for how likeable the actor, Ed Kear, is in the
role it would be unbearable. The rest of the movie is filled with the sorts of
stereotypes that you would expect in a flick like this. They come off more as
caricatures than they do fleshed out characters. You have ditzy girls, a bad
ass girl, the sweet girl, the jackass (Big Jim), and the bad guy that keeps
surviving until he doesn’t.
Zombie
Spring Breakers brings nothing new or interesting to the table. Not only does
it fail at the comedy, but when it tries to have a heart it also falls flat on
its face. One of the girls takes pity on Big Jim when he gets emotional and
shows some vulnerability. Afterwards instead of being the nice guy we saw
earlier he goes right back to the jerk that he was before. That is the kind of
thing that just kills your story. The audience is supposed to like your
characters, or at least a couple of them at some point during the proceedings.
Don’t screw that up.
 |
| The zombies do look decent |
The makeup
of the zombies is decent looking. Simple latex, but some effort is made to make
them look different. Nothing worse than seeing a zombie movie where the same
couple of latex appliances are stuck on all the extras. Trust me I’ve seen
that, and it sucks! Sadly, all of the kills here are CGI. It is done well
enough to not be overly cheesy, but at the same time not be fun at all. You
really have to go one way or the other. Mediocre CGI is boring and miserable.
I know
that it seems as if I hated Zombie Spring Breakers, but I didn’t. Ed Kear has enough
charisma to make Big Jim just likeable enough to engage the audience. I did
also say that some of the jokes do land and there is one particular gag that
they setup earlier in the movie that pays off big time in the end. Sadly, there
were also times where I was looking at my watch wondering if this would be over
soon. In the end what we get is a mediocre entry in the zombie subgenre that isn’t
memorable either in a good or bad way. I can’t recommend checking this one out
unless you need to see every zombie movie that comes out. If that is you maybe
you need to find a new hobby…
© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer
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