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The zombie apocalypse has happened, and overly confident mailman Ed
(George McCluskey), food-obsessed milkman Munch (David McClelland) and
cowardly parking meter attendant Boris (Michael Gamarano Singleton) are
probably the least likely trio of survivors you can imagine - but somehow
they manage to mostly have one another's back. Roaming the countryside on
search of a safe haven, they're soon joined by others - Simo (Seb
Castang), Danny (Rebecca-Clare Evans), Tara (Jennifer Chippindale),
Neville (Timothy Owen), Tabitha (Anabel Barnston), Vera (Jane Foufas) and
Scott (Leo Horsfield) - and together they form something resembling a
gameplan: As the area is sealed off by the army who shoots trespassers
without warning, they figure the safest place must be the local church -
but the way there poses many threats, including a walk through cornfields
that's a perfect hiding place not only for the living but also the undead
- so not all make it to their destination. At the church, they meet
roaringly drunk Father Lawrence (Jon Campling), who fills them in on the
backstory - a newly widower (Edward Furlong) called upon voodoo deity
Kalfu (Corey Feldman) to bring back his dead wife, with the zombie
apocalypse being the price to pay. And sure, the good Father knows how to
fight the zombies and maybe reverse the curse - but it's a suicide mission
... Now The Zombie King doesn't exactly re-invent the
zombie genre, as in fact it follows the genre formula to the T - but it's
very aware of that fact and approaches tried-and-true genre tropes with
irony to make them fresh again, which is helped by a bunch of likeable,
funny and in the genre context unusual characters with backstories that
defie genre traditions. And a certain light-footedness in both narrative
and directorial approach help to keep things flowing smoothly throughout
and have not only all the scares but all the laughs in the right places.
So maybe not the next big thing, but a fun watch nevertheless.
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