With some brands you know you’re getting an excellent product. With The Asylum, caveat emptor.
Just when you think you’ve seen it all in the world of the living dead, The Asylum brings zoo animals gone wild when a virus turns all the animals in a safari park into flesh eating zombies. Its Jurassic Park meets The Walking Dead in this version of Zoopocaplypse Now.
Faster than you can say ‘lions and tigers and bears, oh my (none which are featured in this movie. Well, one lion at least.)’, an infected lab monkey brought back to life goes gonzo and begins his flesh-eating rampage, infecting all the other animals that have predators – that includes a giraffe and a cute koala bear, which Thea (Nestor), the daughter of the lead park scientist, Dr. Ellen Rogers (Neilson) bashes its cuddly little, zombified body to eye-popping, smithereens with a baseball bat all done off screen. How humane.
As more and more scientists, park rangers and irritating interns get devoured by these exotic, bargain basement CGI’d beasts, enter reluctant, hero, Gage (Asper) who teams up with ranger, no stranger to danger, Lizzy (Butler), Rogers, and her daughter, Thea.
Incorporating George Orwell’s Animal Farm dogma that all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, you’ll experience a man-eating giraffe (complete with prosthetic head for the close ups) and the above mentioned, eucalyptus-eating, spaced out koala bear.
Included are fast-moving zombie wasps that create havoc while our four heroes try to escape riding elephants – well, the backs of something that resemble elephants, at least. Budget constraints, you see. It is an Asylum movie after all.
Still, we do get a man in a gorilla suit. Yes, you read this right. You will see a man in a gorilla suit that Ed Wood would be proud of. That’s Lizzy’s lovable best friend, Kifo, who changes species right before your eyes. This film is full of whimsy… or something.
Nielsen does the best job in the acting department and Nestor has some good moments in her first feature film.
Extras: Gag reel, deleted scenes/alternate endings, making of, 5.1 Surround sound.
ZOOMBIES / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: GLENN MILLER / SCREENPLAY: SCOTTY MULLEN / STARRING: IONE BUTLER, ANDREW ASPER, LALA NESTOR, KIM NIELSON / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 13TH
