Plaga zombie

The Argentinian horror film "Plaga Zombie" entertainingly combines the alien invasion plot with a zombie epidemic plot: in this case, dastardly extraterrestrials infect select people with a virus, and then just wait for them to mutate and attack other humans. A trio gets together to tackle the problem: "doctor" Bill Johnson (Pablo Pares), mathematician Max Giggs (Hernan Saez), and wrestler John West (Berta Muniz).

With Saez and Pares also co-directing (and the three stars writing the screenplay), "Plaga Zombie" was filmed on a true micro-budget. (Apparently, the equivalent of less than $120.) And yet, it benefits from so much gonzo, glorious, go-for-broke Do It Yourself enthusiasm that it's impossible to resist. The bargain-basement gore is hilariously, wonderfully over the top. After a while, Saez, Pares, and Muniz just drop any pretense of telling a story to just concentrate on cartoonish, macabre mayhem. The second half is particularly amusing, with characters ending up with almost as many lives as nine cats.

The actors are good fun to watch, especially the upbeat, engaging Muniz as the brawny hero who declares that his feet & hands are his best weapons. The scores of extras playing zombies are very energetic, and this little film does have a pretty good pace, dropping us into the story proper with little preamble, and the running time is a brief and agreeable 69 minutes.

For those who don't shut this off once the end credits start rolling, there is a quick coda that is worth waiting for.

Seven out of 10.

This film is the most fantastic horror thriller made in Argentina. The explicit blood and gore make up effects is so realistic than any Hollywood production. The plot and characters commemorate film like Sam Raimi´s Evil dead, Robert Rodriguez´s From dusk till dawn and Peter Jackson´s Dead alive. With no budget and a lot imagination, the creators made an excellent entertainment for all the independent horror lovers so everyone can´t miss.

It's been almost 4 years now, and no other movie appeared to dethrone 'Plaga Zombie' from being the best Argentinian gore film ever! Its splatter gory special FX are great, and its comedy is superb. The characters are very funny, and even though some details aren't entirely accurate, as the Internet sequence, the story's excellent! I can't wait to see Plaga Zombie 2!!!

Bored with their slow lifestyle, two best friends in a small Argentine town find that a strange alien epidemic on their neighboring residents has unleashed a horde of zombies on the town and forces them to engage in a series of inventive tactics to stop them from spreading.

Considering its resources, this one turned out rather fun and enjoyable. One of the few positives to like here is the rather enjoyable and frantic pacing throughout here that basically charges this one along incredibly well. There's little time to waste here before the abduction encounter and the friends slowly undergoing their metamorphosis in their apartment, leading to the great scenes of the creatures running loose in the streets of the small town with the ever-increasing horde coming after them. There's some more fun to be had from their encounters throughout the house which make this one feel really fun with the initial brawling as well as the encounters in the basement or out in the hallways and corridors of the complex which makes for a truly fun low-budget style good time here with the film employing non-stop encounters with the creatures to give this the sort of frantic, frenzied encounters that take place throughout here which give it that fast-paced feel. That kicks in even more when it gets to their counter-attacks clearing the way against the zombies, which goes for the cheesy wrestling matches and comedic brawls that occur in the lobby of their apartment or outside in the streets which manage to continue on throughout this one so well that there's almost nothing to keep this one from slowing down and focusing on their battles with the creatures that are quite fun in here, giving this one the kind of crazy, over-the-top gore gags against the zombies that never belie their low-budget origins in execution even though the concept here is exceptionally fun and gruesome at times. These here really hold this one up even though there are some pretty noticeable flaws to be found here. As is most obvious about this one, that comes from it's incredibly low-budget nature which is quite small and really shows it's nature here with the exceptionally cheesy make-up and gore effects as well as the overall execution of the film's technical areas which are just so obviously minuscule that it becomes a source of the film to really get a handle on for this one. Everything looks home-made and cheap without going for any kind of realism, which makes for a somewhat troubling watch if looked at in terms of actual execution of what's going on, and while not a bad thing is something to contend with. Likewise, the film also manages to really undermine itself where it really doesn't seem too concerned with internal logic, having zombies go from mindless shuffling hordes that fail to understand things such as locked doors or stairs yet are seconds later able to engage in planned wrestling matches or continually pop up into the frame for a mugged goof shot that looks way too planned rather than anything else, resulting in a somewhat jarring tone that comes more from the amateurish production than anything else here. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot else to this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence.

My prediction is that it won't take long for 'Plaga Zombie' to become a cult movie. A wrestler, a Star Trek fan and a Medicine student fighting against a group of angry zombies, I guess that's something you don't see every day.

And, of course, lots of blood!