Yummy

We watched this in an early advance screening in the Roxy Theatre in Koersel with the director, crew and some surviving actors in attendance followed by a Q&A.

Not since the Belgian party zombie movie "Rabid Grannies" (1988) did I have so much fun with a Flemish zombie movie. The spirit of the Troma studio's was never too far away as the film went from bloody gory fun into zany over the top black humour involving various genitals and bodily fluids. The technical quality of both the production as the numerous practical FX were top notch, harking back to the energy of "The Evil Dead" and the humour of "Re-Animator". Especially the male protagonist had the survivalist urge of an Ash Williams anti-hero.

Filmed mostly in the old hospital of Maaseik and in Poland, this movie mostly took place in a plastic surgery clinic with dubious experimental treatments resulting in carnage. The lighting in red, green and blue hues reminded me of the cinematography of a Dario Argento movie (Suspiria) and the virtuous camera work embodied Sam Raimi. The music rings back to the synth scores of John Carpenter giving it the right atmosphere.

We had a blast, with the pacing really picking up once patient zero started wreaking havoc. You can check off all the checkboxes you want to see in a film like this. Nudity, action, lots of practical gore with some added VFX to expand the physical effects and a few painful moments that made people whince in painful groans. A couple of really original gore gags makes this a certified horror crowd pleaser. I hope this will do well as I want to see more genre movies like this to get made in Belgium.

Definitely has international potential as there is a clear foreign market for this. After the Q&A we had a nice talk with the director and his wife who are really nice people, giving us some fun anecdotes about the making of the film. She even bought us drinks!

Well, roll on the sequel "Yummier" with double the budget and double the fun!

The movie is pretty much what I expected: a horror movie that doesn't take itself too seriously. There is humor in it that works most of the time. Though for a horror movie it's actually not that explicit: real gore is off camera mostly, you actually don't see that much. At a certain moment a head is bashed in with a fire extinguisher, but you only see the blood splatter, not the head being bashed in. They should have gone the 'braindead/dead alive' route with much over the top gore, that would add to the comedy and make it funnier. The 90 minutes go by smoothly and it's a decent watch but don't expect it to be a horror classic.

Since a few years already, I deliberately stopped watching zombie comedies, simply because there are too many of them and the vast majority aren't very funny. Of course, I had to make an exception for the very first zombie splatter comedy produced in my home country Belgium! Admittedly it isn't much better than the rest, but at least it also isn't worse, the cast contains a bunch of familiar faces (if you're from Flanders, that is) and there are a handful of deliciously absurd and grotesque gory sequences, which we really aren't used to seeing in Belgian cinema. Seriously, I'm still surprised this film received funding from the VAF (a Belgian governmental institute that decides which cultural projects receive financial support), since usually only stern and tragic family dramas receive funding.

The set-up is very light-headed. The gorgeous but insecure Alison is on her way to a dubious plastic surgery clinic in a non-specified Eastern European country to get a breast reduction. With her are her surgery-addicted mother Sylvia and her clumsy and geeky boyfriend Michael who spontaneously starts vomiting when he sees blood. At the clinic, things go horribly wrong since the head doctor's experimental rejuvenating serum actually turns people into zombies, and Michael unknowingly lets patient zero escape. What follow is a rundown of typically cliched and derivative zombie situations, while the lead characters get munched in order of obnoxiousness. There are a handful of inventive death sequences, but that is a requirement in every zombie comedy, I suppose. The funniest parts include the OTT Slavic accents used by renowned Belgian actors, and the fact that Alison repeatedly asks "ça va, Poepie?" (roughly translated: "Are you ok, sweetie?") every time when her blundering boyfriend hits his head, trips over his own feet or accidentally injects himself with needles.

PS: yes, that shoddy surgeon operating with extremely loud music in his OR is the world-famous DJ Dimitri Vegas.

In the zombie genre Yummy definitely has its place. There is a lot of gore, a lot of blood and guts spilling out, and the make-up artists did a good job with their creations. As for the story it's just what you could expect when watching a zombie movie, nothing too serious, just endless bloody fun. As a Belgian I was surprised they made a movie like this one. Belgians don't make a lot of movies but when they do it's most of the time good if not excellent, and so is this one, a good fast paced gore movie à la Braindead. Gore and horror is certainly not the kind of movies that gets sponsored in Belgium so it was a nice surprise they gave it a shot. A good movie with unknown but decent actors to me, that is if you like this genre of entertainment.

Well the movie had 'Facelifsts, boob jobs and zombies' brandished on the cover, that alone was more than enough to catch my attention. Anything even remotely zombiesque and I am there like a gorehound.

I hadn't heard about this Belgian zombie movie from director Lars Damoiseaux before now in 2020, when I was presented with the chance to sit down and watch it. Needless to say, that with my admiration of the zombie genre and craving for gore, that I immediately sat down to watch "Yummy" without any questions asked.

First and foremost, I must say that "Yummy" most definitely put Belgium on the zombie movie map. Without a doubt, because this movie was surprisingly enjoyable and very watchable.

The storyline was good, and actually managed to be original enough to make itself stand out in the sea of zombie movies that are readily available. I particularly liked how writers Lars Damoiseaux and Eveline Hagenbeek managed to incorporate comedy and subtle jabs at today's insane obsession with achieving the perfect look by cosmetic surgery. It was just glorious and worked out so well.

"Yummy" was exactly that; yummy! Well, for a gorehounds perspective - or from a certain point of view if you want to make a pop culture reference to another movie. There was a great amount of blood, gore and mayhem throughout the movie to make even a seasoned horror veteran such as myself happy.

The character gallery in the movie was also good, there was a good mixture of various characters, some stereotypical and archetypical for zombie movies, while others were quite original. And that definitely added a good layer to the movie. And the fact that they had a great cast was certainly also bringing more conviction to the movie.

I enjoyed the cast in the movie, as they were all unfamiliar faces to me. I enjoy watching new faces in movies, as there are no associations to previously portrayed characters in other movies. And the fact that the actors and actresses in "Yummy" were all doing good jobs with their individual roles and characters was just such a good thing.

And on to the good part; the zombies! Yeah, this being a zombie movie, of course there was bound to be zombies. Duh! Now, let me just be the first to applaud the special effects and make-up teams here, because "Yummy" had some very yummy zombies. I mean that in a sarcastic way, of course. The zombies were great in the movie, lots of variation to the individual designs, and the zombie make-up and prosthetics were just great. And as a zombie movie, then having gory effects and realistic gore is a must, and they definitely managed that here. So two rotting thumbs up, way, way up here for the special effects and make-up crews.

"Yummy" was a nice surprise of a movie, and a much welcomed addition to the zombie movie collection. If you haven't already seen this 2019 movie, I strongly and highly recommend that you do so, because this is how you make a good zombie movie.

My rating of "Yummy" receives a very well-deserved seven out of ten stars.