Zombie Beach Party

Boy, can Jules Delorme turn crap into uber-crud or what? I'm guessing they cast him as a zombie on the misunderstanding he was acting, and when they swapped him to Ulysses and realised it wasn't an act... it was too late, the budget was blown.

The film itself has a bunch of funny nods to the zombie flick tradition and with a decent lead it might have stood a chance. If you're tempted to see this film, just bang your head against a wall for ten minutes instead. You'll end up with that same ache behind the eyes and unanswered 'WHY LORD?!' and it'll have taken far less of your time to get there.

Be warned.

Mark

In my quest to watch every zombie movie ever made, I've seen some super greats, and some sorta greats, and some not so great, and some that need to be placed under a sewer grate. This one, this one's sorta great. Much better than a lot of fare I've been force-feeding myself lately. I know nothing of the culture of "luchadora" wrestling--I feel like I've walked in half-way through the first season of "Heroes" or "Lost", and there's some big backstory going on with these people I know nothing about. But that's OK, because I'm here at the important time--when the ZOMBIES come around! And they are GOOD zombies--decent make up and gore, they eat brains and human flesh like they should, nice, decent, Romero Zombies (All hail "Dr. G Andrew Romero" of "Zombies: an authorized guide"). It's not "Night of the Living Dead" and it's not trying to be. It's just a sit back and enjoy the silly gory fun-popcorn movie--a perfect way to end a work week on a late Friday night!

Okay, I don't know anything about wrestling or luchadores but I'm a devout zombie fanatic and I like my share of comic book heroes... so... I got this promo DVD of "Zombie Beach Party." It wasn't easy to find at the time. I guess it went straight-to-video and it's Canadian and it's not properly distributed yet (it should be!). I just watched it and I was very entertained for an hour plus.

There's a palatable plot. There are a variety of personalities to like and to dislike. Visually, it's reminiscent of something like Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" (comic book colors and tattoo art mixed with a spooky atmosphere). There's Gore Galore though not the most convincing I've seen... a valiant effort nonetheless... they even managed a "Zombie Feast," something we gore-hounds don't get to see in today's R-rated films. There's an "artsy" narration by Ulysses (the hero), similar to that in "Bubba Ho-Tep."

There's gratuitous nudity, lesbians, drugs and condom purchasing. Finally, the music/soundtrack reminds me of BOTH

"House of 1000 Corpses" and "Bubba Ho-Tep" (what a coincidence). I rate it 8 stars. Fun and Fresh!

The plot reads: When a string of zombie killings hits the coast, it's up to the heroic Ulysses and his wildcard band of luchadores to find out whose behind it and to destroy the murderous undead.

I bought this on eBay after being lured in by that Kirbyesque cover, only to actually receive one with a much crummier Photoshopped cover of scenes in the movie. It may sound lame, but it dampened my enthusiasm for the movie and I didn't end up watching it for two weeks.

Anyway, it was decent fun. The first ten minutes or so were boring and I nearly cut the DVD off until the hot goth gas pump attendant appeared. Then more boring for another ten minutes or so, and the movie finally started kicking into gear. Some decent wrestling, lots of excessive blood, nice looking but still fake body parts for the zombies to nibble on, topless yacht captains. Part of the movie takes place in an abandoned amusement park, and they try to do one of those Scooby-Doo things where A runs in one door while B runs out the other trying to catch A. So there's that.

Did I mention how hot that tattooed goth chick is? Pretty hot. I would have been mad if the zombies got her, fortunately she ends up with a somewhat happy ending.

I was so excited to see this movie. Original idea in the plot summary, great cover art. The costumes and the characters interested me from the front.

But BLAM the dullness of the movie hit me Sooooo hard that it demolished all hope to enjoy this poorly made effort. The characters had zero development beyond them being introduced. I really didn't give a damn about any of them surviving, they were strangers through the whole thing. The "babe"(Mercedes) was not really a babe at all, I was almost glad that I couldn't see the rest of her face. Ulysses was so flat I could use his character as a coaster, and thats really a problem when he's supposed to be the hero. What was with his lame clothes. A Mexican wrestler would never wear anything so dull, especially a true hero. Think back to the BLUE DEMON & SANTO, and all the great Mexican wrestling monster movies of the 70's. They could really rip apart zombies and look good doing it, not the group of reject uggos in this waste of time. Half way through, I really wanted it to end. The story and characters were not progressing any further after the first 20 min, and the movie just kept eating up my time... The one redeeming character was Tiki, I almost wanted to know more about him, he was the only character who seemed to have any passions or emotions at all. But the makers were ridiculously trying to up-sell Ulysses the whole damn movie, and he was very very bland. I hope the makers all have day jobs. The guy at subway who made my sandwich contributes more to the world than this project.