UTI Zumbi

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.

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!

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.

One of the better comedic zombie movies to come out lately. Not plagued with the rapid-fire, snarky, annoying dialog that America has been putting out. Fun, well acted, well directed.

To be honest I anticipated less, and got more than I could have possible been led to expect. This movie is actually pretty solid and entertaining. The acting is better than expected, the premise is better than expected, the characters (while flat) are better than expected, and the effects are pretty well done. The humor is generally low brow and bawdy but even that is not too bad for what it is, and the ending is actually pretty good even if somewhat implausible. I picked this flick on a whim expecting a truly trashy zombie romp, and instead found a serious genre zombie comedy that was a good cut above much of what is released all too often now.

If you want good old fashioned zombie gore with some cheap sex jokes, some over the top absurdity, and even a reasonably decent premise to be made into a movie, then you can do much worse than to give this movie an hour and a half of your time.