The Rezort

Purely based on the entertainment, the acting and the filming The Rezort doesn't deserve more then a five star rating. Maybe a bit more if you base it just on his genre. And by that I mean for a zombie movie it's okay. I saw way worse zombie movies but also much better. In this one the variant is that people go on a safari on an island to shoot zombies and of course it all goes wrong. A lot of shooting, running and biting, the usual zombie stuff. It is what it is, but if you like that kind of stuff then with this movie it is what you will get. I have kind of an overdose of the zombie genre so maybe I'm a bit biased writing about The Rezort. Anyways, it could have been much worse so I won't complain any further.

Zombie films are pretty common place these days with the sub-genre being saturated with entries. So expectations are generally pretty low when a new one comes around the block. This rule of thumb applies to The Rezort. But I have to say that this one keeps things a little more interesting than usual. The set-up about a high-tech resort where adrenaline mad tourists can visit to shoot zombies is a pretty good new angle for the genre; even if it essentially borrows heavily from Michael Crichton penned sci-fi classics Westword (1973) and Jurassic Park (1993), especially when we have the zombies breaking free and causing all manner of horrors on the humans in a very similar way to what the androids and dinosaurs did in those two earlier films. Still, I didn't really mind this derivative aspect very much as at least it seemed – to me at least – to be a new angle for the zombie film.

For those who are interested in the distinction, this is one of the ones which has fast zombies. They bomb about in hot pursuit of the protagonists and you can probably imagine that it ends in tears for almost everyone. There is a little bit of political subtext added to the mix as well with a revelation later in the film involving refugees, which of course taps into a current issue in a zombie tradition that goes all the way back to George A. Romero. But mainly, this is a nicely distinctive new entry into an over-populated sub-genre. All things considered, I thought it was pretty good.

After an apocalyptic zombie outbreak, where more than two-billion people died, the worldwide situation is under control and the creatures have been destroyed. The cities are being rebuilt and there are camps of refugees kept by donation of the survivors. However, there is an isolated island where The Rezort, owned by Wilton (Claire Goose), is located and guests may participate in Zombie Safari to shoot the undead that are kept behind electric fences and locks monitored 24 hours/ day for sport of therapy. When the new guests arrive, a group go for camping in an isolated area of the compound. However there is a breach in the computer system caused by the guest Sadie (Elen Rhys) that used an encrypted flash drive in the computer system. The responsible for the computer system Salva (Shane Zaza) hides the information to fix later, but there is a virus that corrupts the files and releases the zombies, activating a protocol to destroy the island. Most of the staff and guests are killed in the main building; but the group formed by Archer (Dougray Scott), Melanie (Jessica De Gouw), her boyfriend Lewis (Martin McCann), the teenager Jack (Jassa Ahluwalia), Sadie and the guide Nevins (Kevin Shen) survives and seek a boat to leave the island before destruction. What is the purpose of Sadie and will the group survive?

"The Rezort" is a full of action and entertaining zombie film despite the rip-off of the storyline of Jurassic Park and how zombies are produced. The production is great with good cast, including Dougray Scott. The open conclusion is certainly for a sequel with the character Archer. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Survivors of a zombie holocaust travel to an expensive island resort, where the last remaining creatures are kept in captivity, but things don't go to plan.

Jurassic Park of the undead. This was a pleasant surprise, since most zombie productions are basement crud while this production is well paced and put together. We're introduced by an after the fact news report, then we get to know the characters before the action kicks in. The zombies are called pacers, but they sure can move, and there are several effective jump scares as they lunge out of nowhere.

The plot makes political points, but more of the earnest type than Romero-style satire, and while the refugee angle turns out interesting you have to wonder why we would have that problem after a big chunk of the population has been wiped out. Turns out movie makers aren't Marxists after all. Duh.

Some of the dialogue is on the nose, and there's a poorly judged sequence as the characters saunter along expositioning to each other just after their deadline for escape has been set. Also, typical of British horror to subject the audience to irritating joke characters. And some "why don't they just close the door?" moments.

Performances are good. Photography good, although the zombies are a bit tame with not enough bizarro images. Editing on the news reports is irritating to begin with, but otherwise fine. Music was lively.

Overall: not perfectly conceived or executed, but good entertainment.

in a market overflowing with zombie movies, it can't be easy for movie studios to come up with new and interesting takes on the genre, but with The Rezort they came up trumps

the movie zips along at a decent pace with enough zombie action to satisfy most fans of the genre, and the characters are the kind you actually care about for once, with Dougray Scott being the most recognisable out of all the actors present.

just in case you were wondering how an island could continue to function with only a finite number of zombies to shoot, this issue is actually dealt with as part of the plot, and is a shocking revelation when it comes.

all in all, it's a decent way to spend an hour and a half, and is certainly a lot better than some of the dross out there