Review by Ben Bussey
This writer is but one among many who have often wondered just how football ever came to be referred to as ‘the beautiful game.’ It’s always struck me as a profoundly ugly spectacle, with its mob mentality, aggression, and tendency to turn otherwise rational human beings into ranting, raving animals, to say nothing of what it does to the less-than rational. And, of course, increasingly nowadays the sport is even more off-putting in its emphasis on obscene profiteering, scores of young players literally earning more money in a week than most people can hope to earn in several years, filling the coffers of the club owners whilst the communities which originally gave birth to the teams are left crumbling. (I lived in Liverpool for ten years, I’ve seen what it’s like in the Anfield and Goodison Park areas.)
So – mention to me that a zombie apocalypse is going to break out in the middle of a football match, and I can’t deny a part of me is keen to see that. To give Goal of the Dead its dues, though, the ugly underside of football is exposed long before the walking (or in this case running) dead get their teeth into proceedings.
Sam Lorit (Alban Lenoir) is the footballer who I think it’s fair to say all footballers fear becoming: the one on his last legs. Though still under forty and clearly physically fit (the locker room scenes will attest to that), his career is as good as over, and he’s hoping to go out in style with one last match, as his superteam Paris Olympic head in their plush coach to sleepy small town Caplongue. For most of the team, it’s no big deal – particularly not ambitious, cocky young star player Idriss (Ahmned Sylla), whose eyes are set on a lucrative contract in London – but for Sam it means a great deal, as Caplongue is the hometown, not to mention the amateur team, that he left behind seventeen years earlier to pursue his career in the big leagues. However, Sam’s never been back home in all that time, and is not aware just how hard most of the townspeople took his departure. A few have good personal reasons to resent Sam; most are simply bitter that he didn’t take them with him on his path to fame and fortune. Unfortunately, one among the latter is an unhinged local doctor, who has dreamed up a somewhat excessive revenge based around turning Caplongue’s star player into a literal football monster. And wouldn’t you know it; the medical condition with which he infects said star player proves ever-so-slightly contagious…
Given that Goal of the Dead is co-directed by Benjamin Rocher, the filmmaker responsible for stylish but vapid zombie action flick The Horde (which I seemed to be less impressed with than most back in 2010), it should come as no surprise that this new football zombies movie certainly looks good. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen a new French horror movie that really grabbed my attention, but there can be little question that they’re produced many of the most noteworthy genre entries of the century thus far, and the nation has more than proven its ability to produce slick, beautifully shot, well-edited scary movies with decent performances and often great gore FX. Goal of the Dead is absolutely no exception, boasting great work from cinematographer Mathias Boucard and editors Dimitri Amar and Nathalie Langlade. The cast, too, handle themselves well for the most part, Lenoir giving a very nice leading turn as Sam, managing to make him sympathetic in spite of his many glaring flaws, and Bruno Salomone proving wonderfully loathsome as the sports agent who embodies the greedy, uncaring, corporate entity that has long since eclipsed any hint of real sportsmanship in football.
Not unlike The Horde, though, Goal of the Dead most definitely has its little problems. Most notably, given it’s a whisper shy of two hours, it’s far longer than any light-hearted comedy horror movie really needs to be. A lot of this could have been avoided with the removal of a few gratuitous subplots – the comic relief in the form a small band of fanatical local supporters, for instance. It also smacks of self-indulgence when, at the midway point, a second title sequence dramatically announces the latter hour of the film as a seperate entity, this half directed by Thierry Poiraud. Yes, I get it, it’s a little pun on football being “a game of two halves” – but given that moments later the story continues on exactly the same course as before, it’s a pointless deviation, particularly when things were a a bit on the overwritten side already (making it little surprise the film credits no less than six writers).
Even so, Goal of the Dead remains a perfectly entertaining film, squeezing in some genuine surprises and funny moments whilst ticking most of the boxes for a contemporary horror comedy. The zombie make-up FX are great, and the method of spreading the infection (all I’ll say is, it’s not via bite) is an agreeably repulsive break from the norm. While it may drag on a bit for my taste, the action scenes and football sequences are well-paced, and will probably get the heart thumping for those who get a bit more excited about football than I do (which, as I think I’ve made clear, isn’t too difficult). Goal of the Dead earns a place alongside Steven Chow’s Shaolin Soccer as evidence that, while genre film and sport may seem odd bedfellows, they can produce healthy offspring – and, while it doesn’t shy away from the many grounds on which it is easy to resent modern football, I daresay it does so without invalidating the position of those who love the game regardless.
Goal of the Dead is released to Region 2 DVD on 7 July 2014, from Metrodome.