By Ben Bussey
One of the ways the current wave of anthology horror stands apart from previous generations is its tendency to employ multiple directors. While there were certainly existing examples of anthology movie which saw different filmmakers helm different chapters (The Twilight Zone movie comes to mind), this was by no means the norm, but since V/H/S and The ABCs of Death well and truly brought the format back it’s de rigeur for any new anthology to be a compilation of numerous directors, oftentimes from all over the world. Unifying themes are often tenuous at best, and filmmaking styles often wildly diverse, lending these portmanteau movies an untidy feel which arguably is key to their appeal; but even so, there does seem to be at least a hint of uniformity from each filmmaker having gone on with the same brief, regardless of their approach.
Zombieworld isn’t quite the same story. While there’s an obvious recurring theme as each short film is zombie-based, the major difference is that in this case the bulk of the content was pre-existing, stitched together retroactively to fit a framing mechanism devised later. The basic idea is, the world has been overtaken by zombies, and a news station – whose anchorman is slowly but surely turning into a zombie himself – broadcast stories from around the world chronicling the walking dead-induced downfall of civilisation. The fact that almost none of the ensuing short films in any way resemble news footage, plus the fact that several of them quite clearly show a world which has not been overrun by zombies (indeed, there’s one which turns out to not actually feature zombies at all) rather pisses away any trace of verisimilitude, leaving the whole thing feeling a bit half-baked. Factor in that a lot of these shorts can already be found to view online perfectly legally free of charge, and we might be forgiven for regarding Zombieworld a bit of a rip-off. On top of which, the fact that they chose a title so painfully close to mainstream hit Zombieland suggests they’re hoping to cash in on the let’s-swindle-less-observant-consumers market so beloved of The Asylum and their ilk, which isn’t exactly a recommendation either.
All that being said, once I dismount from my high horse I can admit that Zombieworld most definitely isn’t without its charms. Again, the higgledy-piggledy feel of modern anthology horror has become part of the subgenre’s appeal, and there are a few shorts here that are among the most entertaining of their kind you’re likely to find anywhere. Okay, so most of them you can find online, and they could probably do without the framing device, but Zombieworld winds up perfectly effective as midnight movie horror material that doesn’t demand the viewer be at the utmost attention throughout.
The key sales points, to my money, are the two funniest, goriest short films of the last few years: Jesse Baget and Adrián Cardona’s Fist of Jesus, and their earlier short film with Rafa Dengrá, Brutal Relax. Longtime followers of our Horror in Short thread may well be aware of these babies, as we’ve featured them in days gone by (you can read all about them, and indeed watch them, here and here). Expertly crafted slices of comedy horror, they deliver hilariously over-the-top carnage and bad taste humour on clearly limited budgets. I remain astonished the team have thus far been unable to secure funding for their proposed feature length Fist of Jesus adaptation Once Upon A Time In Jerusalem; we can but hope that their involvement in Zombieworld helps raise their profile enough to get them back in business.
Zombieworld opens on a high note too, with Peter Horn and Jared Marshall’s Dark Times, a technically impressive, adrenaline-charged POV short following some fleeing humans in the face of the apocalypse breaking out. The FX are great, the pace is frenetic, and there are genuine surprises in store; it’s a great way to get the ball rolling. Another highlight is also shot in POV, Zachary Ramelan’s Dead Rush. Following another poor soul in a close encounter with the walking dead, it’s a similarly heart-thumping and cleverly edited first-person perspective short, but with a somewhat harder-edged take on the subject matter.
Outside of these, though, things are a bit more hit and miss. Vedran Marjanovic Wekster’s three-parter How To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse is a bit nondescript and forgettable, and rather low on helpful advice for how to battle the walking dead (and even if it did, that’s rather well-trod territory these days: Zombie Survival Guide, anyone?) Phil Haine’s I Am Lonely is also a bit feeble, more of a verbose Kevin Smith-type monologue with zombies attached, hinging on a fairly predictable final twist. Cameron McCulloch’s Home is the most sombre entry, offering a welcome change of pace with its more intimate presentation of a bereaved woman dealing as much with the emotional aftershock of the zombie apocalypse as with the zombies themselves; but Luke Guidici’s Certified is a rather mundane, one-joke sketch, again hinging on a not especially surprising twist. Then there’s Paul Shrimpton’s Teleportal, which has a nice central conceit – a gamer gets sucked into his own Resident Evil-type game – but given that it plays out at such a short running time, it fails to develop the idea to its full potential. I daresay a feature-length take on that one would also be welcome.
As for the bridge scenes – the central performance from Bill Oberst Jr as the news anchor is enjoyable enough, as is his gradual decomposition. But again, the whole framing mechanism feels so clumsy, I for one can’t help thinking the whole thing would have worked better without it, dismissing any pretence of a unifying end-of-the-world concept that simply isn’t there. Still, while it’s overall one of the more underwhelming anthology movies of recent years, the presence of Brutal Relax and Fist of Jesus alone make Zombieworld worth the asking price.
Zombieworld is out on Region 2 DVD on 8th June from Image Entertainment.