Kill Zombie! is a fun-enough Dutch zom-com thats got a lot of energy and some decent laughs/gags. There is a lot of zombie gore - although the blood is green after a person is infected - but ultimately the zombies are a little too ineffective to ever really be terrifying. But still, as a zom-com it mostly works. Although the title still throws me off - I keep reading it as an order to a zombie from its owner. Unless the idea is to do sequels with the same zany tone but with different monsters... the way this one ends is a pretty clear setup for Kill Vampire!
It's about an office drone named Aziz. His "dream girl" works along side of him, and after months of pining after her, she approaches him and asks him out on a date. This doesn't sit well with his jealous boss, who promptly fires Aziz. (It's easier to fire people in Amsterdam, I guess.) Aziz goes to hang out with his brother Mo - a big-talking goofball of a guy who is always cooking up a get rich quick scheme. They're at a party hosted by some rich guy (apparently there are a lot of Dutch celebrities in this thing - although the potential cameos were lost on me), and Mo accidentally causes a ruckus when he knocks out a supermodel with a volleyball. This causes rich guy's two bodyguards to chase after them, and shortly thereafter all four of them are in jail, hurling insults at each other from separate cells. And that's when the zombie shit goes down.
A satellite crashes into Martin's (former) office, which releases a virus that causes people to turn into blood-thirsty zombies. They look pretty much like your standard zombies, except they bleed a dark green blood. (This makes the film feel less gory and ultimately easier to laugh at.) And like most zombies, they can only be killed with a shot/blunt force to the brain. Pretty standard stuff. So when the four guys wake up in jail after their cells mysteriously open, they are thrown into the utter chaos of a world gone mad. With the help of Kim (the only cop who seems to have survived this thing), our heros must set aside their differences and make their way to the safe zone at the edge of the city. But Aziz is adamant about saving his dream girl - despite the fact they have never been on a date, he tells everyone she is his girlfriend. Can Aziz convince anyone to help him on this dangerous mission? Will they make it to the safe zone? What sorts of crazy characters will they meet on the way? Tune in to find out!
Kill Zombie! is so concerned with comedy that, plentiful (green) gore aside, it hardly qualifies as a horror film. There is never really any tension, and the overall stakes just never feel all that high. Besides Aziz and occasionally Kim, every character is so over-the-top that no one ever feels like a real person, so you don't feel compelled to care about them. And honestly, the comedy is such a focus that decent storytelling is often thrown by the wayside. There is more than one instance where our heroes are in mortal peril, and then some wacky brand new characters just swoop in to save the day. And if random people don't just show up to make the rescue, the film just ignores the escape completely. It's all done in a very tongue-in-cheek style, but still - the lack of follow through with (or even having any regard for) the story is just kind of annoying.
But at least the humor mostly works, and I think it's due to the good performances of everyone involved. Yahya Gaier (as Aziz) plays a good straight man, grounding all of the craziness around him. He's kind of the quiet everyman type - he's meek enough to get your sympathy, but believable when he tries to do something heroic. But my favorite character was Aziz's brother Mo, played by Mimoun Ouled Radi. He gets a lot of really funny lines playing the starry-eyed dreamer of the group - but he's also the biggest smart ass. Radi has the energy and charisma to sell this character - in lesser hands Mo could easily be a smarmy asshole, but here he's a delight.
It's also a pretty racially diverse film. Our six main characters are made up of two Moroccans (Aziz and Mo), a white male, a white female (Kim the cop) and two black men (one of whom identifies as Surinamese). The film briefly touches on racial stereotypes for comedic effect, but ultimately doesn't have a lot to say on that front. Still, it was a nice change of pace from the last Dutch film I watched (Saint Nick), which was about as lily-white as you can get, besides a couple of guys in black-face. But speaking of Saint Nick, I have to thank Netflix for the subtitle option - Saint Nick had the most obnoxious dubbed track I've ever come across, so it was nice to get Kill Zombie! in my preferred format.
Unfortunately, things do not fare so well on the diversity front as far as women go. I mean, Kim is a pretty kick-ass hero (and easily the smartest and toughest of the group), but the only other female character of note is Martin's dream girl. And the way she is presented is simply no good. There's a reveal about half-way through that they kind of play off as a joke, but really felt cringe-worthy to me.
Horror-wise? You get lots and lots of comedic zombie gore - although the dark-green blood takes away any real edge it might otherwise have. None of it is particularly inventive, and there is a *lot* of CGI. It's decently done at times but still distracting. And the zombies are so inept at, well, being zombies that they just aren't scary. They are portrayed as being more Rage than Romero zombies, but our heroes can still pretty much just walk through a horde of them and dispatch of them relatively easily. So while the zombie business is okay (the makeup looks good, at least), there isn't anything memorable here.
So, Kill Zombie works as a zom-com and not much else. It's got a little different flavor being from the Netherlands, and if you're looking for braaaaain-less entertainment (sorry) you could do a lot worse.
I would kind of recommend this film.
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