Director: Glenn R. Miller
Stars: Ione Butler, Andrew Asper, Kim Nielsen
Snack Report: Halloween Smiley Cookies from Eat ‘N Park
Last night, we watched The Bad Seed (1956), a classic horror film made by a legendary director and starring award-winning actors. But tonight… we’re going to do a 180.
I wondered if maybe you were getting tired of my recommendations and reviews of iconic horror masterpieces, forgotten classics, and quirky but awesome films that flew under the radar. That maybe tonight you would enjoy a big fat dose of pure in-your-face, garden-variety schlock.
Ladies and gentlemen, submitted for your approval… Zoombies!
Yes, it’s like Zombies but with an extra “O” in it because they’re zombiefied zoo animals! Pretty damn clever, right?
Zoombies has been compared to the Sharknado series and probably even worse things. That’s because they were made by the same studio – The Asylum – known for their ceaseless output of movies with low budgets, no production values, and D-list talent that make a bazillion dollars. These are collectively referred to as “mockbusters,” and they represent some of our most shameful cinematic guilty pleasures.
One thing The Asylum is famous for is their uncanny ability to – like a leech! – grab onto the coattails of a production by a major studio and create a similar plot, script, and title to seduce viewers.
That said, I sincerely hope you’re reminded of Jurassic Park (1993) while you’re watching Zoombies. Because that is exactly what the filmmakers wanted so very badly. Imagine the pitch… “It’s just like Jurassic Park except with zombie animals instead of dinosaurs!” Even the tagline doesn’t play coy – “Jurassic World of the Dead!”
The basic premise is pretty similar – a very cool zoo becomes Ground Zero for rampaging monsters who are determined to eat everybody. Only in Zoombies, it’s a virus that turns the park’s residents into reanimated bloodthirsty zombies. It’s up to Zoo Director Dr. Ellen Rogers (Kim Nielsen) (or as we renamed her, Dr. Blonde) and her staff of highly trained interns to contain the infected animals before they escape and zombify the rest of the world.
The plot is quite predictable, and the characters are one-dimensional and poorly acted (shocker!). The characters are a collection of stereotypes – the Jock, the Material Girl, the Ordinary Guy, the Tough-as-Nails Chick, etc. Who, as you probably already guessed, are mostly picked off one by one, though very creatively at times, by really really terrible CGI animals.
I’m not exaggerating when I say this. They’re easily the worst CGI animals since Birdemic (2010). Bad movie fans will thrill to the menacing yet poorly rendered elephants, giraffes, lions, monkeys, and even parrots. With a bigger effects budget, the CGI might have been better; sadly, it looks like a crappy video game.
So… care to join me as we explore the very nether regions of the So-Bad-It’s-Good genre?
*****
The movie starts with what seems like a commercial for Eden Wildlife Park. There’s a lot of stock footage of nice zoo animals living in peace and harmony and bliss in a beautiful safari park. Dr. Blonde explains that Eden Wildlife Park was founded 50 years ago by her grandpa, and soon she’s opening it to the rest of the world.
We then cut to the veterinary facility, where a guy is carrying caged monkeys to Monkey ER. The docs are working to save a sick CGI/real hybrid monkey, and they give it a big shot of something.
This must be where the zombie virus comes in, because the poor little monkey promptly croaks… and then it pops open its glowing eyes and ATTACKS, and the other monkeys follow.
Meanwhile, we’re on a bus with Dr. Blonde and her adorable moppet child Rhoda Thea (LaLa Nestor) (renamed “Baby Blonde”) and a bunch of new interns. While Dr. Blonde lectures the group, as you might expect, there’s a zombie giraffe attack! The Material Girl escapes with the Jeep, leaving the others behind to deal with the zombie animals.
Dr. Blonde summons the police and the CDC, and then the SWAT team shows up. Too bad they forgot they were dealing with zombies, because the zombie lion and various other undead creatures make short work of them despite their body armor and automatic weapons.
Material Girl finds the gates locked and whines into the surveillance camera that she’d like to leave NOW, please. Rather than just opening the gate, letting her out, and closing it again, Dr. Blonde argues with her. Fortunately we’re all put out of our misery when she’s taken out by another zombie lion.
In yet another terrible plot cliché, Baby Blonde is best friends with the zoo’s silverback gorilla, Kifo. (You can tell he’s a silverback because his lower back is literally painted white. And his legs too, for good measure.) Or at least, a guy in a gorilla costume, because CGI is expensive. To her credit, however, Baby Blonde later takes on and kicks the ass of a vicious zombie koala.
The remaining staff and interns are hanging around in the admin building, trying to figure out how to escape, and one of them feels the need to “check on” Kifo, as he’s endangered and all that. Uh oh… Looks like he’s already turned, and he promptly kills the dumbass.
Meanwhile, Material Girl returns with the Jeep, but unfortunately the zombie lion has already mauled her. She promptly expires (hooray!), and they look up from her corpse to find themselves about to be devoured by zombie lions! Somehow they manage to escape, speeding away in the Jeep with the zombie lions (Zions?) in hot pursuit.
(Apparently, unlike for most creatures, zombiefication makes lions able to run super fast. As the Jeep is burning rubber, the lions are not only keeping up but overtaking them!) But their superior firepower – a pistol and a shotgun, obviously better than what the SWAT team had to work with – eventually dispatches the Zions.
Then it’s a ride on the Green Screen Zip Line of Death to the admin building, where the thick metal cables inexplicably break, and one of the survivors falls to his (splat) death.
The last thing they have to do is blow up the aviary so the infected birds don’t get out and spread the zombie virus. I always knew those parrots were up to no good. The birds have already really disgustingly killed the aviary lady and her intern, and the parrots are pecking madly at the glass wall, heads bobbing like those drinking glass birds only MUCH MUCH faster, trying to bust out.
I don’t mind spoiling the finale because you can guess exactly how it ends. The aviary goes up in a fireball, taking all the zombiefied birds with it. But just as they’re about to escape, Kifo returns from the (un)dead to kill them all! Though the SWAT team couldn’t manage it, Dr. Blonde takes him out with one shot.
At the end (also lifted directly from Jurassic Park), Dr. Blonde and Baby Blonde and the other survivors are leaving the doomed park and pondering their ordeal. But never mind the hundreds of dead people and animals… Dr. Blonde is mostly depressed about letting her dead grandfather down.
Finally, we close with a closeup of Kifo’s face…. then he opens his eyes!
Can you say “Helloooo Zoombies 2?”
*****
Some Zoombies Trivia
- The zoo admin building was the building where disastrous flop Bio-Dome (1996) was filmed.
- Kifo the gorilla was originally going to be named “Kipo,” but the screenwriter couldn’t remember if he had heard the name somewhere else.
- There’s a rumor that the Jurassic Park tie goes even deeper – zoo director Dr. Blonde is supposed to be the granddaughter of Robert Hammond, founder of Jurassic Park.
- The screenwriter cited Jurassic Park, The Birds (1963), and Zombeavers (2014) as his inspirations. He stated “I liked what Jurassic Park was trying to do, but I felt there weren’t enough CGI elephants.”
- In one scene, Baby Blonde was supposed to fight undead dolphins, but they had to cut it because of her fear of water. The 3D models for the dolphins found a new home in The Asylum’s 2017 epic, Five-Headed Shark Attack.