Zombie King - King of the Undead - DVD

Content: It wasn't long ago that postman Ed (George McClusky), milkman Munch (David McClelland) and Boris (Michael Gamarano) were going about their normal lives. Now, suddenly, the trio must fight off an entire army of zombies. Even as they join another group of survivors led by the pugnacious Simo (Seb Castang) and hole up in a farmhouse, their chances of survival dwindle by the minute. Where the undead come from they don't know, but really they don't care. The main thing is that they can find somewhere safe. Little do they know that the situation is about to get much worse. For the desperate Samuel Peters (Edward Furlong), whose wife has recently died, has made a pact with the demon Kalfu (Corey Feldman) - a pact that will make Samuel the Zombie King and could spell the end of humanity as we know it. Only Ed, Munch, Boris and their new companions can stop that from happening...

With Zombie King, director Aidan Belizaire ventures into the difficult sub-genre of horror-comedy, or more specifically, zombie-comedy, or zom-com for short. It's a difficult genre in that works like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and most recently Warm Bodies have set the bar pretty damn high. Finding the right mix of horror and humor is something that much more experienced filmmakers have failed miserably at before Belizaire. And Zombie King might also have a hard time getting diehard zom-com fans properly excited.

However, Belizaire actually does everything right in the approach. He assembles a gaggle of sometimes rather quirky characters whose backstories are told in rather amusing flashbacks throughout the film to send them into battle against a horde of bloodthirsty zombies. When a postman goes on a zombie hunt side by side with a milkman, it certainly holds potential for an eerily weird zom-com. Also, the idea of varying the zombie mythos a bit and adding some fresh air to the currently a bit overused zombie genre with the addition of demonic voodoo magic initially leaves a very positive impression.

The fact that the film still only works very sporadically is due to several factors. For one, Belizaire doesn't prove to have a particularly good hand when it comes to comedic timing. His gags are often just too flat and lack any form of cleverness, as it was omnipresent in Shaun of the Dead. Although there are here and there a few successful laughs and delightfully macabre scenes, but these are buried again and again under dull sex slogans or shallow jokes, so that they can hardly remain lasting in the memory.

The biggest problem, however, is that the somehow isolated-seeming plot line around Samuel Peters in contrast to the story around Ed, Munch, Boris and Co, was implemented far too seriously. As a result, this part of the movie doesn't only feel like a foreign body, the short appearance of ex-child star Corey Feldman (The Lost Boys) as the demon Kalfu in this context also turns out to be just silly and anything but scary. This is a pity, because the basic idea of this plotline is actually good and gives the movie a certain originality. But Belizaire squanders this almost completely. At least: with its consistently drastic ending, the film makes up some ground.

However, Zombie King cannot be called a good film by any stretch of the imagination. The zom-com has its moments and some really nice ideas, but they are really only enough to offer quite hardcore fans of British horror comedies like Lesbian Vampire Killers still quite decent entertainment.

Picture + Sound: That Zombie King is a fairly inexpensive production is also noticeable in the audiovisual realization on the DVD. Admittedly, the picture is very clean and the overall sharpness is also on a decent level. However, it is in the detail and in the darker scenes that some blurring and other minor weaknesses become noticeable. The sound delivers dialogue absolutely decently, with the rest of the sound effects falling short of their potential. Overall, the technical implementation is decent to good, but not much more!

Extras: As a bonus, the DVD unfortunately has only the trailer to offer the film.

Conclusion: Zombie King is a British low budget production that tries to mix humor with bloody zombie action and at the same time also still the currently so popular zombie myth to win a new side. This works surprisingly well in some moments, but in other scenes it seems too forced to really amuse or entertain. If you can overlook the less successful aspects and especially the very silly guest appearance of Corey Feldman as a demon, you still get enough decent scenes, which make this film still worth watching for lovers of British horror comedies.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp