Sunday 22 October 2023

Ibiza Undead aka 'Zombie Spring Breakers' (2016) - Just watch 'Sean of the Dead'

I know that 'Sean of the Dead' was released well over ten years before this entry into the - by 2016 - slowly rotting corpse of a genre which all things undead had become by then.  If it was released a decade earlier 'Ibiza Undead' may have stood more of a chance for being - at least a little bit - original, but there are simply a hundred better zombie TV shows and movies by this stage.

A group of teens head to Ibiza (while a zombie outbreak is well underway) - this is about the most interesting act of the story as it seems that humanity considers flesh-eating ghouls as simply a minor inconvenience, rather than a threat to their species and the bringers of the apocalypse.  There are even pamphlets explaining the 'dos' and 'don'ts' of how to deal with the monsters - to which some of the protagonists are so unbothered that they don't even read them!

Anyway, the two main leads feel like carbon copies of James Corden and his mate's characters from 'Lesbian Vampire Killers.' I've only seen that film the once so I simply remember Corden's performance of being kind of loud-mouthed, over s3xual and swearing a lot.  Well, if you don't like Corden and his style in general, you'll hate the dime store version of his character in 'Ibiza Undead.' He's really cringe and hard to watch - even towards the end when the writers try to make us feel sorry for him he messes his 'redemption arc' up and reverts back to his awful type.

Most of the characters are basically unlikable, but at least 'Peep Show's' Matt King puts in a performance that shows he's head and shoulders above the rest.  The film doesn't really have the budget for much gore (besides a semi-reasonable amputation about three quarters the way through the film) and it certainly doesn't have the talent from the writers.

If it does have a plus point is that it looks quite pretty with plenty of bright and neon colours, giving off the 'clubby' vibe that Ibiza is famous for (not that I've been there, so I'm just guessing!) and there are a few 'screen wipes' which reminded me of the way they changed scenes in 'Star Wars' which feel a little pointless here.

By the end, you won't really care about any of the protagonists and having them suddenly develop into super zombie bada$$ killers in the final scene feels totally out of place and character and the semi rip-off of the end of the 2004 'Dawn of the Dead' end scene doesn't add a fraction of the emotional weight it did in Zack Snyder's version.  In fact, you can watch that, 'Sean of the Dead' or pretty much any other zombie film or TV show and be more entertained or amused than this one.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back

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