Killer Weekend aka 'Fubar' (2018) - Fun, if you're in the right sort of mood

The marketing for this film states that it's like 'The Inbetweeners' mixed with 'Shaun of the Dead.' I suppose I can see where they're coming from, but the films I'd liken it to would be more 'Doghouse' meets 'Severance,' but seeing as those two are probably not as famous as the first ones, I guess either comparison is fair.

It's about a party of British guys going on a survival weekend, where they basically have to rough it in the woods while paintballing 'zombies' (or ex-squaddies in bad make-up).  Naturally, as the title suggests, things do not go to plan and the bodies start mounting up.

It's rare that a so-called 'comedy' film actually makes me laugh - normally only getting a wry smile out of me at best.  However, the banter between the men actually did make me laugh in places.  It's actually pretty well written and the characters will grow on you.  About the only two you might know are 'Keith' from Ricky Gervais' 'The Office' (no, I don't know his real name!) and Mark Heap, who used to be in a lot of Chris Morris TV shows back around the year 2000.  At first, they kind of come across as just a bunch of stereotypes - one of which is effectively every on-screen character Nick Frost and James Corden have played, only rolled into one.  However, the stand-out was the posh lawyer, who I didn't like at the beginning, but he had a lot of the best lines.

If the film had a flaw it's that - for the main part - the story stay within the confines of reality and in the - albeit extreme - situations the characters find themselves in, everything is supposed to be believable and realistic.  However, in some situations which start of grounded, sort of deviate into slapstick which then feels unreal and not in keeping with the general tone of the story.  The writer in me kept trying to rewrite scenes so that they played out slightly different, keeping the situations 'more real.'

'Killer Weekend' may not be as good, or memorable as the films its marketing claims it's trying to live up to, but I found it good fun - give it a try, if you're not expecting anything too taxing on the old grey matter.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that