‘Plaga Zombie’ & Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante’
(Aka “my Strange Trip into the World of Plaga Zombie: PArt One”)
So, Giallo Julian and I have a sort of tradition, where we often track down zombie movies we've either never heard of or ones that seem weird, and watch them with alcohol. You know, a fun Friday night. There's been some good times with some wonderful movies that tell a unique or, at least, well-done story (Savage Land, Daylight's End). And there's been some abominable trash fires (The entire The Dead and the Damned series).
Plaga Zombie is neither, though it errs towards the former rather than the latter.
Julian watched the fourth one at some point, and was intrigued enough to check out the main series. He dragooned me into it in the usual manner (“Hey Captain, check this shit out!” “Ooooh no, what the hell is this, Jules?”). Seriously, he showed me the trailer and... Well, I was intrigued, but also suspicious — which is standard for us.
So, Plaga Zombie is an Argentinian zombie series that started in 1997. For fans of the zombie genre, you know that it was released in a relatively dead period (hah) between the genre's golden age in the seventies and eighties, and the revival in the early 2000s. It's a comedy “horror” series that's roughly about three college guys dealing with a zombie outbreak, and so far spans four movies.
I'm not getting into spoilers yet, that's for later down in the line. As usual for these, some spoiler-free reviews, then the plot dump spoiler to discuss details.
My initial assessment, based on the trailer, was bad, but still somewhat open. The reason for that is the first movie is shot in the “my-first-film-project-for-the-film-classes-I dropped-out-of” style. The camera seems primitive even by nineties standards, the editing and pacing seemed off, and the special effects were clearly made with the change they found in the couch. In that first movie, the zombies are, at their best, covered in what looks to be regular make-up and water color paint. Everyone's acting a little too hard as well.
Point being, just from the trailer you might go, Oh cool, this is a shitty zombie movie. Hard pass unless we need a movie to dunk on with friends. And you'd be mostly wrong, because I have never been more entertained and intrigued by a zombie movie since my first exposure to the genre. There's provisos there, but if we were going with “traditional” ratings?
This movie would be a “Yes!?!?” out of five. If that doesn't sound helpful, watch the freaking movie. You'll get it.
Again, going into this and replaying the movie in my head, I should hate this. I'm the sort of guy who uses “deconstruction” and “subversion” in sentences to describe plots, in all seriousness. I'm the jerk who's deep-diving story lore. And the story — again, on the face of it — should be trash in my opinion.
But it quickly hit me… I'm not necessarily here for the story, nor the special effects. I'm here because the first movie charmed me in a way that only the “My First Movie Project” can. This was clearly a labor of love for the people involved, who were having as much fun as one can do with their pants on and no illicit substances in their system.
(And in reading the movie synopsis on Wikipedia? Turns out it is that the main actors wrote and directed the first movie, and did it to have a good time. So you know what? Good on them!)
Still not going into spoilers, but our story is that three guys are dealing with zombies. You have the “pretty and serious” guy (Bill Johnson, played by Pablo Parés). You have the “strong but silly” guy, who also doubles as their “big strong guy” (John West, played by Berta Muñiz). Finally, you have the “smart nerd” guy (Max Giggs, played by Hernán Sáez).
They're going about their day at... I think it's a school dorm or apartment complex they're staying at while as college students. I'll admit, we were drinking and the movie is subtitled, so some finer details were lost on that first viewing. But they're going about their day when zombies happen, and the trio must survive and try to stop the outbreak with a colorful cast of people from the dorm-partment around them. You've seen this story — hell, if you're a creative interested in the genre, you've probably written this story. The only real wrinkle is the source of the zombies and... well, how the zombies act.
But there is a lot of charm done with that threadbare sort of script. Again, everyone from the actors to the zombies to likely the “crew” for this low-budget movie were having a lot of fun running around the place, messing things up, and coming up with creative and/or silly scenarios.
The second film, Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante, was released in 2001, but set immediately after the first movie. It's mostly a repeat of the concept but with a larger scope and... hmm. Giallo Julian and I diverge on our opinions of it. We both still think it is good, but it struck me as trying to recapture the same charm and not quite succeeding with that lightning in the bottle. Still fun though. Jules, meanwhile, loves it completely from what I remember, which — fair.
The important thing to note now is that they have an actual budget. As mentioned earlier, the zombies in the first movie look like they had a particularly messy water-coloring class before they went to film the movie. The gore in that first movie is uh... disturbing, but not for the intended reasons. Like their “flesh” is clearly chewing gum, and a lot of the real gross-outs for me come from fake vomit.
The second movie? They've progressed to the early seventies in terms of gore quality. While a lot of zombies are still basically wearing face-paint, they actually got decent special effects for some of the principal zombies. I'll admit, some of them actually look good in that late-seventies, early-eighties practical-effects way, and I mean that as a compliment. Some of the gore actually sort of works.
(The budget also stretches towards them being able to run around town instead of just in an apartment or dorm building, some basic CGI, a lot more props and extras, and so on.)
And while the story is essentially the same in broad-strokes (three dudes trying to survive), they introduce slightly more characterization, some “interparty conflict,” and slightly diverging goals. They're still all having a ball, though.
But the real magic of the movie is hard to describe without getting into too many spoilers. Honestly, you should go in blind to these movies as much as possible, because these two are definitely a “best-on-the-first-viewing” sort of film. Honestly, if you ever do horror movie nights with friends, or Halloween movie nights, the first one for sure is a solid watch for that night, and the second is also fun.
For once, I can't think of any serious flaws with this movie that aren't part of the charm of it. As mentioned, the special effects are bad for the most part, the story is threadbare, nobody seems to have acting lessons — but that's part of the charm. I do have one big flaw but we'll get to that with spoilers!
But, pre-spoilers 'review' notes are right here:
WATCH IF:
YOU LIKE CHARMING FIRST PROJECTS.
YOU LIKE YOUR ZOMBIE MOVIES BEING NOT SERIOUS.
IF YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF WRESTLING A ZOMBIE INTO OBLIVION.
DO NOT WATCH IF:
BAD VOMIT (OR REALLY ANY VOMIT) EFFECTS MESS WITH YOU.
YOU PREFER YOUR ZOMBIE MOVIES GRIM AND/OR DARK.
YOU ARE ALONE (seriously, this movie's the sort of thing you watch with friends, and you'll lose out on that first viewing magic that way).
Overall? WATCH THE FIRST TWO MOVIES, and hopefully provoke the guys into making a fifth. I'll get to the third and fourth another time, but we're just focusing on the first two.
Now, TO SPOILERS, and why this makes the movies work in my opinion. Seriously, stop here until you've either watched the movie, or decided you don't care about that. I'll give a few little line-breaks here.
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Okay, good? Good. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't continue on.
Plaga Zombie
“A group of people must fight for their lives when a bizarre epidemic starts a zombie invasion.”
The first movie opens up with a guy in an alley. He starts to get surrounded by people inexplicably in Goth Juggalo make-up — like straight up, he's getting surrounded by the Mime Gang from The Warriors. At first, given the make-up done for the zombies, I thought it was the zombies, but then a zombie promptly clowns on the two or three gang members and then jump-scares the guy. Fade to black.
We cut to Bill Johnson. Bill is a medical student, and something's up with his roommate. His roommate wakes up in the middle of the night and goes outside onto the roof, where he's promptly abducted by aliens and experimented on. When he is brought back down he's obviously sick or having issues.
Enter John West (JOHN! WEST!). He's a wrestler with the gimmick of “Argentinian Cowboy” who is having a beef with his former wrestling partner and/or manager, it's hard to tell. Said former partner bad-mouths John West about this, but John West is having none of it. The partner is also obviously sick. John West knows Bill, so he calls him up to check out his partner, I think to get some good will.
Unfortunately — gasp, shock — those two, plus a lot of other people, are infected with Zombie Gunk! Max Giggs somehow gets involved during this, but I do not really recall him in the earlier shots of the movie. We do learn Max is some sort of “computer expert.”
(If you're familiar with nineties movies, you can already picture this “computer expertise.” He has an old brick of a computer, but it inexplicably has a lot of complicated and useless UI, like blinking lights for the primitive instant-messaging system. Think Nedry's set-up in Jurassic Park, and you've got a good idea.)
But while Bill and John West are dealing with the initial problems of zombies, Max gets caught by them in a little mini-kitchen in one of the dorms (or apartments) before getting rescued by John West doing wrasslin'. And this is honestly where we learn the crucial issue of the zombies.
Namely, the zombies — they're not really killing people. I mean they've killed a lot of people, but these zombies are more particular about just fucking around with our principle cast. They're often just grabbing and “threatening” the cast, or doing goofy things to them or around them. Anyone else gets brutally murdered, while with our main trio, it's more slapstick or gross-out humor.
The trio promptly hit on the idea of killing them all, using some sort of injected acid or poison. Bill, as the generally smart one, covers himself with zombie gore and tears up his clothes to try and blend in. But... well, for being the first (or at least one of the first; remember, this predates The Walking Dead by half a decade) bits of zombie media to try this stunt? It fails utterly: the zombies immediately notice, and one promptly pukes on Bill, removing his “disguise.”
Still, Bill manages to scramble in a sort of effective action scene (as in actually effective at being “sort of” tense), getting the necessary chemicals while dodging around the dead. Max, who hit upon the acid idea, gives some instructions, but while Bill breaks bad and John West kind of just stands there, Max happens to glance outside.
Outside, there's a computer mouse just lying on the floor, and Max makes the regrettable decision to go investigate (presumably because he thinks it is his mouse and the zombies broke his computer). The zombies jump him off-camera and John West, leading the charge, promptly leads himself and Bill in the wrong direction. While they screw around with a zombie in a different apartment (including a funny bit where Bill sneaks past a sleeping zombie while John West just waits for it to wake up and then punches it), Max is in trouble.
Did I say trouble? What I meant is they tied Max to the ground. Now again, the cast in both movies are rarely in serious danger because the zombies seem more interested in just bullying them. Anyone not in the trio, though, gets brutally murdered.
(As the sole example in the first movie: While the cast are making the blue meth that'll kill the zombies, the zombies notice a phone and literally put in an order for pizza. The pizza guy, who is easily the most blithe soul in the movie, shows up and promptly gets his hand cut off with a knife, then they cut away. When we find him again, the zombies sliced off part of his head and stuck it in the pizza box.)
Max is outside, and it looks like murder is on the menu. Bill and John West are worried... but the zombies just start bullying Max instead. Straight up, both parties burn like five minutes, with the humans watching or worrying, while the zombies jeer and one with a foamy mouth keeps leaking vomit all over Max's body before puking in his mouth. It's really gross — then the zombies finally move onto “murder.”'
And by that, I mean one starts up a lawnmower and pushes it over towards Max. The zombies lift up the running lawnmower — as in they actually lift it up, which strikes me as unsafe for the zombie actor, because it's clearly running in that shot — and bring it threateningly towards Max's head.
It's only at this point that Bill and John West go “We have to save him!” And then they promptly spend the next bit arming themselves. Bill loads up, like, two dozen syringes, while John West somehow rigs up what looks like a bug-sprayer's backpack tank with the stuff and rigs up the nozzles with syringe tips. They move out and try their miracle weapons on the zombies... and instead of an instant kill, they almost get bopped by the zombies since there's a delay before the poison kills them. Oops.
The duo promptly fight it out with the zombies, including a bit where John West's now-zombified wrestling partner manages to wordlessly challenge John West to a wrestling match (complete with a cheating zombie referee). It's actually pretty fun. Bill's trying to be all serious and fight the zombies with the syringes, meanwhile John West has his partner in a leg-lock and is looking at the zombie ref for the countdown, but the ref is busy whistling and cleaning his nails.
The duo promptly get distracted from their respective fights — or realize that it's been like thirty minutes in-universe, and Max is probably in ten separate zombie stomachs. They split up to kill zombies, while someone (GASP! MAX!) brains a zombie to steal his medical “I've had a skull-fracture or traumatic brain injury” helmet.
Unfortunately, in splitting up, that leaves both parties to get ambushed. John West gets distracted on a roof by a zombie juggling brains, allowing two other zombies to get his acid injector sprayers and point them at his neck. I forget precisely what happens to Bill, but I think it involved him getting jumped by quite a few of them. Again, instead of brutal murder, they get drug outside to be bullied before the attempted murder.
THEN MAX OUTTA NOWHERE! Max survived, though he got scalped by the lawnmower. He helps free the duo and they all fight the zombies — but as things go on? First, Max gets hit by a particularly clever zombie who swipes one of Bill's syringes, and gets the acid injected right into his leg. He drops, convulsing and seemingly dead. Then, as John West kills the last of the zombies, he starts to react poorly. “Max was right,” he says before turning into a zombie.
(I don't recall what Max was right about, as again, alcohol was involved and we were having too good a time to worry about the story. Presumably either John West got bit at some point, or they had a theory on the source. I doubt it's blood or bodily fluids since, as mentioned, Max gets puked on by one in the mouth.)
Zombie John West clowns on Bill for a bit, before improbably THE AMERICAN FBI show up and kill the remaining zombies, including a particularly good shot of John West's headshot. They did not have the budget for any real solid decapitations, so instead they did this artsy sort of shot where they have, like, six single images of John West's head in an artistic style blowing apart done over a delay.
(Seriously, me and Giallo Julian were kinda cheering at that point because it was pretty good.)
The FBI promptly arrests Bill and sticks him in the back of a car, where he's sullenly waiting to be taken away at gunpoint. Then one of the front passengers turns around and — GASP, SHOCK! — It's not the FBI, it's AN ALIEN IN A SUIT. Credits roll, before it goes to an after-credits scene. 'FIVE YEARS LATER,' Bill looks slightly older with a beard, typing at a typewriter in a dim and squalid office. He hears a sound and promptly tears open his suit jacket and shirt, revealing both the same bloody rag of a shirt he was wearing at the end of the film, plus a new bandolier of syringes.
NOW this first movie works very well in my opinion. It's explaining very little and it doesn't care. You're here to watch a bunch of friends have a ball filming and acting out a zombie movie. Trying to take it as a horror movie or delve into the plot doesn't really work, because the “horror” is few and far between, and the plot is the sort of thing a hungover, but creative, game-master comes up with when he has to run a quick, improvised one-shot roleplaying game for their friends. And the zombies are all clowns that are difficult to take seriously.
So instead it's a very funny comedy about guys being dudes, dealing with the sorts of zombies that make Army of Darkness and Shaun of the Dead look like serious, grim introspections.
Giallo Julian and I spent the entire movie glued to our seats, enjoying just the sheer charm of these guys. We promptly agreed to watch the second movie — albeit with a momentary palate-cleanser of like watching fifteen minutes of something else. We learned our lesson from bingeing movies back to back after grimly sitting through the entire The Dead and the Damned trilogy. No, we wanted to go into the second movie fresh, so after watching some random YouTube stuff, we were ready to go!
Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante
“Three survivors of a zombie outbreak (caused by an alien virus) intercepted by the authorities and thrown straight back into the now quarantined town. The trio, an ex pro-wrestler named John West, medical student Bill, and a nerd called Max, fend off the undead whilst trying to figure out a way to escape their predicament.”
Something to keep in mind — the second, in my opinion, is where some flaws start showing up, and the biggest one is Max. In the first movie, Max is the nerdy guy of the group, but he does have a heroic moment and figures out a weakness for the zombies that isn't just John West murdering them with wrestling moves. He's a good character in the first.
In the second? Holy shit.
So, the second movie was made in 2001, to sort of “explain” the issue or justify it, I guess. I also wouldn't be surprised if it was something lost in translation, as humor does tend to differ culturally and linguistically. But uh… man… is Max a problem in this movie, because Max is coded as mentally disabled… like, offensively so. Max lost a lot of IQ between movies, and I think even in 2001 — where I used the R-word a lot — I'd probably be offended by Max and their likely opinion of the mentally challenged.
Okay, moving on — The first movie ended with two of the principal cast dead, plus a five year jump skip… The second movie promptly ignores that. We cut to THE AMERICAN FBI, an agent talking to someone on webcam, I guess, but the mysterious agent is seemingly inept and pointed their webcam right at their mouth before adjusting it to be worse. The agent is going over the situation: they seemingly deliberately released the zombie parasite in that area at the behest of the aliens to test it, but promptly lost containment, and the agent is advocating bombing the area. He goes over the list of survivors, mentioning our cast by name...
...and the mysterious old man is having none of it. "DUMP 'EM IN," he demands, while the agent is like, "What? But why?" Seriously, he's questioning it while the old mysterious man is repeatedly going "PUT THEM (the survivors) BACK IN."
Cut to Bill, getting unceremoniously flung from the back of a moving van. He's suspicious that he's back in the outbreak zone and promptly gets a chunk of wood to use as a weapon, but hears someone behind him ask a question. Despite not being around any talking zombies in the first movie, he promptly turns around swinging at... John West?
So, this isn't a real retcon sort of thing. Bill reacts like John West died in the last movie, and John West sort of acknowledges it. At first he's like “That's not important right now,” but somewhere towards the end of the movie, Bill asks him how he's still alive. John West says that that is quite a story, but then they get distracted. It never really gets resolved in this movie. I'm curious if it does... but I also kind of hope it doesn't, because it's pretty funny. It's like that bit in Beerfest where the character of Landfill dies, then his identical twin brother shows up immediately afterward, and all the characters agree to call him “Landfill” and treat him like his brother.
Anyway, another van shows up to Bill and John West, with AMERICAN FBI AGENTS in hazmat suits quickly dumping off two body bags and skedaddling. If you're wondering why I keep saying “AMERICAN FBI AGENTS” and similar... Well, they don't explicitly identify where they are in the movie, leading me to assume it's Argentina since it's an Argentinian film and so on. This is me just laughing my personal ass off at that factoid that the American FBI is here at all, mainly because the FBI — and as we'll later see, SWAT — don't typically act outside of US Soil.
Back to the plot — Max is in one of those bags and, demonstrating his last big of cleverness, gets out by jamming a pen into the gap between the zipper and the end of the zipper-line, then wrenching it open. Max's survival is never particularly questioned, which makes a certain amount of sense given that he was merely poisoned, but nobody mentioning it at all is a little strange. Not to mention dumping him out in a body bag.
The other bag is an unknown at this point, though Bill decides someone else must be alive in there, and — being unable to open it — John West is forced to haul it. The reason for that is that, at first, nine or so zombies show up (in much better make-up from the first movie) and there's a brief stand-off, followed by a slightly-less brief fight. More and more zombies show up to the fray, John West gets a zombie on his back who bites him roughly thirty times, and our cast bails and hops a fence to someone's house to get to safety.
The cast regroups and goes about various things. Max notices the house should be occupied with about four people given the place settings and photos, and promptly finds three bodies that anyone should have noticed pretty fast. Like seriously, one body is stuffed into the gap between the fridge and ceiling, with its legs dangling down over the fridge door, while another is on top of the stove, I think, but nobody noticed them in the initial scan. Max goes to investigate where the fourth body is, and spots a little boy trapped in a car across the street by a zombie.
The little boy is in danger, though the zombie spends the requisite amount of time messing around. I find this suspect, because the little boy's screaming sounds like someone going "aaaaaaaah" in a dry monotone, while also directing the sound through a fan so it has that reverb to it. I seriously thought that the zombies managed a trap using a doll or a dead body or something. Max goes to try and help, but immediately runs back inside when the lone zombie starts to come his way… then the zombie breaks into the car and kills the kid off-camera.
Bill, meanwhile, is curious about the body bag. He either tries to question John West about his survival or order him around, I'm not sure since John West cuts him off pretty fast. "I've been up thirty hours and I gotta take a dump," he says angrily, before going to do just that. Bill finds out the zipper is broken on the body bag and goes to get a knife, but all of the knives in the silverware drawer are inexplicably missing.
John West is reading a magazine and doing his business. Something to note, which Giallo Julian joked about, was man… John West would have trouble with this. For the record, Bill and Max are in ragged clothes, supposedly the outfits they were in at the end of the last film and thus what they were wearing when the zombie situation kicked off. John West, meanwhile, is in a black spandex wrestling uniform with a leopard-print wrestling singlet over it. He's basically been in that outfit since we met him, because he was wearing it under his normal clothes. There are worse clothes to wear for fast bathroom access, sure, but that's gotta be not fun for that.
Regardless, John West (while he's “busy”) hears Bill and Max shouting about zombies attacking the house — Bill tells Max to watch the body bag while he deals with it, and then Bill shouts for help. John West is unable to immediately join, because we're in a comedy movie and tee-hee, the toilet paper is out. After searching a bit and considering his magazine, we cut to John West leaving the bathroom, discovering Max staring gormlessly ahead, and Bill somehow in a zombie mosh-pit outside. But by the time John West lumbers outside, Bill and the zombies are gone, and Max demonstrates his first “problematic” moment by waving at John with a very vacant smile and insisting that watching the unmoving body bag was more important than helping Bill not get owned by a mosh pit.
John West and Max (along with the body-bag) go to try and find Bill, as well as get to safety. John West uses the body-bag and body inside as an improvised weapon, while Max somehow manages to pulp a zombie off-camera despite being unarmed. John reacts with only mild befuddlement as his friend somehow turns a man into liquid gore. The duo, as Bill's section happens, eventually reach the edge of town and discover that something has dug massive (poorly CGI'd) chasms around the town, preventing their escape.
Bill, meanwhile, has escaped the mosh pit and is running for it. He eventually ends up in the sewers, where he encounters Scott Lee Ray, an AMERICAN SWAT member. Scott was left behind by his team, who thought bites would infect people, and is insistent on hiding at first since the zombies are dangerous. He does mention that the town is cut off (right before John West and Max discover this), and that he has the only route out. He begs Bill for help, but Bill just wants to escape without the FBI, because he suspects them to be behind this or, at least, for them to make things worse. Bill eventually does help Scott, but continues to argue, while Scott waves around an old-school hard floppy disk that he insists has the map out. The zombies show up and promptly eat Scott, but Bill manages to snag the disk.
At some point during all this, John West and Max are walking, and a truck full of people pass by them. This is easy to ignore at first, because both men don't talk about it and this movie's low-budget enough that you could expect them to keep shooting even though a vehicle ruined their shot. But this is important, I guess, so welp. Zombies find them and they have to run, running across Bill and his own horde of pursuing zombies in the process.
They decide to fight the zombies for a bit... or should I say Max and Bill fight a couple zombies while the rest sort of clown around and watch. John West, meanwhile, encounters the zombie that I think ate the little kid, who is gesticulating around with a lollipop and trying to communicate. Instead of helping his friends, John West proceeds to try and interpret the zombie's grunts, to both of their frustrations since the zombie can't speak and John West is unable to understand.
You'd think this would lead to something, but not really? I guess it shows that at least some zombies are intelligent and willing to talk, but it still basically goes nowhere, and is honestly kind of confusing. Funny for a bit, but come on John West, Bill and Max are in trouble and you're watching a zombie bang two rocks together. That's Max behavior, man! Are you Max, John West?
Regardless, the group is saved when a mysterious buzzing sound distracts the horde and makes them all stare skyward. Our heroes run again and bring up what they found out regarding the chasms and the SWAT map. Max lives nearby and takes them to his house, where they use his computer to try and access the map. It needs to be decrypted and will take twelve hours, so the group is going to sit down and wait, but a problem occurs.
Somehow, there's an FBI radio in the house, and the FBI are trying to communicate with Scott Lee Ray. Bill, who managed to swipe Scott's ID, recognizes the name, and convinces John West to answer and impersonate him. This works, but the FBI wants to pick up Scott with a helicopter, and ignoring Bill's frantic head-shaking, John West proceeds to give them their location. The group decides to flee, but since dragging a computer with them and keeping it powered is a chore, they decide to 'hide the computer.'
And by that, I mean Max takes white construction paper, cuts a hole in it to show the obvious timer, tapes it over the computer monitor, and writes 'DO NOT TOUCH - EXPLOSIVES' on the paper. I'd like to mention now that this somehow works to dissuade people, despite the fact that it's construction paper and black marker on a computer monitor, with no other hiding of the rest of the computer system.
Either way, Max notices zombies outside, and while Bill and John West prepare to leave, he investigates. Both men realize Max has disappeared again, and perhaps recalling Max's recent haircut with a running lawn mower the last time he decided to slip off, immediately run after him. Max is returning from the oddly skulking zombie trio, excited and insisting the zombies want to negotiate. The zombies sort of nod in agreement, while both Bill and John West consider that Max is kind of a moron, and drag him off before Max can once again get kidnapped by zombies.
They go to John West's house, where they finally treat the two dozen bite wounds John West got on his back — and by that, I mean Bill promptly wastes about three pounds of gauze and medical tape turning John West's back into paper mâché. Bill once again goes looking for a knife for the body bag they're still hauling around, while John West — perhaps realizing something's up with Max — decides to show Max around to distract or help him, after briefly lamenting the fact that zombies knocked over John West's trophies.
On Bill's end, he finds that the knives are once again inexplicably missing. This time it's moderately more suspicious, considering this is the second time the silverware drawer is missing all the knives... and also because of the two skulking figures in black stuffing knives into their bag that we see but Bill doesn't. One of them promptly puts on a hockey mask and mugs for the camera with a hunting knife, which leads me and Giallo Julian to call them the Knife Cult for the rest of the movie.
On John West and Max's end? MADNESS. They enter what turns out to be a shrine to John West, by John West. Seriously, calling it a trophy room is drastically underselling it. The room is literally wallpapered with newspaper articles about John West, fan drawings of John West, photographs, memorabilia, big cut-outs of blown-up photos, and I'm pretty sure I saw a cardboard standee like you'd find in a record store. Hell, you have to pause it to see it, but there's a flier for a movie where John West starred with EL SANTO, the very famous Luchador wrestler. Either way, Max investigates while John West is briefly away, finding a covered-up newspaper clipping about John West's career being over.
(I'd like to point out later that we find out John West is 26. He's not some over-the-hill wrestler that's inexplicably hanging out with young adult college students. He's only three years older than Bill. The amount of stuff in here suggests that John West had a long and storied career, or at least somehow entered super-stardom for his brief career. It also suggests that they either put in a lot of work for their props here... or John West the character is very popular with Argentinians and thus half the stuff is real fan-art and the like. Could be either honestly.)
Then the madness truly kicks on as John West returns with a record of John West music with a picture of John West's head on the record. There's a reason I'm using his full name all the time, because John West is easily both the most entertaining character in this movie, and I'm ninety percent sure the script has written his name at every point as 'JOHN! WEST!' given the amount of love he's getting in-story.
But I digress.
He literally returns with his music single that's embellished with his face, and then sings along to it. This promptly transitions to Max wearing a cowboy hat and shooting off dry cap-guns while the duo groove to it. It's honestly surreal and I started covertly checking to see if Giallo Julian dosed me with LSD, because seriously, my brain rejected my eyes there for a bit. It doesn't help that it's catchy: I'm still humming the damn song.
Anyway, Bill returns to the living room, where he finds the body bag has sat up, and I guess the guy inside had the same idea on how to open it that Max did. We're introduced to... okay. So this guy seems fine, but he acts honestly more mentally handicapped than Max does in this movie. He immediately identifies John West and just says 'John West,' then when asked what his name is, looks at Max and says 'Max.' I'm going to call him Max 2 for the purposes here, but he's kinda wigging me out.
Either way, Max 2 fanboys out about meeting John West and nobody asks him what his deal is, nor does Max 2 seem to really understand or care or question his situation. John West promptly gives him an autographed photo, Bill notices their food situation sucks, and our Max promptly goes Gomer Pyle in Full Metal Jacket. Seriously, he's blatantly jealous, and some serious tonal whiplash is happening, because Max 1 looks like he's about to snap.
(Both Giallo Julian and I, upon the camera cutting to Max 1 sitting on a chair with his face obscured in shadow and a leering evil grin on his face, started quoting Gomer Pyle's insanity moment from the aforementioned film. You know the point, where Gomer Pyle's loading an M14 magazine while going “Seven-six-two MILL-i-METER. FULL metal JACKET.”)
Bill and John West, not noticing that Max 1 is clearly in some sort of psychological situation, decide to leave Max 1 in charge of Max 2 while they go get food from a grocery store. Max 1 promptly murders Max 2 off camera, presumably using the same method Max 1 uses to turn a zombie into liquid since Max 2's body is in chunks when we see him next.
Then once again, TONAL WHIPLASH. Bill and John West arrive at the grocery store, which is untouched because, while this movie has a budget, I doubt it's “rent-a-store-for-longer-than-fifteen-minutes-while-simultaneously-trashing-it” budget. They promptly laugh, pick up alcohol and food, crack some jokes, and Bill notices that once again all the knives are missing from their packaging.
They return to the house, where John West discovers Max 2's body. I don't know where Bill is during this scene, but Max has ended up outside, where Max is getting ripped apart by zombies because I guess he forgot to pay his protagonist-insurance. Max — sans an arm — begs John West for help, but John West isn't willing to help due to Max looking like a dead man and being pretty sure Max killed Max 2.
The Duo realize they need to get back to Max's house. They clean up and have a lock-and-load montage, with John West merely getting cleaned up, while Bill puts on his early 2000s protagonist outfit that makes him look tough and goofy. And as the montage is starting to move to weapons, they both promptly get pistol-whipped into unconsciousness, because SCREW YOUR MONTAGE!
(Seriously, I am in love with how often they just gleefully subvert things. “Oh let's pretend that we're zombies, that'll work!” WRONG. “Okay let's get dressed up real sweet and arm up in this montage to kill some zom–” CLONK.)
The duo wake up in Max's house, having been kidnapped by a big FBI team, handcuffed and stuffed onto a couch while a bunch of guys keep an eye on them. Their leader is the FBI agent from the beginning of the film, the one who was all “Wait why are we not bombing this place? Why are we dumping survivors back in?” He demands to know where Scott Lee Ray is, as well as where the map disk is, and doesn't care about their “explosives.”
Seriously, Max's weird little lie worked on a full FBI team, who you think would at least decide to see what kind of blast they're dealing with, or not have their interrogation in a room with a “live explosive.”
The duo mostly stonewall the FBI agent, glaring at him as he says he just wants to get out with his team. John West finally speaks... by pointing out he broke his handcuffs and standing up to mug at the camera while guns get drawn on him. Way to blow your surprise round, dingus. John West cares not for your bullets though, promptly grabbing a guy and disarming him, saved only because this is the most inept FBI team I've ever seen in fiction. Seriously, they all start shooting randomly while John West continues to grab and hurt people, while Bill and the lead agent take cover. Even then, the lead agent gets a graze to the head.
By the end, everyone save Bill, John West, and the lead agent are dead. The decryption finally wraps up and Bill triumphantly pulls off the “disguise” for the computer. Okay, now they're gonna leave and-- 'INSERT DISC #2.' We had to pause the movie to laugh because MY GOD! WOW!
Anyway, the duo try to interrogate the lead agent, but he's not making sense and doesn't seem to know about a second disc. At the very least, he doesn't acknowledge them while talking about weird, cryptic things, and then he dies from the graze to the head. Before the duo can figure out more — we're not really sure what happened. Maybe the FBI team had the zombie parasites in them, maybe it's just that a bunch of zombies in white hazmat suits showed up, but both of our protagonists get jumped by zombies in hazmat suits and wake up in the back of the aforementioned weird truck they ignored earlier.
They're brought to some sort of abandoned warehouse and led out by the zombies. At first I thought they were all zombies, but some of them are actually living people who just look terrible. Either way, someone's talking and seemingly riling up the zombies, and that someone is Max, now sporting a zombie right arm to replace his missing one.
Max is promising the zombies a way out and is making plans for them that seem actually kinda sensible. The zombies are thrilled, while Bill wants to go and confront his friend, John West stopping him. This promptly goes out the window as Max rants about how he's going to rip John West to shreds for being a dirty traitor and leaving him to die, describing John West in enough detail that the aforementioned Lollipop Zombie notices John West. Said zombie goes and somehow narcs to Max, who tells the zombies to part so he can get a good look at John West and make sure it's him. Max orders the zombies to rip Bill and John West to pieces...
...when the Knife Cult shows up. Apparently they're rebelling against the zombies? Somehow? And they've been stockpiling every kitchen knife in town for this occasion. This includes common cutlery-drawer staples as “hunting knives,” “carving knives,” and “katanas.” The rebels arm the other humans, minus Bill and John West, and while they're kicking zombie ass, they seem just as content to clown around as the zombies.
Max flees for the roof, followed by John West at first. Bill gets a touch distracted, because apparently Lollipop Zombie's attempts at communication were “I really want to break someone's teeth by shoving a lollipop into their mouth.” Don't worry, dental-horror haters, that doesn't happen, but seriously — a zombie tackles Bill for the express purpose of stuffing a lollipop in his mouth.
Max argues with John West, before pulling off his suit to reveal a freaking Superman tank top and a red half-cape. Max runs off and somehow manages what looks to be a ten-foot vertical leap (thanks to the camerawork), which John West somehow overcomes to pull Max kicking and screaming to the ground. I don't think Max can fly, I think Max is just insane and it was a poor shot, but who knows with this movie?
Either way, John West has had enough. He's moving to toss Max off the roof to his death ("You want to fly? Okay then!"), but Bill arrives. Max begs Bill for help, and Bill tries to stop John West, but the movie has sold John West as a complete hoss, so it's no surprise that Bill literally gets trampled by John West's power walk as John West ignores his friend. Bill resorts to throwing a rock at his friend's head, which is the straw that breaks John West's back. He drops Max and promptly starts strangling Bill.
The rest of the scene is basically a trip to the Accusatorium, though for the most part Bill is blameless. Max is angry at John West for leaving him to die and calls him a has-been, and is angry at Bill for wanting to haul around the body bag of a guy Max was turbo-jealous of. John West is angry at the whole “murder-of-Max 2” thing and at Bill for ordering him around. Bill is angry because I think that was on his short list of character traits, and really he just wants everyone to calm down.
Finally, after a bit, John West relents. He then promptly pulls out what I'm sure is his actual script lines and reads them off as a rousing speech, like literally he pulls out folded paper and is clearly reading from it with the paper in view of the camera. This rallies the team, complete with a “put-your-hands-together” sort of moment ruined a bit by Max's zombie arm, and they go downstairs to join the rest of the humans-- ah crap, all them and the zombies killed each other.
They hear the weird buzzing again, the one that distracted the zombies, and all the bodies on the floor begin shaking. Something starts ripping out of them and whoops, aliens are gestating in the zombies. The trio discuss whether there's a point to running or fighting, as this looks like a doomed situation, but eventually elect to fight. They count to three to rush them... and credits roll.
Once again, we get an after-credit “FIVE YEARS LATER” bit. This time, John West is in a suit with a mustache. He's signing a contract that promises to get him back into wrestling and is excited for the opportunity. Shaking his new manager's hand, he finds out the guy is a zombie. John West promptly rips off his suit to reveal the same spandex and singlet look he's had in both movies so far, and for some reason also rips off the fake mustache he's wearing, and once again mugs at the camera.
SO — the second film is... I don't hate it. I still thought it was fun. It's a goofy, good time made better with friends and alcohol, but it's more flawed than the first. The two big ones are Max, as well as... I guess I'll call it “scope-increase.”
Max is just awful in this movie. Again, he's coded like he's there to make fun of the mentally handicapped, which is probably more just a sign of the movie's age than anything else, but he's also just freaking weird. Outside of starting the decryption of the map disc, he's basically useless or worse than useless. He causes a lot of problems and just kinda weirds me out.
Then you add Max 2.
Max 2 is in this movie for, like, five minutes, and seems to exist to cause Max 1 to have a psychotic break. I wasn't leaving much, if anything, out here during this brief mini-review. Max 2 shows up, acts very bizarre, fanboys about John West, and then gets murdered by Max 1 off-camera.
But then there's the other part — the “scope-increase.” The first film was boldly plotless. Sure, there's some bits about this maybe being aliens and some hints of a weird conspiracy, but that's set dressing. It's about three guys in a zombie situation and their wacky hi-jinks trying to survive. It's fun and charming in that regard.
This one, the scope of the story increases. There's actually something akin to a plot and character development here. There's conflict that isn't just “and-then-thirty-to-fifty-zombies-show-up-to-cause-problems,” but I feel that is to its detriment. Most of it doesn't make sense, there's some serious tonal whiplash, and a lot of it seems thrown in, even for this movie not really caring about a consistent story... yeah.
I mean, the FBI claimed to have a helicopter, so why do they care about a map? How'd they know where to find Bill and John West? Why was the FBI team left there at all? Like, I shouldn't be asking these questions — this is a movie where you just sort of turn your brain off and enjoy the spectacle, but adding all that stuff is now making me ask those questions.
And this stretches out. They don't state times but it seems like only a day or so has passed since the first movie, and the time-frame in that was only like a day. Yet there's already a rebellion against the zombies and they've scoured the town for knives, to the point of raiding random kitchen drawers. The zombies are attempting to communicate but again, to what end? They establish that John West died but somehow came back, but don't answer that question, nor do they answer the question of why Max was doing any of what he was doing!
Still, the movies are fun. I appreciate the playing around with various tropes and movie conventions. The fact that they keep doing five year time-skips for the post-credits scene is amusing (and according to Giallo Julian, they do it for the fourth movie and probably the third). And there are these moments of cleverness and good quality mixed in with the cheesy poor-quality charm.
(As an example of this — something I didn't mention is that at some point in the second movie, the characters get into a car and drive to one of their destinations. And because they don't have a good budget or control over the sets, they can't do what a lot of better-budgeted zombie flicks do with trashing the set or attacking the car. Instead, they have this long panning shot cut together from multiple shots of zombies just having a ball rampaging around various streets, that works on selling the town is overrun by these lunatic-clown zombies. And it's clearly cut together to avoid things like “other cars” and “the guy walking out of his house wondering what these lunatics are doing — wait are you filming a movie out here?”)
Is this the best zombie series I've seen? Hell no. Even within this particular niche genre of “low budget zombie comedies,” the Hide and Creep series is miles ahead. But much like that aforementioned series, this is entertainingly cheesy and very charming. These guys are people I'd love to get a beer and discuss their thoughts on movies with.
I'm honestly looking forward to seeing Parts 3 and 4, which is surprising to me. Truthfully, when Giallo Julian pitched this series to me, I expected to have fun dunking on the movie Mystery Science Theater 3000-style. And there was a bit of that, but the cast and crew won me over. This was legitimately fun and entertaining, with an enthusiasm to just “go do a movie” that I rarely see in films anymore.
