Plaga Zombie - The Beginning

If you take in account that most of the people involved in this film where in there 20's at the time, this is a major accomplishment. It's extra gory and very funny, and some special effects are amazingly well done. It's also worth mentioning that the total budget was U$S600 and it was shot with only one camera. Most of the editing (90% of it actually, according to their website) was done while filming, i.e. filming scene number 17 right after number 16. I could say that the story was under-developed, that the acting was flaky, etc... but once again: they were 20 years old!.

If I'm not mistaken, it's also the first Argentinian zombie film. Bound to become a cult classic.

Rating: 8/10

Bored with their slow lifestyle, two best friends in a small Argentine town find that a strange alien epidemic on their neighboring residents has unleashed a horde of zombies on the town and forces them to engage in a series of inventive tactics to stop them from spreading.

Considering its resources, this one turned out rather fun and enjoyable. One of the few positives to like here is the rather enjoyable and frantic pacing throughout here that basically charges this one along incredibly well. There's little time to waste here before the abduction encounter and the friends slowly undergoing their metamorphosis in their apartment, leading to the great scenes of the creatures running loose in the streets of the small town with the ever-increasing horde coming after them. There's some more fun to be had from their encounters throughout the house which make this one feel really fun with the initial brawling as well as the encounters in the basement or out in the hallways and corridors of the complex which makes for a truly fun low-budget style good time here with the film employing non-stop encounters with the creatures to give this the sort of frantic, frenzied encounters that take place throughout here which give it that fast-paced feel. That kicks in even more when it gets to their counter-attacks clearing the way against the zombies, which goes for the cheesy wrestling matches and comedic brawls that occur in the lobby of their apartment or outside in the streets which manage to continue on throughout this one so well that there's almost nothing to keep this one from slowing down and focusing on their battles with the creatures that are quite fun in here, giving this one the kind of crazy, over-the-top gore gags against the zombies that never belie their low-budget origins in execution even though the concept here is exceptionally fun and gruesome at times. These here really hold this one up even though there are some pretty noticeable flaws to be found here. As is most obvious about this one, that comes from it's incredibly low-budget nature which is quite small and really shows it's nature here with the exceptionally cheesy make-up and gore effects as well as the overall execution of the film's technical areas which are just so obviously minuscule that it becomes a source of the film to really get a handle on for this one. Everything looks home-made and cheap without going for any kind of realism, which makes for a somewhat troubling watch if looked at in terms of actual execution of what's going on, and while not a bad thing is something to contend with. Likewise, the film also manages to really undermine itself where it really doesn't seem too concerned with internal logic, having zombies go from mindless shuffling hordes that fail to understand things such as locked doors or stairs yet are seconds later able to engage in planned wrestling matches or continually pop up into the frame for a mugged goof shot that looks way too planned rather than anything else, resulting in a somewhat jarring tone that comes more from the amateurish production than anything else here. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot else to this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence.

Low budget zombie films are very hit and miss; with the vast majority of being the latter. They don't require much thought to put together, can often be made with a very limited budget and are (presumably) very fun to film; and this means that there are a lot of very amateur examples; and after having seen a bunch of these amateur examples, its done a lot to put me off the genre. When I heard that this film was made in Argentina for a few hundred dollars, I really did fear the worst. But actually, to my greatest surprise, this is actually a very good attempt at the genre! The main influence was obviously Peter Jackson's Braindead, and indeed there are a few nods to it; although the story is just your average zombie stuff and the film clearly takes influence from across the genre. We focus on a house where a few friends, including a doctor, a mathematician and a wrestler, have to band together in order to survive when a strange disease starts turning their other friends into the living dead.

It's obvious that the filmmakers valued their special effects very highly, and indeed the second half of the film is basically just an excuse to show plenty of splatter. The effects themselves are not particularly convincing; but they are very impressive considering what the filmmakers had to work with. There are plenty of them too and the blood flows freely and often, which is nice. The first half of the movie is slightly more character and story based and the build up is actually quite good as the characters are established. It has to be said that the film goes downhill once we get towards the ending because then it's basically just a Braindead-style bloodbath. The film takes a humorous approach to the zombies, which was previously seen in films like Video Dead and (again) Braindead and to be honest I find that a bit of a turn off; but with a film with such a low budget as this, you can't really blame them for adding comedic elements. The ending is fairly decent and while this is not exactly classic horror; it's decent for an hour's entertainment and should appeal to zombie fans.

My prediction is that it won't take long for 'Plaga Zombie' to become a cult movie. A wrestler, a Star Trek fan and a Medicine student fighting against a group of angry zombies, I guess that's something you don't see every day.

And, of course, lots of blood!

Plaga Zombie is an extremely low budget splatstick flick clearly inspired by the early movies of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, with lots of inventive camera-work and an abundance of cheap and cheerful gore effects. Sadly, the weak plot, poor performances, pitiful humour and some of the crappiest looking zombies imaginable (I've seen better face painting at a school fete) prevent this one from from coming anywhere near to matching the brilliance of The Evil Dead and Bad Taste.

The film opens with evil aliens abducting a young man and infecting him with a zombie virus before returning him to Earth. As the plague spreads, wrestler John West (Berta Muñiz), medical student Bill Johnson (Pablo Parés) and mathematician Max Giggs (Hernán Sáez) are forced to take up arms against the living dead.

Considering the almost non-existent budget of approximately $120, I guess that all involved should be commended for actually delivering anything remotely resembling a coherent film, but the fact remains that, despite some bold direction and a few creative effects, the overall movie simply isn't that great. The 2001 sequel, Plaga zombie: Zona mutante would take the same splatstick approach, but would show improvements in most departments, making it a far more enjoyable watch.