Zombie King and the Legion of Doom

I can't believe that a movie that is supposed to be about both luchadore wrestlers and zombies is somehow boring, but somehow this braindead, zero budget doo-doo-fest came along and proved me wrong.

Apparently I have to write more lines so I guess I will give more info and details... uh... so this boring movie is very dull. I wouldn't have believed it could be this sleep inducing but it proved me completely, totally, unfortunately wrong, wrong, wrong. So very wrong indeed that I had to write about it using as many words as possible.

Still more? Okay then. The acting stinks, the filmmaker is completely devoid of any talent either as a writer or cinematographer or even editing, because even that stood out as crappy. I guess the sound was okay and even some of the music, although I can't really remember any specifics about that. Talk about bad acting, particularly the small parts in this were basically played by people who are not just pulled randomly off the street, it seems like they don't even want to be there or care at all about what they are making.

Do yourself a big fave and skip this terribly boring, pointless mess of a movie. Even as a huge zombie fan who watches every zombie film I can get my hands on, I wish I had skipped this one and just re-watched one of the Living Dead movies or a couple episodes of TWD instead.

I was so excited to see this movie. Original idea in the plot summary, great cover art. The costumes and the characters interested me from the front.

But BLAM the dullness of the movie hit me Sooooo hard that it demolished all hope to enjoy this poorly made effort. The characters had zero development beyond them being introduced. I really didn't give a damn about any of them surviving, they were strangers through the whole thing. The "babe"(Mercedes) was not really a babe at all, I was almost glad that I couldn't see the rest of her face. Ulysses was so flat I could use his character as a coaster, and thats really a problem when he's supposed to be the hero. What was with his lame clothes. A Mexican wrestler would never wear anything so dull, especially a true hero. Think back to the BLUE DEMON & SANTO, and all the great Mexican wrestling monster movies of the 70's. They could really rip apart zombies and look good doing it, not the group of reject uggos in this waste of time. Half way through, I really wanted it to end. The story and characters were not progressing any further after the first 20 min, and the movie just kept eating up my time... The one redeeming character was Tiki, I almost wanted to know more about him, he was the only character who seemed to have any passions or emotions at all. But the makers were ridiculously trying to up-sell Ulysses the whole damn movie, and he was very very bland. I hope the makers all have day jobs. The guy at subway who made my sandwich contributes more to the world than this project.

Okay, I don't know anything about wrestling or luchadores but I'm a devout zombie fanatic and I like my share of comic book heroes... so... I got this promo DVD of "Zombie Beach Party." It wasn't easy to find at the time. I guess it went straight-to-video and it's Canadian and it's not properly distributed yet (it should be!). I just watched it and I was very entertained for an hour plus.

There's a palatable plot. There are a variety of personalities to like and to dislike. Visually, it's reminiscent of something like Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" (comic book colors and tattoo art mixed with a spooky atmosphere). There's Gore Galore though not the most convincing I've seen... a valiant effort nonetheless... they even managed a "Zombie Feast," something we gore-hounds don't get to see in today's R-rated films. There's an "artsy" narration by Ulysses (the hero), similar to that in "Bubba Ho-Tep."

There's gratuitous nudity, lesbians, drugs and condom purchasing. Finally, the music/soundtrack reminds me of BOTH

"House of 1000 Corpses" and "Bubba Ho-Tep" (what a coincidence). I rate it 8 stars. Fun and Fresh!

The plot reads: When a string of zombie killings hits the coast, it's up to the heroic Ulysses and his wildcard band of luchadores to find out whose behind it and to destroy the murderous undead.

After hearing his potential nemesis has returned, a masked wrestler decides to check out his activities and finds that a series of domesticated zombies are running loose in the community being brought about by the returning madman for a special show and must try to stop the nefarious plans.

Overall, this was an immensely fun cheesy genre throwback. Among its better features here is the highly effective setup that provides this one with a great look and feel reminiscent of the luchador films of the past. Featuring rather obvious nods and homages in the appearance and presence of the main luchador wrestlers as leads in the film who follow pretty much the entire role of the characters from the past films inherently well, the use of colorful presentation screens for each of the characters, and a series of silly storylines coming together to create a wild scenario, this one is quite fun overall. Those series of storylines here are rather fun as the wildly over-the-top storyline involving the use of a mad scientist trying to create a human/zombie hybrid to create an army of super-zombie soldiers in a ploy to overtake the world while operating on the outskirts of a storyline featuring the main hero looking into an old rivals' use of zombies in his show simply completes the picture with this one incredibly well. That allows for a spectacular series of cheesy and silly action scenes involving the luchadores fighting not just each other but also the hordes of zombies. As the first half goes for the idea of the rival being reckless with the domesticated zombies in his shows and finding them getting loose to commit the murders, this focuses more on the fighters going after each other while we see the zombie swarming scenes taking place to provide some solid gore scenes. That leads nicely into the series of confrontations that take place in the finale where the action takes place at the abandoned theme park hideout where the encounters featuring various henchmen and zombies are shown to take place throughout the locations with all sorts of lucha libre-styled fighting against the opponents in some fun battles. This might be way too cheesy and silly for some as the whole idea for this one comes off so wild that it's hard to take seriously, especially with so many characters trying to make sense of what's going on here, which is enough to hold it back.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity, and mild drug use.

In my quest to watch every zombie movie ever made, I've seen some super greats, and some sorta greats, and some not so great, and some that need to be placed under a sewer grate. This one, this one's sorta great. Much better than a lot of fare I've been force-feeding myself lately. I know nothing of the culture of "luchadora" wrestling--I feel like I've walked in half-way through the first season of "Heroes" or "Lost", and there's some big backstory going on with these people I know nothing about. But that's OK, because I'm here at the important time--when the ZOMBIES come around! And they are GOOD zombies--decent make up and gore, they eat brains and human flesh like they should, nice, decent, Romero Zombies (All hail "Dr. G Andrew Romero" of "Zombies: an authorized guide"). It's not "Night of the Living Dead" and it's not trying to be. It's just a sit back and enjoy the silly gory fun-popcorn movie--a perfect way to end a work week on a late Friday night!