Kárate a muerte en Torremolinos

What you lack in budget can often be made up for with big doses of humor and inspired direction. Newcomer Pedro Temboury makes a big splash with silly zombies, a portly villain, a rubber monster, stock footage and clever cameo appearances by cult director Jess Franco and actress Lina Romay. Big baddie Paul Lapidus plans to take over the world with karate trained zombies so of course he starts by attacking that vital town of Torremolinos. Call in martial arts champ Oliver Denis to the rescue and see him knocked off almost immediately. The jokes are smart the acting is way above what you'd expect from such a low budget film and Temboury's direction keeps things going at a pace that always keeps your interest. Don't let the subtitles scare you away. Maybe One Shot Productions, who Temboury's worked for in the past, will release this in on USA DVD in a dubbed version. In joke lovers will take note of the same green goblin that stalked the Spanish countryside in "Les Psycho-Lettes."

I recently was lucky to be invited to a screening of this otherwise unreleased movie. And what I got is what I could expect from its title: a funny, mindless, no-budget movie that's really proud of its humble origins. People looking for something serious or some production values must stay away of it (alas, what could you expect from a movie made from stock film from several shootings, including some from the spanish Z guru Jess Franco?). First time director Temboury offers a post-modern product: he is recreating his Z-movie heritage, and delivering a movie for fans of the genre. Of course the movie is technically very poor (except some nice touches like the credits, wich are impressive), but Temboury manages to make the viewer forget about these shortcomings thanks to his great sence of humor and his obvious knowledge of filmmaking language.