Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante: Revolución Tóxica

I was lucky to see Zombie Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante: Revolución Tóxica in its premiere at the BARS 2011. Besides the thrill of seeing so great conclusion of the saga with its creators in the room, I could enjoy a movie very well done and that has nothing to envy to the great productions.

It is clear by now that FARSA is a guarantee of a good product and a careful realization. the story of the film talks about the power of friendship, which extends to the filmmakers of it. The humor is great, the characters are lovable, and it's a good conclusion to the trilogy that no one should miss.

I had the opportunity to view the pre-screening of the Final Chapter of the Trilogy, now called Plaga Zombie:Zona Mutante:Revolución Tóxica (Zombie Plague:Mutant Zone:Toxic Revolution), presented on the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre Festival and I must tell you that is an Incredible Movie, I still remember every part of the projection and I am waiting to march of 2012 (the release date) to see it again.

It have action, fights, gore, and a lot of humor. There are a musical scene that is even better and hilarious than the John West's Room scene in the second movie (the song is still beating in my head). And the Junior's scenes... well, You need to see this movie! It's Amazing!!!

The movie continued exactly from the final moment of the second one (in the year 1997), and has a good script turn, to adapt the character of John West (Sebastian 'Berta' Muñiz) to some changes due to time passed (in the real) from there.

The boys of 'Farsa Producciones' were made to wait, but the wait was worth it.

In the pre-screening presentation, the directors/actors told they tried to put his mind into his thoughts of their 17 or 20 years old, to make this last chapter homogeneous with the story. Please note that the previous ones were filmed in 1997 and 2001.

9/10

The first two Plaga Zombie films were reasonably entertaining nonsense, full of cartoonish gore and absurd characters, but Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante: Revolución Tóxica really, really, REALLY got on my nerves, the inane goofiness dialled up to eleven. Directors (and stars) Pablo Parés, Hernán Sáez, and Paulo Soria are clearly aiming for a Peter Jackson-style blend of horror and comedy (Max is obviously modelled on Derek in Bad Taste) but what they actually give us is puerile trash that delivers the gore but completely fails when it comes to the laughs (in desperation, the film features not one, but two fart gags).

The plot sees the three heroes of the previous films -- Max (Hernán Sáez), Bill (Pablo Parés) and John (Berta Muñiz) -- once again battling zombies, only this time around they learn that the reanimated dead are hosts to aliens that are planning to invade the Earth. The trio devise a daft scheme to blow up the aliens' mothership which involves turning a zombie into a bomb. However, Max develops a father/son relationship with the zombie (which he names Junior) that threatens to scupper the plan. This leads to some excruciatingly awful, intendedly touching scenes, with Max repeatedly wailing 'Junior' in his whiny voice. Meanwhile, Bill and John wander the town, encountering more zombies and a rogue FBI agent, none of which is particularly entertaining.

Things get even worse towards the end of the film with a terrible musical scene in which the guys belt out a hugely annoying theme song while the zombies dance in the background. It was almost bad enough to make me want to switch off, but I had made it that far, so I wasn't about to let the film beat me. To add insult to injury, an end credits scene shows that the zombie/alien situation is far from over, promising yet another movie (which finally came out in 2021).

With the infection still looming, a group of friends trying to survive the alien apocalypse affecting the town learn the true nature of their arrival and interference in the world and try to put a stop to their activities while trying to escape their overrun home.

This one was as much fun as the others and had a lot to like. One of the more enjoyable aspects of this one is the fact that there's quite a lot to like here with the early action scenes which are just as much fun as the others are. Seeing them clearing out the abandoned city in different solo encounters, from the hand-to-hand brawling against the swarm on the streets to the weapons-filled brawl on the rooftop as well as the battle in the suburbs all come off being exceptionally fun and somewhat bloody encounters with the zombies that have been running loose within the town and play off the same crazed, frenzied material of the past. That picks up considerably again in the second half where they reunite and take on the never-ending fleeing swarm running past them on the streets heading for the junkyard which turns into the series' all-time greatest gag in their endearing musical number with the creatures to distract them into escaping. This failure leads into the same utterly frenzied and chaotic burst of gore gags and fighting which is the series' hallmark and is executed incredibly effectively once they start turning into the full-bore aliens within which is what makes that so much fun. The realization of it all comes from the enhanced and well-utilized budget here which employs CGI for the first time alongside the more traditional home-made gags for all the gore and bloodshed, helping nicely with the epic scale of the invasion for the finale and giving this one quite a fun finish. Still, while there's a lot to like here it does have its flaws. One of the biggest is the fact that there's a decided lack of action here as there are only a few actual confrontations with the zombies which really drags the pacing down quite heavily. This is due to a great deal of sequences here that keep the action down and never once bring about any kind of interest or appealing qualities to them, from the continuous run-ins with the corrupt officer that doesn't amount to anything due to his wrong- headed belief in their rationale, the utterly painful scenes of the friend with the domesticated zombie friend that isn't funny or cute and just comes off as excruciating and the flashback training montage with the former coach that just eats up time without ever amounting to anything other than dragging this one out. Likewise, there's also the rather low-budget CGI in here that doesn't come close to realistic even though it does work in that grander sense of scale here, which manages to make this one quite the obvious low-budget effort. These here are just enough to hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence and Language.