Zombie Beach Party

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.

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.

I bought this on DVD for my roommate as a joke gift, but after watching it the joke was on me. If you are a fan of comic books, this flick deserves a look. The main characters are larger-than-life celebrity heroes and who eat, drink, and sleep with their wrestling masks on and have to fend off autograph-hounds when they go for smokes. The story is minimal (Zombie King wants to take over the world) but each of the heroes has a past with at least one of the antagonists, adding a feeling of depth to the story world. The fight scenes are fun, if you go along with the idea that pro-wrestling moves are the best way to subdue an opponent. The music, mostly surf music by the Tijuana Bibles, carries the action very well. All-in-all, surprisingly entertaining. Just goes to show that low-budget movies can work, if done right. Also props for a cameo by Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart of WWF fame as the butt-kicking local sheriff.

Boy, can Jules Delorme turn crap into uber-crud or what? I'm guessing they cast him as a zombie on the misunderstanding he was acting, and when they swapped him to Ulysses and realised it wasn't an act... it was too late, the budget was blown.

The film itself has a bunch of funny nods to the zombie flick tradition and with a decent lead it might have stood a chance. If you're tempted to see this film, just bang your head against a wall for ten minutes instead. You'll end up with that same ache behind the eyes and unanswered 'WHY LORD?!' and it'll have taken far less of your time to get there.

Be warned.

Mark