Zombies Have Fallen

At least the producers did not shamelessly ran to brush their points, which is worthy of praise.

This British north east made zombie film was made on an estimated budget of £500! If this is true then it's very impressive, but that is the only thing that is.

A mercenary gets brought out of retirement to protect a girl who displays psychic powers from an unscrupulous shady organisation. They go on the run with your generic black wearing henchmen at every turn.

Oh, and there are zombies for some never even remotely explained reason.

The acting is amateurish, the effects are dreadful and the movie simply isn't exactly very engaging.

From the cover art I expected something more, and by something more I mean anything.....something! This right here is a mess and a further example of why I tend to dislike UK cinema.

The Good:

Cover art is interesting

The Bad:

Some really bad acting

Zombies are dreadful

Doesn't explain much

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The cover art is better than the movie

People with psychic powers can turn folk into zombies for some reason

I have indeed seen this movie's cover before somewhere, but I never have had the chance to watch the movie. At least not before now in 2025. And given my love of all things zombie, of course I had to check out this 2017 movie. Sure, I wasn't harboring grand expectations, as the movie didn't exactly strike me as a top production movie. But still, just because something is low budget, doesn't necessarily equal it being a poor movie.

I was not familiar with a single face on the cast list, which is actually something that does have some appeal to me.

The movie's title strikes me as somewhat odd, truth be told.

This was a rather low budget and not particularly entertaining movie. And it never really latched unto me, so it was somewhat of a struggle to sit through 75 minutes of watching it. It looked and felt like it was shot on someone's home video camera, so it wasn't exactly top notch production.

"Zombies Have Fallen" is not a movie that I would recommend you to waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this, so you don't have to; you're quite welcome. And as for this being an actual zombie movie, well no, it wasn't a zombie movie.

My rating of writer and director Sam Fountayne's 2017 movie "Zombies Have Fallen" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

I know dialogue in these kinds of movies is not high quality writing but i'd still like to hear it. I "watched" this as I wanted something silly to listen to as i cleaned but the vocals were so low i had to drastically increase the volume and then all "action" scenes were so loud it was painfully uncomfortable. At one time I thought the movie had stopped but when i looked at the screen i only knew they were talking as i saw their mouths moving . I was looking for a waste of time movie and got one that just was so just irritating - then i actually started watching it. It was so bad and i was so annoyed, I finally just fast forwarded to the end - i had to finish it - compulsions and all that. There were some nice sceneries at times.... it would have made a great spoof, Thriller could have been playing in some places.

With a title such as this, I was looking forward to a parody of Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen movies. An agent on the attack against an enemy that outnumbers the good guys. This is, on one level, what you get; on another level, it doesn't come anywhere near the standards of the Hollywood movies.

Don't get me wrong, I know this was made on a shoestring budget as it's painfully obvious when you watch it. Some of the locations are dire. There's an opening scene where the director of the pharmaceuticals company who is holding Kyra to observe her psychic powers, gets into a lift. This appears to be a grimy car park lift they used one Sunday morning when no one was around. The director's office is a small room with crappy office tables and nothing on the walls... maybe he sold the stuff to make the film(?)

The zombie effects are also very weak and could have been done by the actors themselves as there are quite a few varying designs, the best of which you only get to see for a few seconds.

Sam Fountayne, who directed and wrote (under the pseudonym Sam Hampson), gives the audience a run of the mill film with no special or attractive camera shots or angles. Along with the cast's below average acting skills, it makes the movie bland and boring, even when the action hits the screen. This is a shame as the premise of the story could offer the viewer an entertaining hour and a half if everything had been done better.

A girl with psychic powers has been discovered, she is taken to a laboratory where she is watched and trained to utilise her talents to her best ability. She arranges a breakout and all hell ensues as the company try to recapture their number one asset... Wait a minute that sounds all too familiar...

Ah... That's right...

Watch Stephen King's Firestarter with Drew Barrymore and Keith David rather than this. There are no zombies in Firestarter though the premise is the same as Zombies Have Fallen. However, the director can direct and the actors can act pretty well, oh yeah Stephen King can write one hell of a story.

Another good thing is the poster for the film, though I cannot help but think they knew how bad the movie was so they altered the title from Bad Blood, to make use of the popularity of the "----- Has Fallen" movies. I actually prefer the Zombies poster, it's a little more dynamic - so yay for the artists.

It's a shame this film wasn't given the cash influx it deserved as it could have been so much better.