Zombie Beach Party

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.

'Enter…Plaga Zombie 1.5' could be an alternate title since it could almost be a missing higher no-budgeted spin-off from that series. Actually, the 2nd Plaga Zombie movie was better than this. Ugh…will someone please stop this sub-genre! Did people learn nothing from the Santo film series? I'm sure there will be some people who love luchadores and may find camp humor here to enjoy, but it's a bad film that acts like its based off a non-existent comic book. I'm tired of watching luchador fanboys fawn over wrestlers in low budget zombie films; it gives me flashbacks to that John West theme song… (Zombie completionists will know what I'm talking about).

Ulysses, the 'hero' of the film drives around in his car continuously spouting 'I'm in my freshman year of college' philosophy quotes to the audience in an attempt to lull us into sleep, which he hopes we will awaken from having dreamt that this was a good film. Another reviewer tried to compare it to Bruce Campbell's narration in Don Coscarelli's "Bubba Ho-Tep", but there's a bit of a difference in that Ho-Tep was a brilliant film and this is cheesy garbage. Then there's Tiki and his wrestling zombies, which may or may not have killed some local civilians. There are several other wrestlers including bad guys, but you probably won't care.

Being a luchador film, we get to see these idiots running around with their masks constantly on (as is the luchador fashion rage) in an attempt to save on film-making down time due to hair and makeup crew and to save the 'actors' from having to actually emote. I wasn't sure if the acting was bad and the dialogue delivery was stilted intentionally to reinforce the cheese factor or if that was a lack of ability on the part of those cast in the roles. Looking through the credits, several of the cast members names seemed to be aliases, making me wonder if they didn't want anyone to know that they were in this film.

There were some nods to other horror films and filmmakers including: Ulysses at one point holds onto a book entitled 'Zombies: An Authoritative Study – Collected Edition compiled by Dr. G. Andrew Romero and Dr. Clifford Ruttle'. There's also a dialogue reference to Tod Browning's "Freaks" (take a wild guess what 3 word phrase a crowd shouts repeatedly).

THE PLOT: To bore me to death and cure insomnia once and for all… (wait, that was the filmmakers plot). The film's plot is: Our fearless wrestling heroes have to stop a plot involving genetically engineered zombies and a zombie breeding scheme involving human incubators in Zombie King and friends' bid to take over the world -- all while running around looking like bargain basement trick-or-treaters.

MAKEUP: basic low-budget zombie makeup with decent low-budget gore fx.

FEASTING: Yeah kinda DE-ANIMATION METHODS: cabesa removal CONTAGION LEVEL: I couldn't exactly tell if the victims turned into zombies themselves, but at least one did. There was mention of a way to turn people into zombies by forcing them to drink zombie blood.

The reported budget for this film according to IMDb, makes it about 9 times the budget of "Clerks", thereby proving that having a good script can do things for the quality of a low budget film that throwing a little more money onto the screen and watching it burn could not do for this film. I have seen several dozen zombie films and EZK rates pretty low.

This film is recommended only for zombie completionists and for devotees of the fake and annoying sport known as pro wrestling.

This movie was made to watch and laugh at. It was on afternoon TV, and thats the category it should be judged in. It's cheesy, the acting is dubious, and make up is terrible. All of that comes together in a way that makes it campy fun. Don't watch it expecting Titanic or Dawn of the Dead; think Lost Skeleton of Cadavera, and you'll be on the right track. Just turn off the higher functions, crack a beer, and relax. Its a movie where Luchador heroes battle outrageous villains that would be at home in any Saban live action show, with over the top everything and a decent soundtrack to boot. I can only hope that more equally cheesy movies come out to balance the epic films that seem to be in vogue right now. Viva los Luchadors!

I bought this on eBay after being lured in by that Kirbyesque cover, only to actually receive one with a much crummier Photoshopped cover of scenes in the movie. It may sound lame, but it dampened my enthusiasm for the movie and I didn't end up watching it for two weeks.

Anyway, it was decent fun. The first ten minutes or so were boring and I nearly cut the DVD off until the hot goth gas pump attendant appeared. Then more boring for another ten minutes or so, and the movie finally started kicking into gear. Some decent wrestling, lots of excessive blood, nice looking but still fake body parts for the zombies to nibble on, topless yacht captains. Part of the movie takes place in an abandoned amusement park, and they try to do one of those Scooby-Doo things where A runs in one door while B runs out the other trying to catch A. So there's that.

Did I mention how hot that tattooed goth chick is? Pretty hot. I would have been mad if the zombies got her, fortunately she ends up with a somewhat happy ending.

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.