‘Zombie 108’ (2012) – A ‘Did Not Finish’



I’ve said it before but I like saying it so I’ll say it again… I love watching zombie movies. Good, bad, mediocre, filmed on my phone using my ‘Walking Dead’ action figures (ahem); I’ll watch pretty much anything and be able to come up with at least one reason why I think you’d enjoy it. Well, until today anyway.
It turns out that I really don’t do so well with zombie films that are just, well… offensive and are barely zombie movies at all. And with that, let me introduce you to ‘Zombie 108’…
  
After a catastrophic accident at a top secret research lab, a deadly virus is released into the city and all hell breaks loose.
Controlled by a local crime lord, District 108 is the one place in the city the police don't want to go on a normal day. But today is not a normal day, and the crack SWAT team ordered to help evacuate the uninfected must do just that. Met with fierce resistance by the local gangs, both sides suffer heavy casualties before realising that the guys with the guns aren't the real enemy: the zombies are!
With ammunition running low, the two sides join forces to fight for the only thing worth fighting for: a chance to escape from the city and the zombies currently running loose in it!
For me, a zombie movie is basically about what happens next for the survivors. Can they make the tough choices? Can they work together and make it through? That’s the bottom line, that and hordes of zombies tearing stuff up and eating it. If there’s some kind of ‘Romero style’ message then so much the better but those are the essentials for me. ‘Zombie 108’ doesn’t really bother with any of that, ‘Zombie 108’ doesn’t really bother with a story to be honest.
On the surface, it looks kind of interesting with police and gangsters having to put their differences to one side in order to get out of the city alive. It’s a shame then that what we actually get is some kind of exploitation movie where the zombies are almost incidental to the plot. Did I say ‘plot’? There is no plot, just random zombie encounters in between shots of half dressed ladies getting pawed at by the men or in one case, sexually assaulted. That’s pretty much where I tuned out and turned the movie off.  
If that’s something that you need to include in your movie, you make damn sure that there’s a reason for it otherwise you end up with ‘Zombie 108’, a movie that tries to hide nasty attempts at titillation behind a few zombies… and fails miserably. A movie that doesn’t want to admit what it is so tries its hardest to convince you that it’s something else entirely. It isn’t a zombie movie, not at all. Whether you find this movie as ‘Zombie 108’ or ‘Call of the Undead’, don’t give it your time; there are much better movies out there, there are even worse movies that do a better job of being a zombie movie than this one. Avoid it, you’re welcome.

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