28 Posts Later

"The satire is biting, and so are the zombies." Mmm, God, I love me a good zombie zeugma.

Britain is struggling to repopulate its devastated urban areas, virus-ridden corpses strew the streets, hideously mutilated skeletal skin-bags are poised just behind every half-open closet door, and two innocent children are just bustin' to go exploring in this post-bioapocalyptic wonderland! Bring on the really fast, extremely angry zombies!

Treat yourself this holiday season (I refer here to Memorial Day, but really any holiday will do), and go see this blood-spattered horror-fest with a touch of Greek tragedy thrown in for us nerdophytes who desperately need some esoteric allusions to make us feel clever. Cowardice! Betrayal! Viral infection through an ill-advised kiss! It's all here, and at the risk of sounding like Ron Popeil, but wait, there's more!

Zombie films have long suffered from a poetically appropriate lethargy and decay that lumbers along like the creatures they feature. They have no plot skeletons: contrived situations and one-dimensional characters rot their innards and cause a premature "death on film." And just when you think the gory, gut-slinging action is about to really burst forth like a fresh body from the grave, the tiny, fleeing band of zombie refugees finds some new hole to hide in, and all we as audience members get to quench our zombie-lust is a few bangs and groans from the other side of the titanium door. Oh, please.

But not this little slice of zombie cake! The action is unrelenting and horribly uncomfortable! During the film's opening sequence, I actually had to avert my eyes for a moment. ME! I'm the guy who sat through The Exorcist with a bowl of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti-O's, laughing hysterically the entire time. And it may be because of my irrational fear of crowds (agoraphobia, for those of you who think I'm making up disorders), but the scene in the quarantine building with all the biting and screaming just about put me over the zombie edge.

I don't want to splatter you with spoilers, so I'll bring my homage to a close. But let me say that the makers of this little gem have managed to do what no zombie filmmakers have done before: they made a sequel better than the original. So go get drenched in zombie sweat! It's well worth the horrible nightmares.