ApoKalypse (2025) - Comedy Horror Film Review

ApoKalypse is an animated comedy zombie film that was written, directed and produced by Lutz Geiger, who was also the animation supervisor. Described as an ultra-low budget 3-year passion project, this comedic horror doesn't always hit with its style of humour, but has a consistent charm that made me more than happy to stick around for the sensible seventy minute runtime. 

Set in America, Apo (Chris Koehne) works at a burger takeaway in a local mall with best friend Jamal (Ravin Wong). One day, rat poison comes to be advertised as a cure for the ongoing Covid pandemic, and idiots in their droves come to believe this to be the case. Unfortunately, the rat poison not only doesn't cure Covid, it also happens to turn people into flesh hungry ghouls, seemingly only infecting Caucasians. With the mall swiftly overrun with these zombies, Jamal, Apo, his love interest Cho (Ao Mikazuri) and her family must work together to try and find a way to make it to the staff exit and escape. Meanwhile, the U.S army have cordoned off the complex, planning to use drastic measures to stop the outbreak.

The animation style is basic, but it has a unified feel to it that everything seems consistent in style. The 2D look reminded me a bit of South Park, a bit simpler maybe, but I thought the look of this was good. There was even a brief 3D section inserted towards the end for a few minutes, that part in particular looked pretty great. The characters all had a vaguely creepy unnatural look to them, but that worked for a comedy horror.
The humour was occasionally to my liking, but there were plenty of moments that didn't appeal, being a bit grotesque at times. There were a few jokes about bodily functions, drug use, and some gross sex joke moments that included full frontal zombie nudity. That type of stuff I wasn't on board for, but there were also amusing moments. None of this was laugh out loud, but again, the style was consistent and parts made me inwardly chuckle. 

The protagonists were fine, they served the purpose as people to root for, even if there wasn't much character development for them. The zombies meanwhile were plentiful, but they were often not that much of a threat. I did enjoy the large numbers of these and the often gross fight scenes that sees survivors and braindead alike being ripped apart. As for the plot, it was very simple, but what would you really expect from a zombie movie? Despite being an animation, this had a lot of the story beats you would expect from a film of this genre, a gradual ramping up of danger, and an over the top finale. The social commentary aspect was interesting enough, taking a look at America's treatment of minorities though the lens of the 'Karen' stereotype. It made a change to have the heroes all be non-white characters, I did feel having this based around the Covid pandemic felt a little outdated, though obviously, at the time this was first thought of, that was still relevant.

I enjoyed ApoKalypse, but it didn't always appeal. I thought some of the character design to be crude, especially when it came to the female characters, and I would have been happy without any nudity. That was all done to personal preferences. For something described as ultra-low budget, this was far more watchable than expected, the David Firth/South Park feel was often neat, and the basic animation worked surprisingly well with zombies as the main focus.

SCORE:

Resurrection Corporation (2021) - Animated Comedy Horror Film Review

Resurrection Corporation is an Italian animated comedy horror film that was directed by Alberto Genovese (Sick Sock Monsters from Outer Space), with the story and screenplay written by Mattia De Pascali (Beyond the Omega). From the stark black and white nihilistic world the inspirations behind this are not too hard to figure out. The story does have some nice ideas behind it but there were certain aspects that didn't really sit right with me. The version of the film I watched had an English dub so I can't comment on the performances of the original voice actors.

Dottor Caligari has a problem and that is that he is a coffin maker in a town where no one ever dies. This is thanks to the Resurrection Corporation, ran by Potriantow, his company using secret means is able to bring back to life anyone in the town who dies. After his attempts to compete with him fail, Caligari and his assistant Bruta (a woman it is insinuated the Dottor created himself) head away to a remote castle where Potriantow's mentor is said to live. It is there they hope to learn the methods by which Potriantow is able to perform his trade.

The first noticeable thing about this film is its basic animation. In a post South Park world this isn't an issue and was one area that I think this really got right, there is some interesting directing meaning that everything isn't always shown from side on, but includes things coming into the screen as well . With some of the more disgusting parts (such as a room full of skinned corpses) this reminded me a bit of the style of David Firth. Keeping with that vibe this isn't a children's movie, there is some extreme (animated) violence with characters murdered and beaten including at least a couple of decapitations. I was totally fine with that, what didn't sit so well was the sexual abuse, mainly of Bruta. There was one uncomfortable scene where she is being molested, another bizarrely played for laughs where someone is trying to rape her. I didn't really get this character, she was treated as if she wasn't a real person, and she never reacts in a realistic way to her bad treatment.

The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for March 2021

Life marches inexorably forward and I find myself once again faced with a bumper news post to write. I started the year with the intention to write seven posts a week, but I came to a realisation last week that this was leaving me with not much of a weekend left to relax. So, I took the decision to cut down my posts to five a week, giving me Monday to be a man of leisure. On the pandemic front I was fortuitous to be working for a company whose staff were eligible for the vaccine due to the nature of the work, so I can happily state I have now had my first dose, even if the side effects stayed with me for an entire week. Anyway, who cares about me, let's bring out the news...

New horror comic, The Mugwump Corporation issue #1 is now available via ComiXology. The comic is about loner Marybeth Callen who wants nothing more than to find a friend. She finds one, but they transform her into a cannibal monster. I love the art style and colours in this one, has a unique look to it. For more details check out here.
A Disgusting Supermarket of Death by author James C. Harberson III (co-author of graphic novel Stay Alive) is now available on Amazon. This is a comedy horror collection of '...hard-boiled shorts about satanic Christmas movies, performance art euthanasia, child sacrifice skincare, and other demented goodness'. Check here to pick up a copy.
Killer Raccoons 2: Dark Christmas in the Dark made the list of eligible films for The Oscars for 2021, while it never ended up getting nominated for any of the categories this was still a feat I found pretty cool.
Horror sci-fi film Mandao Returns has now been released on Tubi TV. I said of this one in my 7/10 review "..as a movie to put on to just forget about the real world this works as pleasant escapism."

The animated violent time-loop horror To Your Last Death has so far picked up 34 wins since its world premiere at Frightfest. These include Best Feature at the Pasadena International Film Festival, Best Director from Horrorhound, and Best Horror Feature at the Phoenix International Film Festival. Reviewing this in September last year I gave it 9/10 and said "...the animation was attractive also, it is never smooth, but that made for a more strange and creepy look that felt like an animated graphic novel." This is currently free to stream on Amazon Prime, and can be bought or rented on various digital HD platforms as well as Blu-ray.

Voyagers, the sci-fi thriller is coming soon to UK cinemas. This was written and directed by Neil Burger (Limitless, The Illusionist) and stars Tye Sheridan (The X-Men franchise), Lily-Rose Depp (Savage), Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk), Chanté Adams (Roxanne Roxanne), Isaac Hempstead Wright (Game of Thrones), Viveik Kalra (Blinded by the Light), Archie Madekwe (Midsommar), Quintessa Swindell (Trinkets), Madison Hu (Bizaardvark), and Colin Farrel (The Gentlemen).
In this film a group of young men and women have been sent on an expedition to colonise a distant planet. After revelations about their mission are discovered they go against their training, and life on the ship descends into chaos. 

This next one is not so much horror, but it did seem unique so thought it would be worth a mention. Starfunk and the Astral Pioneers is described as 'the first feature film made about the Funk music genre whose story takes place in outer space'. The creator, Glenn Towery, having won awards for the screenplay has decided this space fantasy motion picture is going to be part of a crowdfunding campaign so he can get funds to create the movie himself. The Kickstarter campaign is due to run in May. You can check out the website here.

I set myself a limit of an hour and a half to write this months news post, and so finishing with some music news now. A Cloud of Ravens (great name) have released their new album, Another Kind of Midnight on Cleopatra Records. Check out the track for this Darkwave duo's single When it Comes below. I have enough emails to fill up an exclusive music only news post so maybe I will do that in a week or so.

The Addams Family (2019) - Children's Horror Film Review

I've once again come to the conclusion that I need to branch out more in the movies I watch for review. 99% of what I watch are new films that have been sent my way, yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of horror films out there that I have never so much as glanced at. At random I picked a film from my infinite Netflix list and it happened to be the 2019 animated children's horror The Addams Family.

Thirteen years after moving to New Jersey the Addams Family discover a new bright and cheerful town called Assimilation has been built near to their mansion by TV host Margaux Needler (Allison Janney - The Help, Juno). She is horrified to discover their family house and has designs to change it so that it conforms to her idea of beauty. Meanwhile Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz - Susperia, Carrie) has begun to get tired of her family and becomes friends with Margaux's daughter Parker (Elsie Fisher - Despicable Me), who likewise is looking for change. While this is all happening, Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard - It, Stranger Things) is preparing for a rite of passage, but his inability to conform to the standards set by his father Gomez (Oscar Isaac - Ex Machina) is also causing problems.

From the synopsis there is a clear idea that the moral being told here is that non conformity and individuality is a good thing and it shouldn't be seen as something to be against. People should be free to be who they want to be without judgement being passed if they are seen as different. This is a heavy handed message in that it bleeds into all aspects of the various storylines being told, but it is a relevant one. Being an animation rather than live action means that the horror aspect of the characters and setting can be more visually represented. From a sentient tree, to the house itself which has a voice there are many monsters and much madness here. Characters are very unrealistic in that all sorts of cartoon peril can befall them and they are perfectly fine, as to be expected and not a criticism.

The Trouble with Terkel (2010) - Animated Comedy Film Review

The Trouble with Terkel is a Danish made animated film that was directed by Thorbjorn Christoffersen and Stefen Fjeldmark. Now this shares a lot of its style of humour from Sausage Party, that was a film I could barely stand due to its focus on trying to be as offensive as possible. As such the type of humour to be found in this movie is the absolute polar opposite of what I enjoy, there wasn't a single joke here that amused me and so that could not help but make me dislike what I saw.

Terkel (Mike Olsen) is a typical teenager in what appears to be an alternate dimension in which it is normal for everyone to be foul mouthed and nasty to each other. One day he starts getting death threats from a person unknown and he starts to fear for his safety. It all comes to a head on a school camping trip organised by his teacher Mr. Balsac (Shark Firestone).

This is pretty mediocre stuff, but thankfully at least the animation is fine enough. It is nowhere as near as good as Pixar but I have seen far far worse. The animation is functional even if characters look unfinished, and they have a kind of unique look to them in that they resemble muppets in how they move. While I thought the actual script was awful the voice actors all do actually pretty good jobs, there was no one at all who I felt were bad at their lines, and it was great to see (well, hear) Chad Ridgely (Massacre on Aisle 12, 6.66 PM) as the voice of Uncle Stewart. This has English dubbed over the original language and no attempt is made to lip sync so is a lot of flapping mouths with no sound coming out. There are quite a few song and dance numbers throughout this, none of them were any good, and one rap played out in the original Danish with not even subtitles to help make sense of what was being said. The one concession was a header saying something like 'this next part will make no sense', stuff like this just added to the unpolished feel.