We Are Zombies (2023) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Co-directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell (Summer of 84), We Are Zombies is a Canadian comedy horror film (based on the comic book series The Zombies That Ate the World) that stars the best movie monsters of all time - zombies (the title was a bit of a giveaway). I often find that films purporting to be comedic turn out not to be so. Initially I thought this would be the case here. As the film's story progressed however I came to find the irritating leads to be quite endearing.

The movie takes place in a dystopian near future in which the dead have returned to life. Rather than be the typical flesh eating kind, these undead are more an annoyance than anything, with the still alive humans forced to co-exist alongside the rotting reanimated who typically due to limited intelligence (as a result of brain damage) are only able to perform simple jobs. Various laws were passed, classing the undead as the 'living impaired', and a powerful organisation called Coleman were tasked with retrieving the recently dead and storing them at their facility should their family members opt to pay a fee for the service.
Maggie (Megan Peta Hill - Open Water 3: Cage Dive), her half brother Karl (Alexandre Nachi) and his best friend, Freddy (Derek Johns - The Boys TV show) are three small time crooks who have been posing as Coleman employees in order to steal zombies under the guise of retrieving them for the company and instead selling them to a shady fashionista. Their crime has resulted in the real Coleman employees - Rocco and Stanley (Patrick Abellard) being tasked with repaying the lost earnings, and to do this they decide to kidnap the grandmother of Maggie and Karl so they can demand a ransom.
Meanwhile, high ranking Coleman employee Hannity (Benz Antoine - Gothika) is working on a plan to make the docile zombies violent, in order to turn public opinion on them and get official permission to cull the undead. With everyone who dies returning as a zombie he fears that one day the walking dead will outnumber the living.

I wasn't that impressed to begin with, I found the protagonists to be irritating and I thought idiotic Freddy being infatuated with an obviously uninterested Maggie to be quite the tired trope. Over the course of the movie my opinion on them changed, the three had some fun chemistry between them, and I came to really enjoy their antics. I also thought that Rocco and especially Stanley made for fun comedy bad guys, they had some funny scenes that were amusing to watch. Some of the side characters were not as great, with one central character in particular being a bit annoying.

This is a world where people immediately return to life upon dying, retaining their memories and able to communicate still. It has resulted in life becoming a lot cheaper, with people not that fussed when people they know die. This both makes for some comedic moments, and also makes the bad guys harder to stop as they have to be beaten twice.

Thankfully, the make-up for the zombies is great, as were the special effects, especially for one specially modified one. There are a lot of cool moments, such as various zombie heads that are separated from their bodies but still moving, and a funny part where the protagonists accidentally get a ghoul wrapped around their van tyre, with the creature mildly trying to make conversation with them. For the most part they are not flesh hungry at all, but without too many spoilers this might possibly change in the film's third act when Hannity's plan is put into motion. That results in a few bloody high action sequences that feature such highlights as Freddy performing wrestling moves on them, and an amusing undead version of Mother Teresa.

The soundtrack is pretty decent, lots of eighties synth style sounds, and one fight scene that has a high energy drum and bass tune.

I was surprised just how much I came to enjoy We Are Zombies, it had a good blend of amusing characters, and while it was rarely laugh out loud funny, there were some highlights here and there. A much better film than it appeared it would be, I liked this different take on the undead, and enjoyed the special effects around them, making this worth a watch. It was also nice to see zombie legend George Romero mentioned as special thanks in the end credits (alongside a few other notable names). We Are Zombies streams exclusively on SCREAMBOX.

SCORE: