Based on the comic book series The Zombies That Ate the World, and from RKSS Films, We Are Zombies is a comedy-horror zombie apocalypse film written and directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell (Turbo Kid, Summer of 84) with Jerry Frissen having written the graphic novel. The synopsis is: "In a city infested with the living-impaired aka non-cannibal zombies - three slackers after easy money must fight small-time crooks and an evil megacorporation to save their kidnapped grandma." which is fairly accurate, but there is so much more happening below the surface.
The slackers being referred to are Karl (Alexandre Nachi), Freddy (Derek Johns), and Maggie (Megan Peta Hill). They have been stealing pickups for a company called Coleman which takes donations of deceased loved ones who have turned and are now "living impaired". The zombies in this film are not completely braindead as long as they didn't die in a way that was damaging to the brain, and can still somewhat function in society and even talk and hold jobs depending on their state when they die. The Coleman Corporation is not actually giving them a retirement, though, they are performing cruel experiments on them.
Once Coleman gets wind that their test subjects are being stolen before they can retrieve them, they bring in the two drivers to whom this has been happening most. Stanley (Patrick Abellard) and Rocco (Marc-André Boulanger). The company tells them that they now owe Coleman $25,000 for the losses. This prompts Stanley and Rocco to investigate who has been robbing from them to save their necks. Once they find out that Karl and Freddy are behind it, they kidnap Karl's grandma and tell them to come up with $50,000 or else. You can see where this is headed. Maggie, Freddy, and Karl scramble to come up with the $50,000 by taking another job to pay Stanley and Rocco so they can pay back the Coleman Corporation and everything goes about as well as expected.
The dynamic between the characters really shines in this film. Whether it be the team of slackers, the crush Freddy has on Maggie, or Stanley and Rocco, they nailed the writing. There wasn't an unnecessary amount of character development or any forced humor. It all flows well and is gory to boot. All of the acting was great. There were a lot of naturally funny scenes. The gore was plentiful and done well, and the production quality as a whole was fantastic.
We really enjoyed this film. While other comedy-horror films have their take on a post-apocalypse zombie scenario, this one has a unique vision of the concept of the "living impaired", and belongs in the top-tier of films like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, or Fido that have previously been a benchmark for the genre. We would definitely recommend it to all horror fans and hope to see more from this team in the future.
We Are Zombies releases on Tuesday, August 13th on Screambox! Make sure to stream it on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Prime Video, Roku, Fire TV, YouTube TV, Samsung, Comcast, Cox, and Screambox.com!
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