TheLittleSongbird
Have made no secret in the past of intensely disliking, and even outright hating a lot, a vast majority of The Asylum's (near-universally maligned for good reason) output, though there is curiosity as to whether they are capable of making something good and compulsive about their output's badness. Admittedly, The Asylum do have a small group of watchable films and the occasional (big emphasis on that word) above average one, unfortunately outweighed by the lacklustre at best and often dreadful films they churn out.Was expecting much worse after recently seeing 'Operation Dunkirk', but was somewhat fascinated by the weird but seemingly different concept of the film, not being your typical zombifying film. Seeing it, The Asylum have certainly done far worse, 'Zoombies' is actually despite not being a good film at all is one of the better films from The Asylum seen recently. It doesn't quite rid me of the repulsively offensive taste in my mouth given watching 'Operation Dunkirk', but 'Zoombies' certainly doesn't worsen it.There is some atmosphere in the scenery and music and Kim Nielson and Lala Nestor (the latter being the best thing about 'Zoombies') give decent performances. Sadly the rest of the acting is sub-par, with the laughably awful ham acting from Brianna Joy Chomer being the worst offender. They do have to work with bland and irritating characters, with the film making little effort to do anything with them let alone develop them, and dialogue that is both insipid and cheesy with a constantly awkward flow. As well as the doesn't-even-reach-workmanlike, actually pretty pedestrian, direction, that fails to give any urgency or tension. Both are severely lacking in the story. So is the suspense, fun and thrills. Really liked the concept and it is sad that they had something that seemed different and clever on paper, but was executed so predictably and by the numbers. The action is unexciting, random and confused, with some haphazard editing, while the scares, fun and suspense are not there in any shape or form and the film is instead predictable, dull and overboard dumb. Unfortunately, the animals fare no better. They exude very little menace, fun or coolness. They didn't to me have much personality and were used pretty poorly. Best not mentioning the deplorable look of them, the visual asset that comes off the worst in a film where only the scenery is acceptable. In conclusion, have seen worse but not good. 3/10 Bethany Cox
XenoFox
Just for the record, I have not seen a single film by Asylum except for the Co-Ed and the Zombie Stoner (which is, in my opinion, the worst film I've ever seen. only good thing about that film was boobs). Anyway, I saw this on Netflix and it had like 1.5/5 stars. So, I thought to myself: "Eh.. it looks dreadful... but maybe I'll find something that I like!" Yeah.. I was just wrong.Anyway, the film starts with a commercial(?) of some sort. All it does is repeat the word "EDEN" for a few seconds. Then, a woman talking about random zoo related stuff while standing in front of a blank color background.. Yep... Already, you can guess the budget of the film. She says something along the lines of "Coming soon", even though she said her grandfather founded the zoo 50 years ago. So...? 50 years, and it's just now opening? That doesn't make any sense!Next, we see inside of a lab of some sort. There are people carrying a monkey in a cage. Oh, yeah. The monkey is CGI'd, by the way. Really... REALLY bad CGI. It's absolutely horrendous. I think Co-Ed had better CGI than this (and I don't even think it had any CGI at all). But, then we see a bus with interns and a woman (the same woman from the commercial) is seen talking to the interns. Already she seems pretty damn bitchy and unlikable. For instance, she took everyone's phone away just because 1 girl was talking to her mom (or whoever).Later, the interns are out somewhere in the woods when, possible the worst CGI giraffe zombies attack them, forcing them into a tree. What's worse? They stole that scene from Jurassic Park 2 where the two T-Rexes bite the other man in half. Except with giraffes. Then, Amber drives off with the jeep. And then, we see zombie elephants (I guess..) walking towards them. One of them says "Elephants are friendly. They have no enemies." What? By that logic, neither do giraffes.. This movie completely throws logic out of the window. Just saying.Later, we see that the woman from the commercial found out about the zombie animals and contacts the police (and the CDC). Then, the police shows up, and all of a sudden it's night! When after this scene, it's day again! WHAT!? Then, they send SWAT in with body armor, shields, and assault rifles. They see a zombie lion.. Oh, yeah. Now's a good time to mention that somehow, Ellen (commercial girl) is keeping track of the movements of everyone on the zoo (including the animals and SWAT). For some reason, assault rifles can't kill the zombie lion, so the SWAT gets mauled.Around a few minutes later, Amber (still in the jeep) is attempting to leave the zoo. She whines in front of the camera at the main gate until Ellen sees her. But, then a zombie lion stalks her in the bushes. Ellen keeps saying "IT'S NOT SAFE!" What? Why can't you just open the gate to let Amber out and close it again? Why haven't the monkeys attempted to leave the zoo?! Then, Amber attempts to climb the gate, when a horribly misshapen zombie lion (results of godawful CGI) attacks her. I mean, LOOK AT THIS. https://gyazo.com/b5cb65c34d10c1c9d803b6e1269ea7d0 It's pretty low quality, but DAMN. You can just tell how bad it looks!Later, we see some interns in a different building outside of Kifo's (the commercial girl's daughter's best friend, who is a gorilla) exhibit. One of them whines about how Kifo is the last of his kind, when I'm almost positive there are a lot more gorillas still left in the wild. But, guess what? The idiot decides to check on him, when it's quite clear that he's turned. Wanna know what else is quite clear? When Kifo is seen lying on the ground, you can tell it's a guy in a gorilla suit. When he wakes up, he has regular eyes for a second, then comes back to life as a fully grown bad CGI'd zombie gorilla. He kills the guy, by the way. Later, we see some people by the jeep (by the way, sometime in the movie, Amber came back with the jeep. She was covered in blood, but it didn't really look like anything happened to her, other than getting drenched in blood. She died, thankfully) So, they're by the jeep until they get surrounded by zombie lions.. They then get in the jeep and drive, but the zombie lions chase them. Then, something that makes ZERO sense happens. They are able to kill the lions with a pistol and a shotgun. What?!!?!?!?!?!! So, the SWAT team, who had body armor, shields, and assault rifles couldn't kill a lion, but a pistol and a shotgun can? Why is everything so wrong?!Then, we see 3 people riding a zip-line (with a terrible green-screen). One of the zip-lines break, so a guy falls to his death. (this movie kills people off like every 5-10 minutes, by the way. Even the most likable characters, which isn't saying much). It ends with Ellen, her daughter, and I think 2 other people whose names I don't recall, blowing up the aviary, because somehow, the birds got infected. The zombie parrots were pecking at the glass, attempting to break it.. But somehow, Ellen is able to monitor the sturdiness of the glass.. Then Kifo somehow finds them and attempts to kill them. Then Ellen shoots him with a pistol, which kills him. Yet again, WHAT!? So... Pistols can't kill a lion, but can kill a gorilla in a single shot.. Yeah.. OKAY.It ends with a closeup on Kifo's face, where he opens his eyes right before the credits roll. Aw... That's cute. Asylum thinks there's going to be a sequel to this train wreck.