Horror Movie Review: Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2016)

Ah, remember when zombies were terrifying creatures that could rip you limb from limb should you underestimate them? I ‘member.

Nowadays they’re often just the joke of the horror genre, being used as a way to up the gore but keep the laughs going. It’s funny if a zombie girl loses her limbs, not so much if she was still human. Someone stabbed through the eyes? Funny if it’s a zombie, not so much if it’s Greg the local baker and so on…

Attempts to make the undead scary again are happening mainly from the international market (What We Become, Train to Busan) but while there is still an influx of zombie comedies the walking dead are a long way from their Romero roots.

Which brings us to this latest mashup of gory zombies & light humour. Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies is set in the mountains of Austria at a ski resort. It stars Laurie Calvert as Steve, a professional snowboarder who gets himself stranded on the mountain with the rest of his crew after an ill-advised prank.

Meanwhile elsewhere on the mountain a scientist is showing off his latest invention in an attempt to get funding. His machine can create snow but the chemicals inside end up poisoning the potential investor turning him into a blood-thirsty zombie.

The snowboarding crew take shelter in a small hotel on the mountain run by the larger than life, Rita (Margarete Tiesel). Tensions are running high following Steve’s ill-timed prank but the group are forced to band together when the hotel comes under attack from the walking dead.

At 78 minutes, Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies is a fairly entertaining watch. It’s frantic enough that it never gets too boring & visually it looks pretty good. It’s not adding anything new to the zombie genre but it doesn’t harm it either.

The zombie makeup is hit & miss with the main players in the crowd looking great, all gooey & sore-encrusted. These aren’t scary zombies & the few attempts at humour fall extremely flat. Even the zombie deer end up looking silly instead of terrifying.

They’re pretty useless with a large majority of them being taken out with snowboards of all things. A sequence that seems to go on for far too long.

Unfortunately, the acting is where Lederhosen Zombies falls down. It’s all pretty sub-standard stuff with some terrible moments of over-acting by Margarete Tiesel. She’s a caricature of a tough, mountain dwelling Austrian woman & her emotional scene with one character is near-cringe-worthy.

As the lead, Laurie Calvert as Steve just doesn’t capture the imagination. He’s forgettable as a hero & far too immature to take seriously.

It has its faults, a lot of them but it is over very quickly & has no qualms about splashing the gore about. Far from the worst zombie flick you’ll have seen in the last couple of years.