Horror Movie Review: Zoombies (2016)

Zoombies begins with an advertisement for a brand new zoo called The Eden Wildlife Zoo. The zoo will be a safe place for all manner of endangered species but is not open to the public yet. Currenty the only people working there are a skeleton crew preparing exhibits & some new recruits.

The movie then cuts to an emergency surrounding a sick monkey. The animal is brought into the zoo veterinarian clinc where the doctor attempts to save it. What happened? Who knows! Either way the monkey dies on the table. The doctor refuses to accept that the monkey is gone & administers a serum that is illegal to give to animals. The nurse protests but the doctor shouts her down & fails to notice that the syringe is contaminated with some blood.

The monkey wakes up but it’s no longer alive. It attacks the veterinary staff & infects the rest of the monkeys inside their cages. At this stage it has to be said that the monkey & almost all the animals throughout are CGI. Obvious CGI, often terrible CGI, the kind that makes you cringe every time something appears on screen.

As rubbish as the monkeys look, they are beautiful in comparison to the giraffes. Yes, Zoombies has zombified giraffes & that scene makes it worth the price of admission alone.

Perhaps the weakest thing about Zoombies, beside some absolutely horrific acting & dialogue is actually the plot. It’s completely idiotic. I’m not talking about zoo animals becoming zombified, this is a horror movie after all. No, I’m talking about basic plot points. There is never an explanation as to why the monkey was even sick. Or why the syringe used to try & kickstart its heart clearly was contaminated. How about the vet risking his entire career on trying to save one monkey?

Perhaps the worst of the worst involves the bloody aviary. It’s mentioned so many times throughout starting with the zoo staff concerned that the monkeys will get in & contaminate the birds. Big problem, right? No, because the aviary is a cage otherwise there wouldn’t actually be any birds left!

Most of the supposed tension surrounds the zoo staff trying to get to the aviary & their reasons change several times. First they want to stop the monkeys getting in then they want to free them before realising the birds could just feast on the dead animals & get infected that way. Finally it becomes about the birds being endangered & the plan is just to release them all.

There’s no deep & meaningful discussion about taking the risk & giving the birds a fighting chance. They just change their minds constantly & it is at the aviary that the films conclusion arrives, a unsatisfying conclusion too.

Zoombies is terrible with only a few scenes being mildly entertaining. The CGI is horrific, the plot empty, the acting non-existant & a total lack of any attempt to be scary.