When the dead don’t stay dead, what do we do with them? Well, it turns out anything you’d do with a normal person: they work jobs; they fight for equal rights; and they are subject to corporate greed, trafficking, and even plots for total annihilation.
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.
We Are Zombies, IMDB
If you were to ask me yesterday, I’d say the strongest feeling I had for Zombie movies was “meh.” The only true way I felt was that there was a difference between “zombies” and “infected.” That was it. But We Are Zombies ignited a fire in me that made me a new Zombie movie lover. Three friends who steal dead relatives originally being transported into “homes for the living-impaired” (a type of assisted living facility for zombies) get into massive trouble when the real facility crew — who happen to work for the biggest living dead corporation in town — decides to get revenge. Full of chaotic characters, blood, and off-the-wall antics, We Are Zombies turns the zombie subgenre on its head.
Not knowing what to expect, I was completely blown away with where the story took me, right from the beginning. Zombies were people (because duh, they ARE people) and needed to be treated with respect. Sure, there are those that think of them as just worthless pieces of meat, no longer human, but they can work and earn money too! There are newscasters, cooks, and those in the oldest profession in the world — sex work. While our ideas of zombies are totally flipped upside down, the living characters of We Are Zombies come up with every way imaginable to take advantage of them. Turns out they messed with the wrong people this time.
We Are Zombies takes us into the lives of the everyday family all the way up to corporate billionaires and their plans to change the world for the worst. Intertwined with all of that is the addition of zombies. Body parts are hilariously thrown into everyday situations like it’s a totally normal thing. The amount of blood and guts rivals genre greats like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. There is not one dull, dead moment in the whole movie — no pun intended.
I want to especially point out a few things:
- Gore: it’s a zombie movie, so there should be a lot of it. We Are Zombies definitely has that in all its putrid, messy greatness. It looks real and I can almost smell the decay through the screen.
- Characters: there are so many fantastic actors playing over-the-top characters that I can’t help but love. I want to know everyone’s backstory and I cannot get enough!
- Soundtrack: there is one specific scene towards the end that deserves an Oscar for the music chosen. I was basically dancing in my seat watching zombies get absolutely slaughtered. Pumped is not a strong enough word for what this scene made me.
Filmmaking collective RKSS (made up of Canadian directors François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell) managed to make We Are Zombies such a fun movie that it’s easily become one of my favorites. To be able to fit in so much laughter with serious topics like death and crime is astonishing. A great pick for anyone regardless of if they like the subgenre or not, We Are Zombies is the modern take on a decades-old genre that we horror fans needed.
Check out We Are Zombies exclusively on Screambox, streaming on August 13th!
