David Farnor | On 31, Aug 2015

Director: Jon Chien
Cast: Andy On, Jessica C, Michael Wong
Watch Zombie Fight Club online in the UK: Amazon Instant Video

Zombies meet The Raid. That’s the central premise of Zombie Fight Club. On paper, it sounds bloody brilliant. In practice, it’s a mess – and not the fun, gory kind.

The set-up is simple: during the zombie apocalypse, a handful of survivors must battle their way out of an apartment block in Taipei that has become a hotbed of crime – with an emphasis on the word “hot”. That focus on sex soon becomes the film’s overriding characteristic, as the male-gazing camera brings us everything from scantily-clad women to graphic castrations (presented, essentially, as the ultimate horror for its adolescent, testosterone-driven audience).

As events escalate and the ratio of clothing to women decreases, even the prospect of a SWAT team entering the building to deliver brain-splattering action doesn’t excite; there is inventiveness by the bucketload in the insane carnage, but that, too, is swiftly undone by the director’s pressing need to ogle anything with legs, breasts and a mouth. One woman, meanwhile, is actively presented as an obstacle to survival, when she is scalded by her husband for trying to use hot water to save him from the undead. The movie’s sense of humour is often off the boil.

And yet the men prove as interchangeable as the women are disposable, leaving you with little to cheer for in this un-engaging display of exploitation. The sudden leap out of the apartment to a zombie battle arena for the second half only emphasises the queasy feeling of watching an out-of-control car crash. Impressive blood-splattering aside, perhaps the first rule of Zombie Fight Club should be not talking about Zombie Fight Club.

Zombie Fight Club is available on DVD and VOD from Monday 31st August, following its UK premiere at FrightFest.

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