Kill Zombie! Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Kill Zombie! Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 14, 2014

Whatever they have been so famously smoking in The Netherlands may or may not have had something to do with somewhat bizarre but generally enjoyable Dutch film offerings that have matriculated to Blu-ray recently, films as disparate as the Tarantino-esque Black Out and now the lo-fi but oddly endearing Kill Zombie! There’s nothing very innovative about this particular zombie flick, for it follows a fairly rote formula of isolating a handful of humans who have not been subject to the zombie infestation, and then pits them against the shuffling undead, with a variety of gloopy and gloppy special effects splattering (in this case green) blood and guts all over the screen. Kill Zombie! has absolutely zero pretensions to be anything other than low grade comedy horror fare, and on that level it succeeds relatively well.

Aziz (Yahya Gaier) is a hapless shlub of a guy who lusts after his office’s impossibly beautiful Tess (Nadia Poeschmann) but who through a series of probably over convoluted plot machinations ends up in a jail cell overnight when a virus infected Russian satellite crash lands right into Aziz’s office building, perhaps taking out Tess while simultaneously infecting everyone nearby with zombieism. Aziz, his brother and a ragtag group of survivors then sets off on a series of rather improbable quests, all the while battling the zombie hordes that have overtaken Amsterdam. Kill Zombie! plays out pretty much resolutely according to the traditional zombie flick playbook, but it benefits from an insouciant sense of humor and a rather inventive production design, which makes the film resemble a live action comic book at times. Genre enthusiasts will certainly have seen this movie before in one form or the other, but they should still be able to squeeze the requisite amount of green gloop enjoyment out of this often quite fun release.

Kill Zombie! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kill Zombie! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This digitally shot features pops (in some cases pretty much literally) very well in high definition, with a really appealing if often kind of gross presentation that features nicely sharp and detailed imagery and some surprisingly effective CGI. Close-ups reveal abundant fine detail in the festering green sores that erupt on the zombies' skin, and the devastation of a ruined Amsterdam is also rather realistically achieved.

Kill Zombie! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wow! From the first scene, when Aziz fires a potent pistol at an unseen menace, listeners will know that they're in for a boisterously aggressive mix with Kill Zombie!'s lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio (in the original Dutch). The film has a glut of great sound effects, and surround activity is excellently consistent, but it's the propulsive low end of this mix which will probably recommend it most to ardent audiophiles. Dialogue is cleanly presented and fidelity is top notch in this problem free track.

Kill Zombie! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080i; 1:07)

Kill Zombie! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kill Zombie! proves that you don't have to reinvent the wheel to make an entertaining film about the undead. Just about everything in this film simply works down a checklist of accepted zombie flick tropes, but it's still a surprisingly entertaining little movie that has its fair share of laughs and creepy special effects. The technical merits here are first rate and Kill Zombie! comes Recommended.