The Ebola virus is terrific fodder for horror. C’mon, you bleed internally and externally and your liver is rendered barely functional. With the weekend damage we’ve done to that organ, it’s something our immune systems shouldn’t’ be tasked to battle.
So it’s not surprising that this viral hemorrhagic fever spawned, well, at least a couple of movies. Here, it’s Ebola Zombies but it’s the globe-trotting proto Global Village bio-horror of Ebola Syndrome that put this horrible disease on the cinema map. And THAT’s the one everyone should see, not this cheapo, billed as “Dawn of the Dead meets The Raid: Redemption.”
There’s no redeeming it.
In 2003, we had the SARS outbreak….
In Toronto, we know all about the panic surrounding that global pandemic. We were practically Ground Zero here.
The outbreak spread fear all over, even if the virus (thankfully) didn’t spread too far itself…Local hospitals cut off visiting hours, and our city’s subway commuters were often sporting surgical masks.
It killed only a few dozen, but 25,000 Torontonians were quarantined. We did get a free mega-concert out of it, featuring AC/DC, the Stones, Justin Timberlake and Rush. We’d say, all things considered, a fair trade (forget coffee beans).
Ebola Zombies ups the gross ante by adding zombies to the mix. That seems a bit redundant given you’ve already got a disease where sufferers vomit blood.
And while this may seem like a terrific premise…living up to the stone-cold classic Hong Kong exploitation feature Ebola Syndrome is a tall order.
Three Hong Kong gangsters plot a jewelry heist and storm a store in the basement of an industrial building. They get more than they bargained for: catching the store boss in flagrante delicto with a secretary under his desk, as well as nunchuck-swinging security guards who mount a defense.
But things take a turn for the worse.
In the same complex, there are strange experiments taking place — on human corpses.
We find out a mad scientist is working on a vaccine for Ebola as his daughter is a carrier. Soon, one of the robbers stumbles upon the makeshift lab, and she bites him…causing the goon to transform…into a zombie!
The cinematography is the stuff of HR training videos, the acting the stuff of boiler-room telemarketing hard-sells.
* (out of 5)
Really Awful Movies 