Whilst Simon Pegg and co can sit back and relax at that fact that they’ll likely hold on to the title of best British zombie comedy flick for a little while yet with their triumphant ‘Shaun of the Dead’ the knock-offs that follow will have their work cut out for them. Next week sees the home release of Matthias Hoene’s ‘Cockneys vs Zombies’ where a group of East End geezers take on the oncoming apocalypse with hilarious(?) consequences.
Half expecting an awfully shoddy pieced together ZomCom rip-off I was pleasantly surprised by the effort and thought that went in to making ‘Cockneys vs Zombies’. In a year when London has been firmly in the center of global attention due to its highly praised 2012 Olympics and subsequent Paralympics events when better to totally destroy it and let the undead tear through the streets of the East End.
When a team of building contractors uncovers an ancient tomb of the undead soon the bites and blood are flowing and the ‘unexplained’ contagion continues to spread through Londoners everywhere. In the meantime two brothers, their hot cousin and a couple of ‘experts’ attempt to carry out a bank heist in order to score enough cash to save the impending destruction and relocation of their grandads care home.
Stand outs for me have to be Harry Treadaway and the always excellent Rasmus Hardiker who play the clueless yet loveable Macguire brothers. The young cast members are greatly accompanied by the wrinkly veteran cast of the care home that includes the incomparable Alan Ford making sure his on screen hard as nails East End persona which still manages to shine through despite his characters forced incarceration in the Bow Bells Care Home. There was, however, a superfluous number of actors in the main group featured who were steadily then rapidly taken out one by one amongst the undead-filled havoc. Conveniently timed at a moment when the gang decide to travel on as opposed to hide in lock down.
The balance of the movie is oddly paced and unsettlingly inconsistent. There are some excellent sequences and interesting effects plus great gags and visual humour. Unfortunately these more inspired moments are sandwiched between tacky looking sequences, cheap kills and plastered with eye-rolling puns. The major highlight for me however, briefly featured in the original trailer, is of course that of veteran comedy actor Richard Briers using his Zimmer frame to steadily shuffle away from an approaching, and equally slow paced, zombie.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Whilst the film does have its flaws its an enjoyable experience and one that will hopefully get you chuckling away or if you’re a little harder to please then may manage to squeeze out a much needed smirk across your Chevy Chase. ‘Cockneys vs Zombies’ hits Blu-ray and DVD here in the UK on 22 October.
