"Ibiza Undead" happened to sneak up on me unnoticed. I am a big zombie aficionado, but somehow this title had managed to elude me. So when I happened to come across this 2016 horror comedy, I naturally jumped at the chance to watch it.
With a combination of exotic holiday location and a zombie outbreak, I must admit that "Ibiza Undead" seemed to be primed up to have the potential for being something truly good. Dare one hope for something in the likes of "Shaun of the Dead"?
The movie quickly establishes itself a horror comedy aimed for a younger party-loving audience, but hey that was also to be expected given the title of the movie, right?
Like so many other zombie movies we are offered no explanation as to what is the course of the infection. But isn't that just a part of the genre by now already, keeping the audience unaware and in the dark? Then again, it is the zombies that we hunger for, pardon the pun, not the science behind the infection, is it not? Personally I don't understand why you would keep zombies around for entertainment and staff at a holiday resort. It just didn't make much of any sense actually. But hey, it is a movie after all.
While the storyline was quite simplistic, the movie does put the audience into the outbreak and carnage fairly quickly, about half an hour into the movie then it kicks up the gear a notch.
It is quite apparent that director and writer Andy Edwards has drawn heavy inspiration from "Shaun of the Dead", given the character gallery, dialogue, as well as the concept of the movie and the idea behind it. But still, "Ibiza Undead" does have enough of originality to be its own movie.
There were some nice enough gory scenes here and there throughout the course of the movie. However, don't except this to be a gore flick though.
The zombie make-up and effects were adequate and served the movie well enough. And it is always nice to have zombies that are beyond the face painted grey and then the make-up department has forgotten about the rest of the body. While the zombie effects are not among the goriest or most gruesome of zombie effects and make-up that I have seen in a zombie movie (or series), then they were indeed good enough here in "Ibiza Undead".
While "Ibiza Undead" is listed as a horror comedy, then there was actually very little of both to be had here. I suppose that having zombies in a movie suffice it to be labeled as a horror movie. As for the comedy in the movie, well you have to look long and hard to find that.
"Ibiza Undead" is a fair enough addition to the zombie genre, however it wasn't outstanding or particularly extraordinary. It proved to be good enough entertainment for what it turned out to be.
