It's getting harder and harder for a movie to really show us something we haven't seen before, especially when sharks are involved. How many Sharknado movies have there been? Eleven?
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, a new Japanese film on Netflix directed by Yusuke Ishida, manages this feat in a totally surprising and delightful way.
It's proceeding along in a likeable enough way, the kind of zombie movie that feels upbeat due to its humor and the cleverness of its conceit. Basically, a hard-done-by office worker named Akira (Eiji Akaso) discovers the zombie apocalypse is occurring, as you do, but instead of despairing over the end of the world as he knows it, he rejoices that he no longer has to go to work. And henceforth creates a bucket list of things he wants to do -- it's supposed to be 100, but he can't think of much more than about 15 -- before he is inevitably transformed into a flesh eater himself.
The zombie effects are pretty good for what is probably a fairly cheaply budgeted film, and you might get a Zombieland vibe here and there, especially at the start, when Akira narrates and when Ishida uses freeze-frame to rewind and tell us how we got here. However, it proceeds pretty straightforwardly, hokey in a pleasing way, until Akira and his small group hole up at an aquarium, where they fend off the zombies in a Walking Dead-in-the-prison-season sort of way, and have a good supply of untainted food.
Except when zombies fall into the shark tank, and the shark of course sees them as food, the shark quickly turns into a zombie himself.
The zombie shark is not the thing you haven't seen before. I'm sure Sharknado has done that at least once.
No, it's the way the zombie shark becomes a land threat that is really memorable.
The giant shark bursts forth onto dry land, swallowing the closest human whole. The others around are frightened, but they soon realize that a shark out of water can flop about all it wants, but all you have to do is give it a berth of about ten feet and you'll be just fine.
Not exactly.
This comforting logic has barely had time to sink in when the shark sprouts legs. How does it sprout legs? Well, the zombies in its stomach burst their legs through the now rotten skin and proceed to walk the shark around. Deprived of its need for water since it's, you know, no longer alive, the shark is now a full-fledged menace on eight human legs.
Since I've explained it, I might as well show it to you:
What was already a nice enough zombie movie with some decent effects, good characters and a good story has now become something gonzo, something genuinely worth seeking out.
I'm sorry if I ruined what was a wonderful surprise for me, but hey, I did warn you.
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