Diskotek Media | Review
by Louis Fowler
| Available from Amazon
I really wanted to love this film. I really wanted it to be this mega-crazy, outlandish oddity that I would loan to friends with the preamble “Man, you really gotta see this!” And while SARS WARS: BANGKOK ZOMBIE CRISIS is as whacked-out as the title would suggest, it’s over-the-top plot and constant story-twists are nearly rendered null-and-void by the constant lame sex-comedy gags and knowing winks to the camera, breaking that fourth wall with needless abandon.
It’s sad, because this could have been great: a new form of the dreaded SARS virus has been found in Africa; this strain happens to turn its recipients into flesh-hungry zombies. So far, so good. Thailand is proud to be the only country not affected by the outbreak, but, when it eventually does hit Bangkok, it’s confined to a high-rise building that also happens to be holding the kidnapped daughter of the local ganglord. Looking for said daughter, two inept “warriors” with laser-swords break in to rescue the girl, but get involved in the zombie mess instead, and have to use their skills to defeat the ever-growing zombie populace.
This is where the plot should have stayed; up to this point, it works well and is actually quite fun. Instead, the characters become fifth-rate sex fiends, always looking to score some nookie instead of scoring some dead zombie points with me. They run around like a Thai Jay and Silent Bob, which, is not as great as it sounds. Bumbling does get old after a while.
There’s also a pointless giant snake eating people for some reason.
I do enjoy the current wave of comical zombie horror coming from the Far East – STACY and WILD ZERO spring to mind instantly – and like the fact they’re getting released with more frequency. I’m even happier that Thai films are getting a wider release. SARS WARS just isn’t a great example of either. But, and I will give them this much, at least they tried.
