Enjoy this Monday with Mildred!

This is also a Zombie World Tour post!

Cockneys vs Zombies

“Zombies, oh no.”

What I can tell you is that this movie is a hoot. It doesn’t quite reach the brilliance of Shaun of the Dead, but it’s darned close. It starts gory and funny, and has very nice credits, then works hard on character development with effective use of flashback. The film has a good look and solid acting, including Alan Ford (who I *know* I’ve seen before but can’t remember where) and Honor Blackman (the original Kick Ass woman from The Avengers British TV Series), who is still great. I felt like the character development went on a smidge too long, but that’s pretty much my biggest beef.

As with Attack the Block, I didn’t agree with the choice of heroic characters, this time being bank robbers with a heart of gold.  Nevertheless, I found myself wishing for more exploration the irony of being “saved” from the end of their fiscal world by the literal end of the world.  There was a bit of gold they missed a chance to mine.

How do the British have such a good idea of just what is funny about zombies? The humor worked really well in part because the filmmakers made their zombies scary, dangerous and swarming everywhere.  There was only one set piece that didn’t really work for me (hooligans), but several times I laughed out loud at the craziness and cool ideas. The above quote is from an old fart “running” from the zombies as fast as his walker will allow. Another old fellow is sure he knows what’s going on and informs everyone that what they need to repel these vampires is “crucifixes, garlic, holy water… Christopher Lee!”.

I recommend this if you’re looking for funny zombies.

LINKS:

• Cockneys vs. Zombies Official Site
• Cockneys vs. Zombies – IMDB
• Shaun of the Dead
• Honor Blackman
• Attack the Block
• The Avengers British TV Series