Ninjas Vs Zombies
Well, I’m honored to say, that I have finally seen the one of my most anticipated films of this year.
This film is brought to you by the guys over at the Suckcast podcast. Just a little history before we start on the film, I was made aware of the Suckcast podcast when they tweeted the RedDwarfForum twitter account saying they were liking the ScutterCast podcast, back then we were getting quite a lot of flak due to poor editing, poor preparation, and just generally doing a poor podcast. I initially assumed that it was somebody else taking the piss out of us, especially with the name of Suckcast, and our podcast being called Scuttercast (there was method in my madness).
After doing a little bit of googling, I found that they also did a podcast, named “The Suckcast“, and decided to give it a listen, What a podcast !….I’ve downloaded every episode since and each episode makes me laugh out loud, a number of times.
The podcasts hosts are Man Guy (Dan Guy), The Herman (William Stendeback) and Cory (Cory Eskkridge Okouchi), each week they discuss their week, and discuss a movie they have watched that week and just generally have a laugh while doing it, you can tell by their synergy, they enjoy each others company, and enjoy doing the podcast.
At the beginning and end of each podcast they mention their sponsors, Ninjas Vs Zombies. Again after a little googling, I found that the movie is their own baby ! How awesome !, unfortunately they are still waiting for a publisher to take them on, so the chances of me ever getting to see their creation was starting to look bleak. Out of the blue a couple of episodes ago, Cory said that if anybody wanted a copy of the movie, to email in and he’s try to sort something out, so obviously I emailed in.
Anyway that’s the back story out of the way, now lets get to the film itself !
Is this film going to win any Oscars ? Nope.
Does this film have mindblowing visuals that make Avatar look like the first episode of the Simpsons ? Nope.
Does this film have martial arts that would show Bruce Lee a thing or two ? Nope.
Is this a fun, easy watching, laddish film ? Hell Yeah !!!
How do I know ? Because my other half sat playing on her Blackberry all the way through it, asking how long it had left, because she was bored 
The basic movie plot is that Randall (Dan Guy), is interrupted while attempting to bring his brother Eric (PJ Megaw) back from the dead by Herman (William Stendeback), who is banging on the comic book stores (assume that Randall works their), as he’s want to play their weekly game of Dungeons and Dragons. This results in a botched resurrection that does brings back his brother, however he suck the souls of the living to survive. Each person he sucks a soul from, turns into a flesh eating zombie.
As the film goes on, Eric gets a taste for the soul sucking, hence resulting in an army of flesh eating zombie terrorizing the neighbourhood. With no way, and no hope of defeating Eric and the zombies, Cole (Cory Eskridge Okouchi), Kyle (Daniel Ross), Fitz (Daniel Mascarello), and Randell are granted super ninja powers to help defeat Eric, and rid the world of the zombies.
From this point on, (and without spoiling the film for anyone) it’s essentially a fight between Ninjas and Zombie !
So how was it ?…well it was a fun movie, when I initially saw the trailer, the first thing that came to my head was one of Peter Jacksons first films “Bad Taste“, an overly gory film with just so much heart and soul, it’s one of those films you just don’t get bored of. I’m glad to say that Ninjas Vs Zombies didn’t disappoint, the film had a decent story, decent acting, and to be honest really good special effects as this seems to have been made on a shoe string budget. The “soul sucking” scenes, and the fireballs that Randell can conjure really wouldn’t look out of place in a Hollywood blockbuster !
Was the film predictable ?…well it was a good guys vs bad guy film, and there are very few where the good guys lose
I have to say, the homages to the great films out there were amazing, it felt like a little game after a while, every few minutes I was turning to the missus and saying “ooooo, look, that’s the Turtles”, or one of the other films they paid homage too. I’m not 100%, but I seem to remember thinking a lot of the fighting moves were either from Mortal Kombat, or Street Fighter…I may be totally wrong, but that what they reminded me of.
Did it have any nudity ?…Yeah, but only for a split second, if anybody has listened to the Suckcast, you’ll know why I was a little shocked to only see a split second of nudity
Would I watch it again ? Already have, and it gets more enjoyable with each watch, it’s going to be one of “those films” I think ?
Would I have changed anything ? No, not really, there were a few points in the film where the comedy timing was a little out, apart from that much fighting, much gore, loved it.
All in all a great movie, if your looking for Hollywood blockbuster, with great depth and millions of pounds of special effects, then this movie isn’t for you, if you are looking for a low budget, gory, fun moving, then this is the film for you.
I think the current score on IMDB of 6.7/10 is totally justified, I just hope a publisher takes them on, so the rest of the world can see this great movie.
