The Rezort (2015) Horror Zombie

The Resort (2015) - When Mars of the Stream Queens at Zombiegrrlz named this as the next film to be watch, I thought okay, its been a while since I watched a zombie flick, why not?  After the first five minutes of watching I had my answer. This is a film with a premise that is just too far fetched to suspend disbelief. It challenges the viewer to believe that every government is fucking stupid and that humankind is also.  That premise is this as we learn through news clips at the beginning of the film. It has been years since the Chromosyndrone-A virus killed and turned 2 billion people into crazed zombies. The ensuing war where the living ultimately exterminated the zombies was won after many years and sacrifice that touched everyone. Still the world's peoples and governments let some corporate big wig, Valerie Wilson (Claire Goose) keep an island full of zombies as a way to create jobs and spur the economy? You can eliminate the greatest threat that human kind ever faced, that killed a quarter of the people on the planet and instead you allow the creation on a Rezort for traumatized victims to come and shoot the mean zombies that ruined their lives. That is just too unbelievable, no one is that stupid and even if some people are the rest of us would kill them just to improve the gene pool. This is the sell the film has to do in order to get to it's zombie resort but I am sorry to say I am not convinced.
  For the sake of being able to continue this review I am purposely going to ignore the last paragraph and pretend that this movie did not try to convince me of that bonk.  Since the film is trying to tell a story and I want to talk about that also. The film mostly focuses on Melanie (Jessica De Gouw) and her boyfriend Lewis (Martin McCann), she lost her father in the war and can't seem to move on with her life. Lewis fought in the war and has his own ghosts. Melanie considers going to the Rezort may be cathartic and Lewis is supportive of that. Now there are pains taken to let us know that human attitudes were changed by the war. There was a hardening where intolerance and strict protocols to stay virus free is how people survived and bleeding hearts need not apply.  Very quickly we see Melanie and Lewis arrive and then are introduced to more characters. Red shirts as soon as you realize that this is Melanie's story. The Jurassic Park-ness of this 'player' introduction was hilarious with the boat ride to the island and the jeep ride to the resort. Other characters include Jack (Jassa Ahl uwalia) and Alphie (Lawrence Walker) two teen gamers who won the chance playing a zombie shoot them up game and will now get to do it for real. You will notice them as the annoying kids in the background for most of the movie being overly excited about everything. There is Archer (Dougray Scott) a hunting dude who has his own rifle and the attitude that shooting zombies in the head should be done until they are all gone. (The correct attitude if you ask me), The blonde woman Sade (Elen Rhys) has mysterious purposes besides her stated reason for being there. These cast members and a couple of guides head out into the park to kill zombies when things go horribly wrong.

  Early on there is also this bit about a refugee camp on on the next closest island to the Rezort and launching point for Melanie and Lewis. The moment I heard this mentioned I had the thought that the corporate big wig was replacing slaughtered zombies on the island with refugees. Guess what? Not that this plays any part in the plot. It is a throw in to show just how evil CEO Wilson really is. If you think about it at all though it is inevitable you have this island that was found after the war to be over run by the undead. It is turned into a resort where the living can come to seek vengeance by killing off those same undead. Who goes into that business where you are constantly eliminating the attraction you are selling? In Jurassic Park you had the DNA lab so if you needed more dinosaurs you created them. Well there will have to be replacement zombies, there just has to be. This logical conclusion bleeds back into the unbelievable setup of the film. 1. That the island was not firebombed when discovered and 2. That a convenient refugee camp is setup just a boat ride from the attraction. So then there is the really problematic first world third world implications. The only time we see the refugees the people we see are brown people who appear like they could be from under developed countries, and they are brown people , and you hear them speak in a language that is not English. surfice to say the Rezort was setup so first world clients with the money to pay can work through there feelings about the war. Fuck everyone else.

  Malanie is not sold on her decision but not true for others. Lewis is surprisingly quiet about shooting zombies. Having been in the war we don't necessarily what his experiences were so he could be going through some PTSD shit but at least he seems supportive to Melanie. Sade slips off during the evening to sneak onto the operations computer system and downloads some files. She is part of a group that does not believe that the Rezort should exist. She is also the reason things go horribly wrong. Alfie and Jack are just a couple dopes not taking the experience as seriously as they should. The are playing hyper teenagers and I would say will learn hard lessons but this is a survival movie and they are secondary characters so... Archer is just into his need to use his weapon, competent and self assured he will be useful when shit hits the fan. Tom Nevens (Kevin Shen) and another guy are the guides and but they are so much fodder. The plot is that unbeknownst to Sade when she stole her files she also released a virus into the computer system which keep the fences up, to keep too many zombies from becoming a herd.

The basic rules of these zombies is: 1. Bite not blood, passed through saliva 2. The Fresher they are the faster they are 3.Shoot them in the head simple rules but most of the shooting we see is that they are using automatic rifles and they are hard to aim. These are great for pumping bullets into a crowd but for stopping the dead you really need a rifle. So when the fences go down the group is not really prepared for dealing with the zombies in the meaningful way. It is Melanie's story and her story is about not being able to shoot the undead. So will we see a change in her by the end of the film? Will she learn to kill or learn that killing is not the way. To get through her journey though we need some really unlikely things to happen, in fact a lot of it makes no sense. So many things here, the fact that all locks are default open if the power is out. That even restraints on the locked up zombies are released. That there is a protocol to firebomb the island if the system crashes but the fact that all the zombies started on the island and pretty much that is where we would be if the resort is over run. Why the need to firebomb. Not that killing everyone is not a bad idea. The intent of the film is to put a clock on the film. Our group of eight in the wilderness having a night under the stars will now only have a set amount of time to reach a random spot. When the shit goes down there is little time for thinking, a lot of zombies flood the camp, the two women inexplicably run across to the other side of the camp to hide behind a tent even though they are standing by a jeep. Then they have to get to the jeep when zombies come from behind. Oh and the jeep does not start, ugh. Enough talking about the strange plotting though, they have to make it to a pickup point after the attack and so be it.

  So with Brimestone fire the island protocol going and no jeep the group sets out across to reach a pickup point on the beach. It being s survival film each part of the journey is marked by death and conflict. We lose a person trying to do this or that whenever the group runs into a group of zombies. In the end a few of them make it back to the complex where the over run control room is. There is a wonderful scene where a couple people have their relationship challenged. You can probably guess the end of the film if you at all are paying attention. I have to say I liked the Melanie storyline. You think that because she can't shoot the zombie early in the film that her story are will be to eventually decide she can use a gun. This does not happen though, throughout she is a pacifist which is impressive on a zombie filled island. Then of course is the reveal about the refugee camp that I predicted as soon as I saw it.  Overall I can't really give this film a recommendation but it was not a horrible watch. The illogical leaps of this film were just to much for me to overcome. Most of this is in the writing I think where writer Paul Gerstenberger makes a good attempt but has to fit in too many convenient happenings. He does come full circle with his message of how people's attitudes in this world have changed and how the survivor may be able to change their minds.  The Directing seems solid enough by Steve Barker but I still don't think there is enough here for me to recommend. So do as you will with that information for me the film is a bit of a miss.