Zombie Brigade (1989)

In the town of Lizard Gulley, a money hungry town board decide to demolish a Vietnam memorial to make way for a new amusement park. No-one seems to care, but the diggers buried within are bloody spewin', and rise up from their grave to take their revenge against a town that has lost its way...

Zombie Brigade is a neat new discovery, proving that no matter how much you know about your country's cinema, there's always something new to surprise you! In this case we have a zombie movie where the rampaging undead are our own soldiers, and aboriginal magic helps fight against them dead whitefellas.

Zombie Brigade has an authentic small town feel to it. There are a few funny scenes, like the Aussie resignation, or the tourist kangaroos, but the movie's never a full-on comedy. It could have been nice with a bit more humour, but at least it's not just a dumb joke.. The film reminds me of Mexican horror of the time. Mainly in the small-town can-do attitude

The movie has a pretty slow start, and I've read some decry this, but I never felt it was boring. It's just taking it's time to set things up and introduce everything, and does an alright job. When the zombies arrive the film goes from zero to 100. It gets surprisingly dark in places, though not depressing. With these attacks out in the open, everyone believes without skepticism.

After the first wave, daylight comes and the townsfolk are safe...for now. I've seen plenty of movies like this, and it's always a pain seeing the pace slow to a dead crawl. I'm grateful that Zombie Brigade takes a breather. Granted, I woulda preferred that breather to not be a solid half hour long, but...

The direction here is pretty good. There's a nice use of shadow, and night scenes are shot well. Nighttime can be a scourge for low budget cinema, but luckily Zombie Brigade handles it well, and knows when to let night end. A good chuck of the midsection is set at daytime, but keeps the tension going. There's one good atmospheric scene when the heroes are driving back into town, knowing there's no escape.

The undead here behave in an interesting way. They're a mix between zombies and vampires, without being silly about it. There's a healthy sense of mystery about what rules they go by, such as if headshots work, how contagious they are, how (or if) they distinguish between specific people, etc.

The zombies also have quite human behaviours at times. They're pragmatic, and know when they're beat and retreat accordingly. And the mayor's nephew gets a great moment of revenge. In some ways the zombies seem to have a sense of justice, but then they kill innocent families. Their victims rise up, and are just as pissed off, but not at the zombies who killed them! Their most amusing human trait comes when we see the first thing any Aussie zombie would do after rising from their grave-Light up a fag!...(No, that doesn't mean what you think here, I swear!).

Their origin is a mix of sci-fi and magic. We hear talk of biological warfare, but also local Asian magic. And of course the Aboriginal variety. It gives the movie quite a flair to it. A problem low-budget movies often have is there's a better story happening outside the one we're watching. Here there are more interesting elements that happened offscreen, but we see enough of them here to be satisfied. Also, unless I'm going crazy there's one line that playfully references Return of the Living Dead!

The last act gets a little complicated when Jimmy says the Aboriginal spirits won't help whitefellas (pretty understandable considering they were killed unjustly long before the zombies got pissed off), but they can raise the soldiers from the town cemetery to fight the others. Undead WWI and II Anzacs vs. vampiric Vietnam vets!

Zombie Brigade climaxes how any Australian zombie movie should-With an undead battle royale in front of a Bushells Tea mural. What follows is a bit confusing, especially with the time stamp, but there's a funny twist. The ending is alright. It's not entirely clear what's gonna happen, but it's a reasonably positive note to end on. The main heroes are still alive, the remaining zombies aren't assholes, and that's pretty much it.

The characters here are pretty good. We've got some diversity with an Aboriginal and Asian pair of leads! There are a few subversive jokes here and there too.

The sheriff is a good guy, and surprisingly competent. There's talk of he and Jimmy being at odds in the past due to his colour, but we see little to suggest that he's anything but friendly. He also gets an amusing conspiracy line, that namedrops Harold Holt!

The biggest human villain is the mayor. Your typical movie bureaucrat, causing the problems, then pointing the finger everywhere else. He even has the balls to go against Jimmy's idea of 'desecrating' the Anzac graves...like he did when he blew the crap out of the Vietnam monument. I was disappointed when nobody brought that up. I was hoping the mob would suddenly turn their attention to him. Although it's admittedly more satisfying seeing him be devoured by zombies.

There are a few racist characters in the town. The priest was a particular asshole, deriding 'primitive native superstitions that he's been fighting all his life'. Being a man of God, I figured he'd be the most open-minded about using magic to fight these zombies! The sister is nicer in an oblivious kinda way, getting a funny line.

The rest are ok. I thought Jimmy's Uncle Charlie was an alright kinda bloke, although he sounds like an asshole from the way he mistrusts his nephew for having a uni education!

The acting here is pretty good, especially for a bunch of local talent. John Moore is a good lead, softly spoken, but has good presence. Leslie Wright does a good job as the sheriff, looking like a cross between Larry Storch and Roddy McDowall. Khym Lam is mostly fine, but a bit hokey in places, including one unreadably long line. I'm impressed with her for managing to get it all out, but buggered if I could understand a word.

Her accent is a bit weird though (cahp for cop, and mahnsters for monsters). I couldn't tell if it was genuinely mixed (being a Singaporean born Aussie), or if she too was attempting a bad U.S. accent. Being curious, I decided to check out some of the Aussie minisieries Tanamera, which showed me two things. A, she is putting on a bad accent here, and B, That's a really good Aussie period piece! I oughta watch it in full. I wish we got programs like that nowadays...

The film opens with some nice illustrated credits. The effects and zombie design are good, too. The teeth are a bit fake, but the overall make-up is good. The decompositions are pretty neat! The violence is effective, basic enough, and not biting off more than the budget can chew.

The score here is ok. Nothing amazing, but gets the job done. There were two tracks in particular that impressed me. One is the melancholy yet groovy military parade tune that plays during the finale/end credits. And the second is a neat musical interlude, courtesy of Yoshi. She steps up onto the stage to belt out the song Make Me an Offer I Can't Refuse, and it's a pretty fun tune.

Here's the most surprising thing about Zombie Brigade, though it will only be of note to anyone living in Western Australia-This is filmed not just in W.A. (do you know how rare that is??), but in Toodyay! That's only half an hour's drive from where I live! You can't get more homegrown horror than that, lemme tell ya! I didn't recognise any of the cast and crew, although I know someone related to one of the ghosts, so there's that! Small world.

One last thing to mention is a review I just read for the film. It's a little overly wordy, but a good read, and has some great behind-the-scenes trivia and research!

Zombie Brigade is a pretty good homegrown horror film, and one that does its homeland proud. It's not the fastest paced zombie film out there, but as long as you go in knowing this, it should be a decent watch...