The Rezort

This clever addition to the zombie craze (no pun intended) sees a group of adventurous tourists indulging in the latest fad: shooting zombies like one would should wild animals on a safari trip. Of course, it’s not as simple and as straightforward as it sounds and after the prologue, we already know that these are no ordinary tourists and the Rezort in question is no ordinary ‘amusement park’!

In the prologue it is explained that the world has survived a catastrophic zombie outbreak during which a third off the population has been wiped out. However, on this occasion humanity has come up trumps again and the near apocalyptic situation seems pretty much under control, while one unscrupulous businesswoman called Miss Wilton (Claire Goose) came up with the genius idea of turning an exotic Mediterranean island into an amusement park with a difference. Thrill-seekers can check into a luxury hotel on said island, complete with swimming pool and all the trimmings while hunting zombies during the day. Or possibly even at night. Fear not, those nasty zombies are completely controlled courtesy of highly developed computer technology supervised in a high-tech control room within the confinements of the large hotel. It’s a bit like ‘Westworld’ or ‘Jurassic Park’, only that the baddies are neither robots nor ultra-sophisticated animatronics. They are zombies… once human beings like you and I, and now exploited and mistreated for profit and the entertainment of wealthy tourists.

Enter Melanie (Jessica De Gouw), a young woman suffering from post-traumatic stress due to the fact that her entire family got wiped out during the zombie outbreak. Her seemingly much tougher boyfriend Lewis (Martin McCann) suggests the only effective therapy for Mel is a holiday at the ReZort where they can kill zombies – a psychological tactic of sorts to take revenge on the creatures responsible for killing her family. After initial hesitation the couple arrive. Among the other guests checking into the hotel are a mysterious loner by the name of Archer (Dougray Scott), a brash blond called Sadie (Elen Rhys), two nerdy and irritating teenagers Jack and Nevins (Jassa Ahluwalia and Kevin Shen) and various others who can’t wait to grab a gun and embark on a shooting spree with a difference. It all looks great and feels great – the guests dance, drink and party the night away though the first cracks in the apparent fool-proof system emerge when some zombies come dangerously close to gate-crashing the party. Disaster strikes when Sadie (reason won’t be revealed here) breaks into one of the control rooms and downloads a program… and by doing so accidentally infects the computer system with a virus that results in its gradual malfunction. Before you can scream ‘Splatter’ the zombies no longer behave and instead begin to run amok, but not before killing various hotel guests and staff in the control room. Unfortunately for Mel, Lewis, Archer, Sadie and the two nerds the realisation that something is terribly wrong comes mighty late. The small group is already miles from the hotel to camp and hunt in the wilderness… and they have to learn the hard way that the hunters suddenly become the hunted!

It’s terrific fun to watch and of course this is really like one big interactive computer game. Dougray Scott isn’t burdened with much dialogue and performs his job as the smart, no-nonsense kick-ass dude with aplomb. The real star is Jessica De Gouw who, confronted by the unexpected situation, finally snaps out of her morbid state and reveals a toughness that no one expected from her.
As for the message (yep, there are one or two messages): not sure how the ‘Zombies have rights too’ thing fares, also there is a total surprise twist at the end which suggests immigrants in tents placed on the periphery of the doomed island. What does it all mean? Interesting turns and twists for sure but never properly explored – one can only hope there will be a ReZort II in store for us – the story certainly lends itself to some sequels!