Movie Review: The Rezort

The thing that initially drew me to it was the premise. Following a zombie apocalypse, the outbreak has been contained and the zombies are now all secure on an island. Where people can pay to go on safari and shoot them. But then something goes wrong, security goes down and the action begins. It basically sounded like Jurassic Park with zombies and I was so up for that. Much like Jurassic Park it comes with an added morality kick that you don't quite expect going in. I'm not used to morals in my horror and I expected to find it annoying here but ultimately quite liked it. A few of the quotes held a lot of resonance;

"We won the war but forgot why" and "if we can treat the dead like meat then who's to say the living won't be next" were two of my favourites.

Things I liked:

• Melanie and Sadie - My two favourite characters. They were strong but also pacifists. But survivors. They didn't really belong on the island, each went for separate reasons but neither really wanted to kill zombies. This made them instantly more likable than the other tourists.
• Jack - Initially in my notes as "that boy you definitely went to school with" he progressed from kind of obnoxious and loud to totally sympathetic. Some surprisingly good character development.
• An emotional kick I didn't expect - As I mentioned, I went in expecting something awful so I was more prepared for laughs than tears. And whilst I didn't actually cry, I did scream "NOooo" at the screen more than once and found myself actually emotional about some character deaths.
• Zombie perspective - I don't watch a lot of zombie movies, they don't tend to scare me (what with zombies being so slow) and they never have much dimension to them otherwise. So I was really glad to see the zombie perspective in this. You actually have some sympathy for them. One zombie in particular felt like a character in her own right and I was so rooting for her to get her revenge! 
• Genuinely made me jump - I don't have much to add to this. There were jump scares. They actually got me. But I found it a fun experience and whilst my heart was definitely pounding towards the end I enjoyed it where usually horror movies just make me anxious and upset. So yay!
• Favourite last words - This character death was sad in general but last words were "Seriously f*** this island" and I laughed. Side note; the characters in this were so freaking British and I loved it.
• Girl bonding - Melanie and Sadie had conversations and developed a friendship and 100% passed the Bechdel test so hallelujah!!!

Things I didn't like:

• Lewis - Seriously, screw this guy. I've never wanted a character death so much in my life. He is Melanie's boyfriend and started in my notes as "bland boyfriend" progressed to "annoying boyfriend" and then generally just devolved into swear words. (genuinely just swear words scribbled next to his name). I hated him. So. Much. 
• The Rezort creator - I mean actually this is a like because yay for well done villain creation but also - just screw her too. She sucks. From the start she was down as "definitely a psychopath" and then the more that was revealed the more I just stand by that initial impression.
• "30 minutes in and I want the humans to die" - This was obviously meant to mean "everyone except Melanie and Sadie" but yeah - I wanted to care more about the initial deaths. Some of the characters did grow on me and I was sad when they died - but certainly the first few were just kind of who-cares?
• Relationship Drama - Who cares? Your boyfriend sucks Melanie, stop with the lovey-dovey at the beginning cause I hate it and then stop being so slow to recognise that LEWIS IS THE WORST.
• Macho Drama - This, again comes back to Lewis because kudos to Archer he wasn't into starting anything, but Lewis decides an emergency situation is the time to go all "why am I not in charge I WANT TO BE THE ALPHA". Sit down Lewis. Shut up.

At around 20 minutes in I wrote "This business model doesn't even make sense? If they've contained the zombie outbreak won't they run out of zombies? This is a non-renewable resource people." So that was obviously going in the dislike section but in a surprise twist they actually addressed this (I was so excited!!) It's obviously a spoiler so it'll be between these brackets if you're curious (the Rezort took refugees and turned them INTO zombies which is super fucked up. They legit killed people, or wait - worse infected people so that their safari could continue on. Talk about the living will be next. Also - super relevant. Loved this whole twist.).

So yeah, my general takeaway was - I really enjoyed this. Way more than I even expected to! I was ready for mindless fun and instead got a surprisingly good zombie movie, with some good characters, some scares, villains I loved to hate (or hated to love to hate), my main gripe was actually answered and answered really well. And I loved the ending. So I would totally, 100% be down for a sequel. 

Also this was surprisingly fun to write so I may do more movie reviews in the future!

Rating: 8/10 (Note; the IMDB rating for this is 5.2 so possible further proof I am terrible at judging movies BUT I really recommend giving it a try)

You can also find us on Goodreads (Ann and Clare), Facebook and Instagram to keep up with what we are reading.