Alan Ford

(In French, On Cable TV, June 2021) Now here’s a pleasant little surprise: just as I was overdosing on zombie films thanks to a weekend-long movie marathon, here is Cockneys vs. Zombies to shake things up. I won’t try to pretend that it’s a particularly fine film or one that has something all that new to offer. But after a stream of dreary nihilistic undistinguishable zombie films, its proudly East-Londonian comic approach has something refreshing about it. The title says it all: Set in a working neighbourhood of East London, a group of petty thieves working to pay for their grandfather’s retirement home suddenly has to confront a zombie uprising. The accents are definitely lost in the French dub (which may make the entire thing more understandable), but one character played by Alan Ford is particularly good, and probably couldn’t have been improved if he had been played by Michael Caine himself. Not taking itself overly seriously, Cockneys vs. Zombies does have most characters survive to the end (something that should be more frequent in zombie movies) and keeps a tone that makes the gore and zombie killings more tolerable. I’m probably overrating this film on purely circumstantial grounds, having seen it right after an overdose overly grim zombie films. Still, it has its strengths even if seen solely as a zombie film: its sense of place is strong, and it doesn’t engage in sub-genre clichés as readily as most of its contemporaries. The brash soundtrack has some insanely catchy songs—with a specific mention of “Head to Head (With the Undead)”—and is just as fun as the film itself. Cockneys vs. Zombies’ sub-90 minutes running time means that there isn’t a lot of fat once past the setup, and the distinctive characters, with their preoccupations, are above the norm for the subgenre. I may have a look later, preferably in a zombie-movie drought, to see if it really holds up. [July 2021: A second viewing definitely holds up.]