The inaugural Scream Asia Film Festival got off to a rollicking good start with the premieres of Zombiepura (Asian) and Overlord (World).
Zombiepura – directed by Jacen Tan – is a humorous look at local norms through the filter of a zombie feature.
Light on the horror aspect, the movie is an entertaining comedy that hits all the right notes to appeal strongly to local audiences.
Strong performances from Alaric and Benjamin Heng keep the viewer interest fairly high throughout. In addition, true to zombie movie tradition, a relevant social commentary was inserted as well.
Overlord – set on D-Day during World War II – is an over-the-top B-movie supernatural action-thriller that has American paratroopers behind enemy lines discovering a horrific Nazi experiment.
The pace is quite relentless and plays more like a gorier Indiana Jones flick than a terrifying horror film.
Director Julius Avery does a bang-up job keeping the adrenaline pumping with an effective juxtaposition of the (real life) terrors of war, body horror and super-powered violence.
A very satisfying opening night for Scream Asia Film Festival and these two very entertaining movies.
For today, I will be checking out the Masterclass of Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-Ho and then catching his animated movie, Fake, later.
More about Scream Asia Film Festival.
Watch Overlord on Amazon Prime.
… still there’s more …