A woman dealing with the aftermath of her father’s death in the war against zombies decides to go on a zombie safari on a remote island. Written by Paul Gerstenberger and directed by Steve Barker, this zombie film doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre, it uses a few newer, or less used, ideas and freshens it up a bit. Their zombies are fast moving zombies, the bad people are clearly so, but the good guys are decent and easy to watch with a few you can root for. These characters are a bit basic and a bit predictable but they work in the story and are decently entertaining.
The story moves at a good pace and has a few twists and turns that even this long time horror fan and reviewer did not see coming. The lead of Melanie is played by Jessica De Gouw who plays her as a damaged young woman hoping to relieve her malaise by killing some zombies on the island. She shows decent range in the limited part and shows that she can do horror/action well. Also top billed is Dougray Scott turning in a good but a bit by the numbers performance as the ex-military marksman in the group named Archer. Also playing an ex-military is Martin McCann as Melanie’s husband Lewis. His performance is more supportive and shows some talent for action. The rest of the cast is also good, but it seems like no one really stands out unfortunately.
As this is a zombie film, a review of it would not be complete without the special effects being mentioned. The zombies in The ReZort are of various levels of decay and all are fast zombies which does not necessarily make sense. These zombies look fairly good, each having their own look and the features zombies look good. The film’s big team of special effects artists did quite well with these, their different levels of decay showing in their individual designs.
The cinematography by Roman Osin shows the beauty of the island where the film takes place. His images look beautiful and like post card almost at times. When the film enters its last part and the environment changes, his style adapts and gives a more claustrophobic look to everything. Working with this cinematography is the editing by Marti Roca who edits some of it like travel publicity for the island. However, some of the action sequences are short in shaky cam and fast editing rendering them a mess to look at and making the action hard to see which is unfortunate as it keeps the work of the rest of the team from being fully seen.
The ReZort feels more like an action film than a horror film at times. It feels like Jurassic Park, remote island location for rich tourists and how to get there, meets Hard Target with zombies a bit. The effects are good, the acting works for the film. It’s a decently entertaining film but it doesn’t bring much new elements to the genre.