Scream Asia Film Festival (19-28 October) is Singapore’s very first horror movie film fest, and promises to feature flicks – from Japan to Indonesia, Korea and Brazil – that have yet to be screened on our sunny shores. Set appropriately just before Halloween, this inaugural festival will see 10 feature films and 2 shorts screened at The Cathay – ironically itself a famous spooky site during WWII.
With a lineup of movies ranging from supernatural to gore, we’d like to focus on one: ZOMBIES. Popular culture has become fixated upon the zombie phenomenon for a reason: zombie stories are inescapable and contagious. Zombies don’t ‘haunt’ – they’re just a slow, braindead and undead horde that just keeps shuffling until they make you into one of their own.
More and more Asian filmmakers are adopting this genre; remember the Korean hit “Train to Busan”? Now you can add Singapore and Japan to that list of zombie-flick-producing countries. Want to see more zombie flicks? Check out these titles:
Zombiepura (SG)
Directed by Jacen Tan and starring Alaric and Benjamin Heng, this is Singapore’s very first full-fledged zombie movie. There’s no better place than an ulu army camp to stage a zombie takeover, right?
The plot follows the lazy Corporal Kayu who is doing his mandatory reservist in an isolated army camp. A mysterious virus breaks out and turns his campmates into rabid zombies. Cut off from the outside world, Kayu must team up with his arch-rival, the tough Sergeant Lee, and put their military training to the test in order to survive.
Overlord (USA)
Produced by JJ Abrams, Overlord is set in France during WWII – featuring evil Nazis and a quiet French village.
On the eve of D-Day, a group of American paratroopers are dropped behind enemy lines to carry out a mission crucial to the invasion’s success. But as they approach their target, they begin to realise there is more going on in this Nazi-occupied village than a simple military operation. It may not be a classic zombie flick, but elements of it are.
Tokyo Living Dead Idol (Japan)
The story follows the predicament of a popular Japanese female idol who is suddenly bitten by a zombie, and she has only 72 hours to find a zombie serum before she becomes one of them. To add to her dilemma, she’s also pursued by a high school zombie hunter and countless zombies.
Tokyo Living Dead Idol stars real-life Japanese pop idols Nana Asakawa and Yumeri Abe from idol group SUPER☆GiRLS, as well as Yuki Nakayama and Tomoya Yamaguchi from male vocal group SOLIDEMO.
Mom & Dad (USA)
This may not be technically a ‘zombie’ movie with gory makeup, but the plot is kind of similar: normal humans suddenly turn into brain-dead killing machines, targeting other humans for no reason at all.
In this case, Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair star as an unlikely couple who turn into bloodthirsty killers targeting their own children. An unknown static frequency spreads throughout a peaceful suburban community, driving once-loving parents to kill their own offspring, sending every son and daughter fleeing for their lives.
It must be quite a sight to see a drill-wielding Selma Blair and a sledgehammer-swinging Nicolas Cage as the titular ‘Mom and Dad’.
If you’re a zombie fan, satiate your thirst for the genre (and more) at the Scream Asia Film Festival. Check out more horror movies on their site.
