After a deadly viral outbreak, an elite squad of special forces soldiers must infiltrate a quarantine zone to rescue a scientist who holds the only cure to save mankind.

It is the might of the British military vs zombies in co-writer/director Chee Keong Cheung’s junior feature, Redcon-1 (2018), an ambitious independent zombie venture that pits an elite military group against a host of various baddies. This action-packed thriller is a blood-bath, embellished with blunt shots and cringe-worthy gore that made this movie overall a pretty fun watch, although not quite anything to write home about as a new addition to post-apocalyptic zombie fare.

Beginning in the close quarters of Wentworth prison, an unknown virus that causes people to become dead-eyed and extremely violent is quickly sweeping the streets of London. The virus is transferred through contact with infected blood or even so much as a kiss…and of course, from a good old fashioned bite! For now, the contagious are contained in the south area of London, but the rest of the country is brought to a halt as the zombie population grows unchecked without a cure. Queue the military to enter with a glimmer of hope in the form of a carefully chosen elite special ops team whose leader, Capt. Marcus Stanton (Oris Erhuero), lost his wife to patient zero at Wentworth prison. The ragtag group of combat specialists has one mission — capture the scientist who started the virus in hopes he can develop the cure to bring people back to life. Given 72 hours to complete their mission, they set out to infiltrate the quarantined area, where they go up against military-grade living dead, as well as roaming bands of rebels who are pillaging and killing in the wake of the city’s collapse. Both prove to be formidable foes as they go deeper into the city, though they find that the true enemy is much closer at hand when the team discovers the military has been experimenting with human enhancing serums that caused the outbreak.

From the shoddily pieced together trailer, I did not think I would enjoy this movie, however, the film has a certain je ne sais quoi that makes it endearing – is it the metal music breakdowns? The wtf factor of having kung fu fighting zombies? The ‘nothing is sacred’ attitude by the film featuring kid zombies? The guttural gore and amble buckets ‘o blood? The macho one-liners? The seemingly endless supply of zombies? All the spices are there to make a recipe for a great movie, but somewhere along the line, I got a little tired of chewing through this film. The movie is a tad over-seasoned — it is pretty Michael Bay-like because of its grand scale, in fact, Redcon-1 felt more like an action movie than a zombie movie — the Expendables (2010) in Z-land. It is not terrible, but it is a zombie movie that doesn’t bring anything new to the table to savor, and moreover, it is self-indulgent with rampant slow-mo shots and too many fighting scenes. Mediocre and forgettable, there are more savory morsels of movies featuring zombies than this.

In Chee Keong Cheung’s zombie-verse, the creatures are often faster and stronger than they were as humans, a la 28 Days Later (2002) style of zombies, and like Land Of the Dead (2005) zombies, seem to organize and communicate with each other to attack. I am not particularly a fan of this style of zombie, I personally prefer, for logic’s sake, the classic Romero Night of the Living Dead (1968) zombies because slow-moving walkers make sense – the body is dying and decaying, it should move and act accordingly, but Cheung’s zombies are fast and strong since they are military grade and were made for the purpose of exploring enhanced humans for combat. I get it, but I am just not a fan of the idea that zombies can do kung-fu and use nunchucks. This movie could have and should have been an hour and a half, but Cheung chose to stuff the film with seemingly every idea rather than editing. Zombie enthusiasts should appreciate the amount of zombies as the film is not short on herds, and though there are definitely moments where the cast is guilty of overacting, the lead performances from Katarina Leigh Waters as Sgt. Kira Paige, Mark Strange as Lieut. Frank Perez, and Jasmine Mitchell as Alicia Rowan were sincere and added substance to the narrative. Despite pretty good acting and amble zombie trope usage, with each battle Redcon-1 becomes more ho-hum of a movie, and it really should have had one or two epic battles instead of several of the same battle.

The midpoint of the movie had me most captivated, where it dives more into the heart and soul of characters’ inter-relationships, but the beginning and especially the end was a trudge to the finish line. That is not to say that it is not worth the watch, as Redcon-1 certainly has plenty of action for entertainment, a thread of heart and hope for an emotional draw, and exciting, fast-paced editing to pique interest and add frenzy to packed zombie hordes. Were it not long and predictable this could have been on par with newer, beloved zombie features breathing new life into the genre, such as 2017’s Train to Busan (2016), but Redcon-1 is obviously well-intentioned and I do give a thumbs up for the effort. Redcon-1 is now available via VOD and DVD as of February of 2019.