Review: Cockneys vs. Zombies

Zombie Planet

Just from the title this film sounds like a horror comedy set in London so comparisons with Shaun of the Dead are going to be obvious and many ways it is similar in that you get the typical familiar characters seen in many other London-based dramas and comedies and put them in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Original no but it has it’s stand-out moments and it has a fair share of laughs, a lot of them from a veteran cast from British TV.

In the East End of London there is a major redevelopment involving tearing down the 50-60s concrete monstrosities. One of the guys uncovers a metal sealed door with a digger. On the door the it says it is  sealed in the name of Charles II. With another worker he opens the door and they go inside. They find crypt full of human remains and one of them identifies it as a plague pit but for some reason they don’t get out right away but instead look to see if there are any valuables. They don’t see some of the corpses moving and one getting up behind them. It bite one of them and the second guy gets bitten by another zombie and the plague begins

The Maguire brothers are in their yard and Terry (Rasmus Hardiker) is pissed at Andy (Harry Treadaway) for the state of the van Andy has bought cheap for the big job they have got planned. Terry doubts it will even start and when he tries turning the key in the ignition it the engine chokes and dies. Andy thinks he’s always lucky and when he tries the key he gets it to start. Andy goes on about how lucky he is but Terry remembers that most of the trouble they get into was caused by Andy dragging Terry into fights that he started.

They go to see ‘Mental’ Mickey (Ashley Bashy Thomas) who Andy has arranged to help them on their “job”  and who seems very excitable. Terry is a bit worried about Mickey but Andy assures him that Mickey is okay but it doesn’t help his case when Mickey head-butts the bonnet of Terry’s car and Andy tells him he has a metal plate in his head from a war injury fighting in Iraq. They tell him that the job is on for 2 o’clock

Terry and Andy’s grandfather Ray Maguire (Alan Ford) is a resident of the Bow Bells Care Home. Terry and Andy come to the care home with precooked food for the residents. When Doreen sees them (Georgina Hale) she wants some young male company and Terry diverts her attention to Andy and jokes that his luck in there.

When they go to the dining room they see a property developer taking measurements in the kitchen and Ray tells him to clear off. The lease on the care home is nearly up and the property developer intends to turf out the elderly residents and turn the place into luxury apartments.

Ray gives the brothers stick for working in a crappy job with no money. The job that they have been talking about is a bank robbery that they have been planning to get the cash to buy off the lease on the care home and stop them having to close it down. The other residents are Peggy (Honor Blackman) who likes Ray, Eric (Dudley Sutton) who is in a wheelchair, Daryl (Tony Selby) who sells his prescription drugs to local youngsters and an old pervert Hamish (Richard Briers) who uses his binoculars to spy on female residents.

Andy and Terry discuss the robbery they have planned and they know Ray wouldn’t want them to do it. Andy brings up what their parents would think and Terry has another flashback to their parents as the East End Bonnie and Clyde and they seem to have died in similar way to them in a hail of bullets. Terry doesn’t think that following their example is a very good idea. They get the van and pick up their gang including Davy “Tuppence” (Jack Doolan) who knows about the security in the bank, their cousin Katy Maguire (Michelle Ryan) who can pick locks and of course Mickey who is bringing guns. Katy is not happy about the guns but Terry promise they are just for show but with a nickname like Mental Mickey you can probably guess how that will go. Davy has arranged their disguises which is construction worker high visibility jackets and cheap moustaches so of course Katy objects only for Davie to say she’ll get away with it because her breasts aren’t very big.

In the bank a woman called Emma (Georgia King) has been sent by the construction company to pick up cash for their payroll but she’s having trouble with officious bank teller Clive (Tony Gardner). The Maguire gang enter and a bank manager asks them if they are here for the money. She thinks they have come from the construction company for the payroll that Emma has come for and takes them back to her office where they bring out their guns and force her to take them to the safe. The payroll is £3 million which is much more than they were expecting and after a moment of doubt they decide to take it all. They think everything has gone very smoothly but the manager had pressed the silent alarm and there are several police cars waiting on them

Back at the care home a gardener is gets killed by zombies The zombie invade the care home and several residents and all the staff get taken but Ray and Peggy manage to get a group of them locked in to the kitchen which the most secure place in the building. Eric calls the creatures vampires but Eric often get things wrong and Ray points out that they are obviously zombies. They realise that Hamish still outside sleeping in the garden and call to him out of the window. He wakes just in time to see a group; of zombie shambling toward him and uses his Zimmer frame to escape, just barely keeping ahead of the zombies

At the bank Mickey takes two hostages, Clive and Emma, and promises that he will get them out of there. They leave the bank with their hostage in front at gun point as a shield. Outside the police are gone and their cars abandoned. Out in the street they see a mob of zombies coming towards them. Mickey is the first to start shooting but he’s going for body shots and one persistent zombie gets close enough to bite him. Katy tells him that everyone knows that with zombies you need to go for head shots and she shoots off the head off a zombie that is still biting Mickey. The jaw is still stuck on his arm and Mickey just leaves it there in case it tears the skin when pulls it off and even if it wasn’t a zombie that makes no sense. They all get in the van and head back to the Maguire brother’s yard and on the radio they hear that the east end of London has been sealed off to prevent the spread of an infection.

The film follows the typical zombie survival horror story only with a set of characters more typical of sitcoms and crime dramas and there are plenty of amusing differences in the outbreak, like when they come across two sets of rival football fan zombies who even in death prefer to try to kill each other than chase the living for food. It is definitely more of a comedy than a horror though it is very gory at times, which is inevitable in a zombie film. I thought the cast were great and if you’re familiar with British TV then the residents of care home will probably be very familiar to you and it is great to see them fighting zombies with such gusto.

Rating 7.5/10

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• DVD REVIEW: Cockneys vs Zombies (geeksyndicate.co.uk)