Enter... Zombie King
From the moment that I saw the box, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. When I think of zombies, I see shambling, decomposing bodies, not Mexican wrestlers ready to rumble. Yet it is my job to watch and review even the most bizarre live-action movies, just for your enjoyment.
In the first few minutes, another movie came to mind, one that I had seen last summer at the behest of B-movie fans spreading the love: Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter. Yes, Our Lord does slay just like Buffy in this low-budget, independent film, shot in glorious Ottawa, the capital of Canada. So I was immediately suspicious that this was a Canadian film, despite the ADV trailers full of anime and Japanese live-action films. Where else but in Canada would having Mexican wrestlers walk along a beach with pillowy snowbanks, having a heart-to-heart talk while holding their bottles of beer, and no one sees this as odd, not even the director? I felt happy when the credits rang and "Thanks to the City of Toronto!" appeared on the screen. I thought that the snow and gray sky looked familiar.
Ulysses, who wears the red, white, and blue mask and spouts philosophy at the most awkward times, is a wandering famous wrestler who learns about Tiki (another wrestler) being on the circuit with "trained" zombies. Naturally, he finds his love interest, Mercedes (Surprise! A wrestler!) and her younger brother, Blue Saint (a wrestler who seeks revenge for his father's murder in the ring), and they go off together to stop Tiki and his zombies. After all, zombies are too dangerous to be used as mindless wrestling partners. Yup.
However, it turns out that Tiki has a gift for training zombies, and that his zombies are not the ones devouring horny teenagers in broken-down cars who make a point to buy condoms beforehand. Cue Zombie King, a wrestler with a red star mask (hmmm... Soviet Union anyone?) and Ulysses' former ringmate. Zombie King has apparently gone insane and wants to conquer the world by turning everyone into zombies. His henchmen are The French Vixen, a female wrestler with a French accent who does genetic engineering on the side, and The Murderlizer, a washed-up wrestler who... *gasp* killed Blue Saint's and Mercedes' father! Along the way, Ulysses and company pick up Mister X, a yellow masked wrestler who is super smart and does top secret work for the government. He is also the sex god wrestler, as evidenced by the abundance of topless women around him.
You can probably figure out the rest of the plot by yourself now. Good guys win, Zombie King's zombies are "trained" by Tiki with a laying of hands (Tiki literally says, "Be free!"), and there's a big party with drinks and a piņata. The movie closes with a lesbian zombie/human couple making out, and Ulysses and Mercedes dancing.
Yeah. You read that right. Naked women just randomly appear and disappear in Enter... Zombie King. Along with the overplayed lesbian couple, Cherry and Blossom (What a word play!), we have Ulysses' anonymous dream lapdancer who gives him plot hints, topless "breeder" women in Zombie King's lair, and the topless lesbians who clean Mister X's boat in the middle of winter on Lake Ontario (i.e. not likely to happen in real life). Why do I have this feeling that the director wanted to exploit the law that allows women in Ontario to go topless? Hmmm. No idea.
Enter... Zombie King has perhaps the worst fake blood and body parts that I have seen in a long time. I mean, this is surplus Hallowe'en supplies at your local Walmart level of realism. It's also hard to take this movie with any seriousness when characters are done up in grave paint commonly found in Black Metal music and its fans. Look for the High Priest in Zombie King's lair. Classic grave paint make-up.
The music reminds me of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers' battle music, when it is not obviously a guest spot for a musical friend of the director/producer who is willing to compose and play for free. It's just the sour cream to the Nachos Grande of this soon-to-be B-movie classic. It's so bad that it revels in being bad.
Jim "The Anvil" Neldhart of old school WWF fame makes a guest appearance as The Sheriff. I tried to point this out to my husband, but apparently, his wrestling memory of his youth is gone. But if you remember the Hart Brothers, then you'll smile too.
If you enjoy Canadian B-movies, zombie and Mexican wrestler humor, and don't mind having breasts displayed at a rather alarming frequency outside of the genre of pornography, then you'll enjoy Enter... Zombie King. I'm still shocked that ADV Films picked up this title though. After all, the Canadian B-movie genre isn't that large... yet.