To fight my Fantasia withdrawals, I’m taking in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness programme which consists of three movies. The first one is a zombie horror film from Taiwan. This is going to be loud, gory, bloody, obnoxious, violent, over the top, hilarious and stupid. The Fantasia crowd would love it. As expected, there’s always something being satirized here as in most zombie films. Don’t worry, you’ll see it right away. If there’s something this movie doesn’t do is being subtle.

(Source: TIFF)

Get The Hell Out is directed by I-Fan Wang. Strong-willed young MP Hsiung (Megan Lai) is trying to stop new a new plant from being built. However, her colleagues are a bunch of underhanded double-dealing sell-outs. When she literally gets into a brawl with reporters that resembles the likes of a wrestling match from the WWE, the most corrupt MP of them all uses that opportunity to get her fired. Instead, security guard Wang (Bruce Ho), a mild-mannered nose-bleeding clutz who is secretly in love with Hsiung since childhood finds suddenly thrown into the election ring.

As most zombie fans know, most zombie films are not about zombies. There is always a strong meta-commentary included. In the case of this feature, it’s not really subtle. The MPs are complete degenerates, the reporters are savages, the speaker gets pelted by garbage and water without any respect and debates seem more akin to a full battle royale. All this before a supposed rabies mutated pathogen ends up turning the whole circus into ravenous flesh-eating zombies.

It kicks ass and brings hilarious situations from wrestling moves to a karaoke sing-a-long. And yes, it does work for a little more than half the film. At some point as the remaining survivors are being chased and we’re running out of living and dead, I felt the premise start to run out of steam. Fortunately, at this point the movie knows it’s starting to wear out its welcome and mercifully gets to the finish line.

Recommended with reservations. It’s loud and obnoxious in-your-face zombie comedy gold for at least half its runtime. I think depending on your tolerance or your affection for gonzo over-the-top comedy it might last longer for you or perhaps less, but it eventually wraps up. The film wisely warns us at the beginning, “A wrong movie makes you suffer for only 90 minutes. A wrong government makes you suffer for four years.”

That will do for now.