Zoombies (2016) is an American science fiction zombie film directed by Glenn R. Miller, featuring all the character development, tight plotting, and quality special effects we've come to expect from The Asylum.
Dr. Ellen Rogers has just inherited the Eden Wildlife Zoo, a refuge for endangered animals, from her grandfather. As part of the preparations for its official opening, Ellen is hosting a small group of college-aged zoology students for their internship. However, juggling her responsibilities with the zoo, directing the interns, and caring for her daughter Thea (LaLa Nestor) is further complicated when some of the zoo's monkeys are brought to the veterinary clinic with an unknown disease, which soon spreads to the other monkeys there. The disease turns out to change animals into dangerous, flesh-craving zombies, and after the zombified monkeys take out the entire veterinary staff, they escape out into the zoo at large and start infecting everything else.
You can probably guess what happens next...
A sequel called Zoombies 2 was released in 2019. Also received a spinoff film, Aquarium of the Dead in 2021. You can probably guess what that one is about.
Tropes present in all films:
- Artistic License – Biology: Most of the stuff that happens surrounding the infected animals, honestly.
- Horror Hunger: The infection causes all the animals in the zoo to become aggressive and crave flesh—including the herbivores.
- Killer Rabbit: A handful of small zombie monkeys take out the entire veterinary staff. The film also features zombie parrots and zombie koalas. The sequel features zombie meerkats taking out at least one poacher, and a baby porcupine taking off a poacher's face. Even the starfish menace humans in the spin-off.
- Made of Plasticine: Pretty much everyone across both movies, but special note goes to the rhinoceros stampede in 2, where a rifle is able to instantly take down animals that in real life would only be more pissed off from being shot.
- No Biochemical Barriers: The disease isn't limited to a single species though humans are unaffected, and seems to infect every single animal at the zoo with little difficulty.
- Noisy Nature: The zombified animals tend to roar and snarl when they see the humans—including a zombie giraffe. note In the spin-off, wholly voiceless creatures like sharks and an octopus make crocodilian rumbles.
- Raising the Steaks: The zombie disease seems to affect only animals, which sucks when you're in a zoo or a wildlife preserve.
Tropes present in the first movie:
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Yeesh, Marcus did NOT suffer a quick death at the hands of Kifo.
- Eye Scream: One of the vets, Robin, gets her eyes torn out by a zombie monkey.
- Gentle Giant: Kifo, a Cross River gorilla, is quite gentle at the beginning of the first film and Thea's favorite animal at the zoo. Of course, the zombie disease turns him into a Killer Gorilla.
- Mockbuster: Of Jurassic World (see the DVD cover? Even they lampshade this!).
- Patient Zero: It is unclear where the monkeys picked up the disease (or even what the disease is), but they are the first to turn zombie.
- The End... Or Is It?: The zoo is destroyed, all the zombified animals are dead and the survivors did escape from th- wait, did Kifo's eyes just open?
- Too Dumb to Live: One of the zoo interns is wearing dangly earrings, which is not advised at a zoo job even without the zombie outbreak.
Tropes present in the second movie:
- Book Ends: Toronto's first and last scenes start with him rubbing a rabbit's foot hanging from his belt.
- Chekhov's Gun: The animal pheromones that one ranger jokingly suggests using to hose down the poachers prove critical in the climax.
- Enemy Mine: The rangers overseeing a wildlife preserve and a group of poachers trying to steal animals from it must team up to fend off the infected animals.
- Facial Horror: A baby porcupine attacks a poacher's face and tears it off entirely.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you look closely you will notice that Jezel has a teardrop tattoo on her face, which suggests that she has been to prison or was part of a gang.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Toronto volunteers to cover himself with animal pheromones and draw the zombie animals away in order to allow the remaining rangers to escape in the helicopter.
- Hidden Depths: Jezel in appears to be just an amoral Sassy Black Woman, until she reveals that she's been to Yale and Princeton and has the chemistry know-how to reverse the rage toxin—because she made it.
- Stealth Sequel: Stealth Prequel, rather. The epilogue of Zoombies 2 begins with a phone call to Dr. Ellen Rogers (Kim Nielsen). Who is preparing the opening of The Eden Wildlife Zoo; the start of Zoombies. Making Zoombies 2 a Prequel.
Tropes present in Aquarium of the Dead:
- Giant Enemy Crab: Some large Japanese spider crabs are among the reanimated sea creatures.
- Killer Rabbit: One character is killed by a zombie starfish.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Several zombie crocs pursue the characters trapped in the aquarium's corridors.
- Tentacled Terror: A large zombified octopus poses a recurring threat, sneaking through the facility's pipes to ambush people.
- Threatening Shark: Although most are confined to tanks, some zombie makos make it (somehow) out onto a hallway floor, where the characters have to gingerly step over them. Swimming shark zombies become an obstacle in the flooded basement.
