Michael (Michael Fuith) has come to Berlin in hopes of reconciling with his estranged girlfriend Gabi (Anka Graczyk). Unfortunately, he’s made this decision right in the midst of a viral zombie apocalypse. Trapped in her apartment complex teenage plumber’s apprentice Harper (Theo Trebs), the pair must find away to survive while also looking for Gabi, Michael positive she’s somewhere alive and in need of their assistance.

CRITIQUE

Rammbock: Berlin Undead doesn’t do anything new with the zombie genre but thankfully that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Director Marvin Kren and writer Benjamin Hessler pull from familiar sources, their manic bloody homage to all things Romero a quickly paced variation on the master’s Dawn of the Dead and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later.

I will say, however, at an astonishingly short 63 minutes the film is barely a feature, over and done with so quickly had I paid to see it in theatres I imagine I’d have been somewhat disappointed. Kren and Hessler realize just how beyond familiar all of this is, working in a razor-fast shorthand that doesn’t allow for much in the way of character development outside of that of Michael and Harper. There aren’t a lot of surprises, and in the end the whole thing feels more like a gloriously well produced calling card to something bigger and better than it does a self-contained well thought out feature-length motion picture.

Still, Rammbock is a heck of a lot of fun, and a climactic scene between Michael and Gabi is sweetly, and sickly, effective. Kren shows talent as a director and Hessler’s script is a model of efficiency, giving just enough information to make its plot developments feel genuine and organic. The movie is incredibly well shot by Moritz Schultheiß (Romeos), and I totally dug the score by composers Marco Dreckkötter and Stefan Will. Zombie fans should get a great big kick out of it, while horror fanatics in look of something of substance to sink their teeth into shouldn’t be even slightly disappointed if they decide to pick this one up as a rental.

THE VIDEO

Rammbock: Berlin Undead is presented in 1.85:1 Widescreen.

THE AUDIO

Rammbok: Berlin Undead comes with an German 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track with optional English subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

Special features here include the hysterical, if overlong, short film Zombiefication and the quite good behind-the-scenes documentary short The Making of Rammbock: Berlin Undead.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Fun, nothing more than that, this fast and furious German zombie thriller an enjoyable piece of B-movie fluff I got a slight kick out of. Fans of the genre will want to check it out for sure; everyone else with even a slight taste for this sort of thing might want to do the same as well.