Osombie Review By Gavin Jennings!

Osombie (2012)

Whilst working the night shift in our local Tesco (other supermarkets are available!) myself and Emma T, the better half of Jonny T from cult films, had a genuine WTF moment browsing the latest DVD releases on the entertainment aisle. Before us was the unbelievably titled ‘Osombie’. A horror film in which the infamous terrorist and 9/11 plotter comes back from the dead to munch on infidel brains! I was initially outraged as to who would think up such shit and even pondered the possibility that maybe Tom Six of Human Centipede fame had shifted his focus from Ass to Osama. Emma on the other hand was thinking of reasons not to buy it. She did of course, and as a result Jonny has asked me to review the disc for the blog. With the potential comedy value of such an outrageous premise high on my mind and the children at school my wife and I were looking forward to seeing Osombie. With a bag of chips on our laps and cups of tea at hand we settled into 90 minutes of politically incorrect fun.

Amazingly enough it isn’t that bad! In fact the action-packed opening is quite good! For the most part the actors aren’t too horrendous; the zombie make up is okay and the story, albeit controversial isn’t the films main problem. What lets Osombie down is the fact that it isn’t much fun. The film should have been a perfect ending to a Friday night down the pub with your mates and a good curry but instead ends up on the save it for a rainy day pile. A lot of this is down to the fact that dead Laden is a bit part in his own movie. Aside from the beginning and brief appearance at the end he is nowhere to be seen. It’s little more than a cameo which is such a shame. Maybe the film makers toned things down to keep it decent? I would have loved too see him picking his way through US soldiers in true 80’s exploitation fashion instead of the bizarre slow-mo sword fight porn that is in it’s place. Too be fair though the good guys don’t need Osombie as they are more than capable of shortening their numbers by themselves. Anybody who chooses to fend off zombie insurgents topless deserves to die in my book!

Ultimately Osombie feels like a missed opportunity. It succeeds at being a painfully average exploitation film and a better than expected budget horror which will fail to excite fans of either genre. Had the creators gone all out and produced a film that lived up to the risqué concept I would have had a lot more respect for them…

5/10