Killer Weekend (2018)

"Genuinely Funny & Likeable Horror Comedy"

Shown at last year's Frightfest under the title FUBAR, Ben Kent's horror comedy is getting a release on the Frightfest Presents label from Signature Entertainment.

Sam (Sean Verey) is on his stag weekend. Along for the ride are his closest friends, plus his prospective father-in-law Gerald (Mark Heap from SPACED. BIG TRAIN, GREEN WING and lots of other more recent stuff). they're all off on a Zombie Apocalypse Weekend organised by a company consisting of ex-squaddies. After a bit of training they're sent off into lonely English countryside, but things don't go according to plan.

That's about all the Frightfest festival summary said when I leafed through the programme last year. Consequently, to my folly, I gave FUBAR / KILLER WEEKEND a miss because the last thing I wanted to watch at that point was yet another zombie comedy (I also missed ONE CUT OF THE DEAD which just reinforced my suspicion that I have to watch everything). 

But KILLER WEEKEND isn't that at all. Instead it's a lot like a British version of US comedy horror hit TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL. In that film we also encounter some hapless but likeable individuals who through accident and incompetence end up causing multiple unintentional deaths. And that's exactly what happens here. Sam and his friends end up mistakenly killing one of the squaddies and soon the other ex-soldiers are out for revenge. The bodies begin to pile up and KILLER WEEKEND becomes an entertainingly hilarious take on RIO BRAVO and any number of John Carpenter siege movies. 

This kind of ensemble comedy (and especially horror comedy) can easily go horribly wrong, but Kent is blessed with a group of actors who have excellent chemistry together, and who manage in their performances to straddle skilfully the line between making their characters likeable whilst also behaving like idiots.

Kent himself acquits himself admirably in his debut as a director, with set-ups and timing that make you feel as if he's been doing this for years. Watching KILLER WEEKEND I wondered if Kent perhaps had the same kind of background as Stuart Gordon, whose similarly funny and horrific REANIMATOR was the work of a man who had accrued plentiful experience in theatre before turning to film.

KILLER WEEKEND is another cracking release from Frightfest Presents that proves the low budget British horror comedy is still alive and kicking and tripping and pratfalling onto something sharp and pointy at just the right moment. Recommended. 

KILLER WEEKEND is out on the Frightfest Presents label on VOD now.