'Battle of The Damned' (2013) - Christopher Hatton.

At this rather late, almost terminal stage of the game, the ostensible allure of suffering through yet another Zombie Apocalypse is, perhaps, a prospect no less decayed than the mouldering, milky-eyed, permanently shambling protagonists themselves, posing the inevitably awkward question; why on earth would any junk-jaded horror fan deign to watch yet another rotten-headed zombie outbreak movie?

Thankfully the clearly canny makers of 'Battle of The Damned' (2013) came up with a pretty Pavlovian inducement; add the immediately beguiling concept of endowing the universal soldier himself, Dolph Lundgren, with his very own sinisterly slashing squad of weaponized battle-bots in order to quash the invidious invading hordes of hideously decayed villainy! Aye! But can the exquisitely enticing conceit of witnessing the anything but 'expendable' Dolph laying bloody waste to withered waves of unthinking, flesh-craving creeps translate into a credible Sf/action/horror movie? Hell's onions yes!!!!! The 'plot', such as it is, rarely strays from being a scrappy, sanguinary shoot-em up, and in this oppressive, Malayan suburban inferno, nimble Director, Christopher Hatton, keeps things moving so breezily one ALMOST forgives the dearth of story, or the scantily etched characters, but thankfully, never once does he fail to remember the sole glorious reason for this film's existence: 'The whizz-bang grooviness of main man, Dolph having his very own army of killer robots!' The downside of 'BOTD' is wearily surmounting the inevitable Zombie movie fatigue, and the omnipresent fact that, regretfully, the film's low budget precludes us from enjoying the gonzo-demonically-destructo Dolph and his Robot Army Armageddon that his fans truly deserve, but what remains is an amusingly boisterous 'Zom-B-Movie, butt-kicker', and 'BOTD' is far more entertaining than it has any real right to be. 

As much as I hate to think about such dreadful things, I must now reluctantly acknowledge the odious, but very real reality, that there are many folk in this world who don't love Mr. Lundgren's action movies as unconditionally as I do, and, no doubt, this alien tribe of non-believers, will, perhaps, only respond negatively to the film's unambiguous demerits; its perfunctory scripting, soggy, somnolent premise, and noisily decry its overall lack of ambition, and therefore, these heretics should actively regard the rugged, toothpick-chewing, gun-toting, toweringly totemic Dolph on the cover as a clear warning to stay the hell away, but to those who find themselves inexorably drawn to this sublimely retrograde image of Alpha male majesty, the celluloid charms herein are uncommonly thrilling, as 'Max Gatling' (Dolph) and his obediently marauding, mechanized mob of deliriously death-dealing droids delivering diabolical death to their pus-laden prey of ravening, rot-faced dead with just enough bloody frequency for us to momentarily forget our own monotonous lives for its explosive 88min. duration, and in these increasingly dark and dismal days, that is more of a welcome boon than ever before!

 

'Yo!!?? Take a hike, Fridge magnet!'

'It's the cage that keeps them meat-bags safe from me!' 

'You're toast! as we 'aint lost a breakdance battle yet!'  

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Dope alternative artwork!