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Zombi Child

Country: France, Language: French, 103 mins

  • Director: Bertrand Bonello
  • Writer: Bertrand Bonello
  • Producer: Judith Lou Lévy

CGiii Comment

Quite easily the most boring 'zombi' film ever made...but, to be fair, this is - most definitely - not the zombie flick where decomposed corpses drag themselves slowly towards fresh juicy flesh. This goes behind that myth, into the voodoo, delving deeper to uncover the zombie truth!

It sounds quite interesting, doesn't it? Alas, frustratingly, no...

Cut to...present day, a privileged, Catholic girls school...replete with a vile teen sorority imbued with sapphic desire. Back to Haiti in the 60s. Back and forward it deliriously goes. It's a film of two halves that never - satisfactorily - come together. Contrasting and comparing between the then and the now...

Yes, we get the message, loud & clear...this is cultural appropriation and the bastardisation of that culture...done to satiate that white privilege bloodlust.

What was Bertrand Bonello thinking? This is shabby allegorical mayhem...rather than zombie mayhem. And, good grief, does Monsieur Bonello - quite literally - like to lecture!?! To such an extent, he actually presents an elongated scene of a teacher delivering a fatuous, meandering, historical monologue...

More back and forth...and, then, it becomes horrible horror...with - quite possibly - the worst demonic lyp-synching ever to be seen on the big screen...way back in 1973, The Exorcist managed to do a damn fine job with demonic possession...what happened in 2019?

It has to be said...this a director who has produced some [truly] remarkable films...this is not one of them.

Zombie fans will loathe it. Anthropologists will probably consider it a masterwork!


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

Haiti, 1962. A man is brought back from the dead to work in the hell of sugar cane plantations. 55 years later, a Haitian teenager tells her friends her family secret - not suspecting that it will push one of them to commit the irreparable.

Cast & Characters

Sayyid El Alami as Pablo
Saadia Bentaïeb as La surintendante
Louise Labeque as Fanny
Mathilde Riu as Adèle
Mackenson Bijou as Clairvius
Wislanda Louimat as Mélissa
Ninon François as Romy
Adilé David as Salomé
Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey as Baron Samedi
Patrick Boucheron as Le professeur d'Histoire
Ginite Popote as Francina
Katiana Milfort as Mambo Katy