In patches, Zombie Reddy is fine entertainment—especially when it channels its sense of humour. The title credits play to a version of ‘Go Corona Go’ and seems to setup a potentially irreverential film. Like in a Shaun of the Dead, the zombies, at times, are treated as the mindless trolls they are. A zombiefied old man is kept under control with the simple trick of a recovery collar around his neck. A zombie Draupadi is on stage disrobing Dushasana. These are funny ideas and so long as Zombie Reddy seems to be having fun, I did too. However, our films are never happy doing one thing, are they? From time to time, a repetitive horror scream echoes in the background, the moon turns red, and the zombies get treated like they were ghosts in a horror film. That’s perhaps why a poster of Ram Gopal Varma’s Dheyyam is referenced in the beginning. In addition, there’s the whole Rayalaseema men-brandishing-sickles angle as well. Towards the end, there’s a twist concerning a female lead that’s painfully obvious. And on top of all this, there’s the hint of divine assistance too. For a film that should be having fun as zombies run riot in Rayalaseema, it just seems to suffocate itself with all the various predictable ideas it’s trying to cram in.

Director: Prasanth Varma
Cast: Teja Sajja, Anandhi, Daksha Nagarkar, Harsha Vardhan

Right at the beginning though, there’s much promise of what looks to shaping up to be a localised zombie film. As our young leads, exposed to the video game world, recognise a zombie (or in other words, an undead-y Reddy) in a jiffy, the locals look clueless. “Jaambie?” they go, looking every bit as dull as the zombies that strut around, drooling. I wish this film had tugged at these strings further and explored what it takes for the Kurnool locals to truly comprehend what’s going on. Truth be told, the many perennially furious men in the region, baying for blood as they are, don’t seem all that different from zombies.

For the remainder of this review (and there’s a lot more left, I assure you), visit Zombie Reddy Movie Review: A zombie film that bites more than it can chew- Cinema express