Juan of the Dead (2012) is another one of Ms. Spenser's choices. A Cuban zombie comedy.
It starts with our hero Juan (Alexis Diaz de Villegas) and his sidekick Lazaro (Jorge Molina) fishing on a crude raft in the Bay of Havana. They reel in a corpse, which is bad enough, but it comes back to life and starts attacking them. Lazaro shoots it through the head with a spear gun and they think no more about it.
Juan doesn't seem to do much except fish and fool around with women. They are friends with an outrageous transvestite La China (Jazz Villa) and her enormous boyfriend El Primo. Lazaro tries to be a father to his grownup son Vladi California (Andros Perugorria), a handsome blond surfer looking dude, but he just wants to chase girls and do petty crimes. Juan has a daughter, Camila (Andrea Doro), who is young, beautiful and cultured, and of course wants nothing to do with her deadbeat dad - she has been living with Mom in Miami.
It soon becomes clear that the zombie in the bay wasn't a one off. More and more Cubans are becoming ravenous undead beasts. Juan thinks they are likely capitalist dissidents, like the government is always talking about. And he has a plan.
The plan is to start a zombie eradication company, Juan of the Dead - "We Kill Your Loved Ones". His daughter is disappointed at his lack of civic spirit so he does some community training as well. But things don't look so good, and get worse.
This is fun in a lot of ways. Diaz de Villagas has a worn hangdog face that's ideal for this kind of humor. There are plenty of dark jokes (fair amount of friendly fire) and some tributes to Bruce Lee, etc. Some of the shots seemed a little amateurish or cheap, but heck, this is director Alejandro Brugués second feature, and it was pretty cheap.
Maybe not as great as, say, Sean of the Dead, but a lot of fun.
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