Zoombies

Zoombies is a 2016 American low-budget science fiction zombie film directed by Glenn R. Miller and written by Scotty Mullen. The story follows a small staff and some visitors of a to-be-opened zoo affected by a mysterious virus which turns the animals into meat-seeking aggressive zombies.

Plot

The Eden Wildlife Zoo, a refuge for endangered animals, is about to be opened to the public. The film starts with Dr. Ellen Rogers, who inherited the zoo from her grandfather, announcing the coming opening of the park on a TV commercial.

Some of the zoo's monkeys are infected by a unknown disease. They are taken to the veterinarian clinic, where Dr. Gordon uses intracardiac epinephrine, a forbidden serum, in order to save the life of a monkey who suffered a cardiac arrest. The contagious pathogen spreads to other monkeys in the room, causing their eyes to become white and their body to appear dark and dirty and their behavior to become predatory towards humans. They violently attack and apparently kill everyone in the room.

A group of zoology college students are visiting Eden Wildlife Zoo for internship, while it is still private. They are led by Ellen, who is also taking care of her young daughter Thea. After arriving the zoo, the students take different parts to serve different areas of the park. Chelsea the birdkeeper shows the zoo's aviary to Ricky, a student fascinated with birds. It is revealed that Amber, a political sciences major doing zoology for internship, is secretly on probation for small offenses. It is shown that Thea has a long friendship with Kifo, the zoo's endangered Cross River gorilla.

The zoo's security team, which is composed of Rex, Boris, Ty and Lizzy, receives an alarm coming from the clinic room and no one responds on the walkie-talkies. They head there with Gage, one of the students, to check out what's happening. There they find a bloody Dr. Gordon and his assistants Johnny and Robin dead. A infected monkey appears from the insides of the doctor's body, and the other monkeys are revealed to be in the room. They violently confront the team, killing Boris and Ty. Three of them eventually escape and began infecting the rest of the zoo. Ellen shoots an alarm to warn everyone in the park to seek a closed shelter.

Wild hogs try to attack Amber and two other students, who manage to escape by climbing a tree. However, they are attacked again by infected giraffes, who kill the two Amber's colleagues. The security team arrives with Gage and shoot the giraffes to death, saving Amber. Among a subsequent giraffe attack, Amber steals the team's deep after she decided to escape the zoom quickly, depleting them of transport and equipment. They meet a pack of non-affected elephants, which they decide to use as transport.

A police team arrives the zoo, but is all-killed by infected lions when trying to approach them in the zoo's warehouse. Amber arrives the zoo's locked gate, and is attacked by a infected gray wolf when desperately trying to get to the other side. Thea is subsequently attacked by an infected koala who climbed the watchtower where Ellen and her stood, but manages to kill it. While riding the elephants, Rex, Lizzy and Gage are attacked by infected lemurs, but lately saved by AJ, one of the students and Daxton, one of the zookeepers. It is told that the CDC will only arrive within two more hours.

Rex, Lizzy, Gage, AJ and Daxton shelter in the gorilla lab near Kifo's exhibit. But the gorilla is revealed to be also infected, and kills Daxton after he approaches the primate and runs to the lab. With everyone threatened, Rex stabs Kifo, but the gorilla subsequently detaches his head. The rest manage to push a heavy rock into Kifo and escape his exhibit. The three then heard a jeep coming in, with a dying and feeble Amber driving. She soon dies, while the group is approached by a group of lions. When some of the lions feed on Amber's corpse, they rush in the jeep to escape while chase by the lions. Lizzy and Gage manage to shoot and kill one of the incoming predators.

Ellen tells Chelsea to set the birds free to avoid their infection, and says that a sample she took of the infected koala's blood revealed that an unknown enzyme infected the animal's cerebral cortex. While the infected birds began trying to escape the highly protected aviary by breaking the glass, AJ, Lizzy and Gage try to use an unfinished zip line to get to the watchtower, but the rope breaks in the process, causing AJ to fall to his death. In the town, They join Ellen and Thea and prepare to set fire to the aviary by using flammable gas cans from the tower's basement. After Chelsea does not respond to the walkie-talkie, Lizzy and Gage go to the aviary to check for her, and Lizzy tells Ellen to destroy it if they do not come back. Lizzy and Gage find Chelsea and Ricky laid dying inside the aviary, with an infected parrot and his nest made above Chelsea's guts. Ellen sets the aviary on fire, and Lizzy and Gage manage to escape before she leaves in the jeep. When realizing the fire won't reach some of the birds on fire, the group explodes the jeep to cause an additional, quicker fire.

Kifo, revealed to be alive, chases the group into the zoo's gate. Ellen manages to shoot down the gorilla after he relentlessly tries to attack them. A helicopter then arrives and rescues the four. Ellen resents this because she feels she ruined her grandfather's dream, but the others comfort her saying she did the right thing. In the final scene, Kifo is revealed to be still alive.

Cast

• Ione Butler as Leslie "Lizzy" Hogan, security officer
• Kim Nielsen as Dr. Ellen Rogers, the owner of a zoo inherited by her grandfather
• LaLa Nestor as Thea, Ellen's young daughter
• Andrew Asper as Gage, one of the students, who stays with the security team
• Brianna Joy Chomer as Amber, a political sciences major and Gage's love interest who is visiting the zoo against her wills
• Isaac Anderson as Ricky, one of the students fascinated by birds
• Aaron Groben as A.J., another student interested in primates
• Ivan Djurovic as Kifo, a Cross River gorilla
• Marcus Anderson as Rex, the zoo's security head officer
• William McMichael as Boris, security officer
• Reuben Uy as Ty, security officer
• Noa Pharaoh as Dr. Gordon, the zoo's veterinarian
• Cedric Jonathan as Johnny, Dr. Gordon's assistant
• Jennifer Titus as Robin, Dr. Gordon's assistant
• Tammy Klein as Chelsea, the birdkeeper
• Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau as Daxton, zookeeper
• Joe Conti as Monte, zookeeper

External links

• Zoombies at the Internet Movie Database
• Zoombies at Rotten Tomatoes
• Zoombies at The Asylum