It seems every country wants a piece of zombie-film action and as new Cuban
zombie satire Juan of the Dead proves, this well-worn genre is showing no signs of
dying out.

Ghoulish satire … Alejandro Brugués’s zomcom Juan of the Dead is Cuba’s latest
offering to the zombie genre.

Zombie films are becoming like burrito chains, or Olympic games: every nation’s got
to have one. Since the neo-zombie renaissance begun in earnest by Danny Boyle’s 28
Days Later (2002), we’ve had American zombies (thereturn of George A Romero;
the Dawn of the Dead remake; The Walking Dead), London-commuter zombies
(Shaun of the Dead), Spanish zombies (REC), Thai zombies (SARS Wars), Serbian
zombies (Zone of the Dead) and Taiwanese zombies (the forthcoming Zombie 108).

This week sees the arrival in UK cinemas of the Cuban incarnation, in Alejandro
Brugués’s zomcom Juan of the Dead.

They pop up everywhere; they show no respect for international border
demarcations. Now that globalisation has started to emit a sickly smell, what better
ambassadors than a shambling cadaver with a manky eye cavity? The postwar
zombie film always liked to travel, with its penchant for sordid exoticist expeditions
like Zombie Flesh Eaters and Zombi Holocaust; and its apocalyptic urges meant that
destined to go global. Now that we’re officially, as the Žižek says, living in the end
times, the genre has really come into its own.

A couple of years back we were recoiling from zombie banks, and with people talking
about “gangrenous” states like Greece, it seems the bits are still dropping off the
global economy.

Zombies are the 99%, the proletariat of the undead – and so the perfect vehicle for
detailing fears about mass civic breakdown. There was always grotesque humour in

even the most serious zombie films, and the renaissance of the last decade has made
the comedy dominant. In the true tradition of the decadent frisson, we’re loving the
grisly spectacle of our decline. John Wyndham’s “cosy catastrophe” – the genre of
literature in which the breakdown of civilisation is weirdly good to the protagonists –
has been superseded by the carnival catastrophe, à la Zombieland.

Juan of the Dead – hailing a couple of hundred miles west from the zombie’sHaitian
birthplace – is the most laidback entry yet; its great contribution to the form is the
first zombie tango, between Alexis Díaz de Villegas’s Havana slacker and a ex-drag
queen ghoul he is handcuffed to. The film delights in expending its satiric munitions
on behalf of the Cuban home crowd. The government tries to claim the undead
hordes are American-backed dissidents, and Juan and buddy wriggle out of the
limiting strictures of armageddon with a little shifty private enterprise, Ghostbusters-
style: “Juan of the Dead, we kill your loved ones, how may I help you?”

Well done to Brugués, because it’s quite a subversive film. And, as the first recent
Cuban production I can remember to receive this level of international attention, it
has a significance that goes well beyond the self-inflicted Shaun of the Dead
comparisons: it’s another sign of Cuba – as Raúl Castro continues to liberalise –
slowly rejoining the global market economy. Given the undead boom, a zombie
calling card’s not a bad one if you want to demonstrate a sense of humour and
commercial film-making nous.

I’d be intrigued to know what either Castro thinks of Juan. Forty years ago, you
imagine many Cubans would have shared Romero’s politics, and resisted tooth and
nail being subsumed into the ranks of the mindless capitalist walking dead.

Now they’re climbing into the same boat as the rest of us, the zomcom suddenly
makes sense. The first wave of zombie pictures viewed dismemberment/ engulfment
as an occasion of pure disbelieving horror; now we know that consumer culture
dismembers your bank balance and engulfs your psyche, and we shrug. What can you
do – especially if get the taste for consuming? Being chained to Simon Pegg’s couch,
like a decomposing Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead, and still getting to play
PlayStation is starting to look like a sign of the times.

We’re all the undead now – and the list of those with a viable resistance plan is
dwindling. No wonder every country is lining up for a piece of zombie-film action.
But, as Kim Newman pointed out in his Guardian webchat last week, the fetish is
starting to feel worn out. Perhaps that’s because there seems to be no other ending
for zombie films than submission to the throng, whether it’s done in Shaun and
Juan’s carnival spirit or in the rage-filled blitz of Danny Boyle’s revenants.

If you take zombie films as social allegories, then the lack of narrative imagination
(hard when your brains have been scooped out) is a worrying thing. I wouldn’t expect
a revolution any time soon: if there’s one thing that doesn’t phase this genre, it’s
overuse.

Phil Hoad – Tuesday 1 May 2012  BSTguardian.co.uk