Enter Zombie King (2003)

You like zombie movies, sure. How about those old Santo movies? You know, the Mexican masked wrestler who fought vampires and werewolves and Martians? Now, what if they slapped them together with lots of blood and gore and plenty of grappling moves? Maybe throw in some gratuitous nudity and set it to surf music? Now that sounds interesting and just a little weird. Okay, a lot weird. But interesting.

Following a series of vicious zombie attacks, our hero Ulysses (Jules Delorme) has been driving cross-country three days straight pondering the madness that's descended upon the world, "an exclamation point racing towards the end of a sentence." Meeting up with old friends Mercedes (Jennifer Thom) and her brother The Blue Saint (Raymond Carle), they decide to check out the Bluewater Roadhouse for an evening of live music and "undead wrestling" showcased by Tiki (Rob 'El Fuego' Etcheverria), an old acquaintance of Ulysses who now travels the country performing a zombie wrestling show with his undead cargo in a U-Maul trailer. Could Tiki's zombies be responsible for the deadly attacks? Ulysses wants to find out. Following a performance by the Tijuana Bibles, the main event kicks off with a cage match between Tiki and his zombies. As the fight proceeds, a pair of fans outside the building is ambushed by zombies. One escapes but the other isn't so lucky. The local sheriff (legendary wrestler Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart), thinks the case is cut and dry and arrests one of Tiki's zombies. Ulysses isn't convinced and calls on his old friend Mr. X (Sean K. Robb), a former wrestler who now works for the government, to help investigate. At the jailhouse, Mr. X manages to hypnotize Tiki's zombie and discovers it is in fact domesticated and therefore harmless. They decide to release Tiki's tame zombie in hope that it will lead them to the murderous undead responsible for the attack. Discovering a group of evil zombies feasting on human flesh deep in the woods, they're lead to the lair of the masterminds behind this heinous plot: the sadistic and unbalanced Murdelizer (Jason Bareford), genetic engineer French Vixen (Jennifer Deschamps) and their nefarious leader, the Zombie King (Nicholas Sinn), who's diabolical plan of world domination by zombie horde spells doom unless Ulysses and friends stop them first.

Lucha Libre, a kinetic free-style branch of professional wrestling originating from Mexico that features dangerous high flying moves, was the inspiration for dozens of immensely popular movies featuring Santo, the most famous and iconic of all luchadores. Finding time to solve crimes and battle other-worldly foes between wrestling bouts, Santo was a celebrated Mexican folk hero for decades with over fifty film titles to his name. Taking inspiration from these movies, and perhaps the 1962 film SANTO CONTRA LOS ZOMBIES most specifically, ENTER ZOMBIE KING successfully manages to meld luchador and zombie cinema in a parody that pays homage to these films while satirizing them. Playing off the high camp typical of these genres, we accept the fact that in this realm, masked wrestlers and flesh-eating undead are just part of the landscape. If a luchador happens to be a government official who owns a yacht helmed by naked women, no explanation is necessary. The hero Ulysses often waxes philosophical whether quoting Aristole or reflecting on dreamscape visions of a nude dancer whose poetic soothsaying provides guidance. In between these moments of quiet musing, violent zombie confrontations occur typically in the form of hardcore royal rumbles. Justice is swiftly dispensed through grappling holds and throws and ultimately end in decapitation. The gore is abundant here but more absurd than it is abhorrent. While the undead tear bodies apart, bands like the Tijuana Bibles and the Sadies provide a crashing rockabilly-surf-punk soundtrack to the feeding frenzy. The schlock is further punctuated by the script with dialogue that manages to be larger than the actors. When Ulysses confronts the Zombie King asking him, "What happened to you? You used to be a good man," he replies, "Good? Evil? Are these not one and the same?" Ulysses ripostes, "Damn moral relativist!" It's all pretty ridiculous and silly and it is a freaking riot.

A genuinely funny movie, ENTER ZOMBIE KING succeeds as a parody because it remains reverent to its source, dishing out gory goodness that zombie fans will eat up along with breakneck wrestling action Santo devotees can appreciate. The camp value provides big entertainment without being overly ambitious and is sure to please fans of B-movie cinema, "like shooting kittens in a barrel."

Enter Zombie King (2003)
Directed by Stacey Case
Written by Bill Marks and Sean K. Robb
Starring Jules Delorme, Jennifer Thom, Raymond Carle, Rob Etcheverria, Sean K. Robb, Nicholas Sinn, Jason Bareford, Jennifer Deschamps, Jim Neidhart
Canada, 76 minutes