Corona Zombies

Barbie, who isn't the sharpest tool in the box, is spending lockdown glued to the TV, where the news is all about the virus. According to the reports, it all started at a soup factory in Wuhan with a bad batch of bat soup, and things are about to get worse: the people breaking lockdown to party are turning into zombies.

'Corona Zombies' was Charles Band's answer to the pandemic, and he didn't waste any time. Made in 28 days with the whole cast and crew self isolating, it went up on the streaming service of his company Full Moon Features, home of 'Puppet Master', on 10 April 2020, making it one of the very first Covid films.

The trick is in the editing. Apart from the new scenes with Cody Renee Cameron, who'd just had a small part in 'El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie', most of it comes from two old zombie B movies, 'Hell of the Living Dead' (1980) and 'Zombies vs. Strippers' (2012), redubbed with jokes about social distancing and cut together with news clips and Donald Trump soundbites. The obvious model is 'What's Up, Tiger Lily?', in which Woody Allen redubbed a Japanese spy film.

It runs barely an hour, and two sequels starring Barbie and her friend Kendra followed the same year. All three shared Razzie nominations for Worst Director and Worst Screenplay in 2021, and its average across the 7 outlets collected on Movienco is 3.6 out of 10.

• Comedy
• Horror