Steven Ramirez If 'Shaun of the Dead' is an amusement park ride, then 'Juan of the Dead' is a wicked monologue on conditions in Cuba past and present—with zombies. The story takes place in modern Havana, and the political allegory is hilarious. Alexis Díaz de Villegas brilliantly underplays Juan, a veteran of Angola and a certified freeloader. His constant asides about the various periods of difficulty in Cuba are side-splitting. The fact that zombies are referred to as "dissidents" from the US tells you where this movie is coming from.Don't let the subtitles worry you. The story moves fast as Juan, his best friend and his daughter, along with assorted nutballs, try to survive the coming zombie apocalypse. What's great about Juan is that he is always scheming. He even tries to figure out how to profit from the outbreak.See this movie if you can. (I was able to find it on Amazon Instant Video.) You may not get all the inside jokes about Cuba, but there are still plenty of laughs. And here's an interesting factoid. According to Box Office Mojo, this movie only showed in one theater in the US and as of this writing (February 2013) has grossed $18,000 domestically. Can that be right? It certainly deserves to earn a lot more.

bowmanblue Zombie fans will all have heard - and probably watched - the British zombie romantic comedy, Shaun of the Dead, so, what does Cuba's film industry have to say on the subject? First of all they're probably not doing themselves or the film any favours by blatantly copying an existing film. People will think it's just a rip off, when it most certainly is not.Okay, so the two do share some common traits: zombies (obviously), humour, gore, lovable losers fighting to survive etc. However, believe it or not, Juan does stray into enough new territory to make it worth a watch. First of all, it's seriously darker than Sean - the 'heroes' make some pretty self-centred decisions along the way (good fun to watch), also the back-drop is different enough to warrant a mention. Gone are the familiar streets of London and instead we see life in Cuba. Whereas Shaun and his mates simply wanted to escape the zombie menace, Juan and his band decide that they're okay with it. They simply lock themselves in their house and start up a new business where they offer to charge people money to kill/dispose of their loved ones! All in all, if you like dark, gory comedy (and have a thirst for watching the undead in action), give it a go - maybe one day Shaun and Juan can get together over a pint and glass of rum and swap tips on the best way to deal with an undead outbreak.Oh, and be prepared for subtitles with Juan (they kill the only English-speaking character pretty quickly!).

ironhorse_iv I did get a kick out of the way the Zombies were being identified by the Cuban media government spokesman in the film as being 'dissidents' revolutionists, degenerates who were being funded by America to undermine Cuban society. I like zombie movies that think of cleaver ways of calling the undead. Juan of the Dead score some funny points off of U.S-Cuban relations, the Cuban culture, and human nature in general. Even though I'm not a Cuban I think I got the basics of some of the jokes they threw into the film. Juan (Alexis Diaz de Villegas) is a loser with no future in harsh life communist Havana. Down on his luck in a land that has little to offer, he's taken to doing odd jobs in order to make the occasional buck. However, what he wants most is to reconnect with his young daughter Camila. When the island would suddenly be overrun by zombies and his socialist world collapsing around him. What does he do? He goes for capitalism and establishes a business where killing zombies is their business for a price. Will this idea be a success, or will the job of killing a nation full of dissidents be too much for the task? The acting by Mr. de Villegas is awfully bad with all the deadpan delivery of lines but thank God, he surrounded with some of the most impressive assortment of goof balls that serve up a handful of respectable laughs. There is his friend Lazaro, a sick sex-craze borderline psychopath who tends to accidentally harpoon the living. He would be unlikeable if only the fact that what he does is just so outrageous funny. Then there is Vladi California, a laid back surfer dude who serves as Juan's daughter love interest. There is the huge, muscular guy Primo who faints at the sight of blood and so, has to be led around blindfolded so he doesn't faint at the sight of bloodied zombies, but he fights them off through the instructions of his flaming gay transgender lover La China. The choice of weapons for each character matched their personality, from the paddle that Juan use to the slingshot of La China that gives the character its own identify. Still, the movie suffers from deep silliness. The matrix type fighting was just bad. There is also a lot more of the film that veers toward slapstick, or at least broad comedy, which some viewers will appreciate and others won't. As a zombie picture, it's clearly flawed, but as a comedy it's probably worth the chuckles. The low budget special effects are laughably bad of helicopter and buses crashing. Special effects are about on par with an Asylum film production. In one scene, a zombie get taken out by a CGI shark that looks out of place. The editing is not that good. In one scene the characters were complaining about a building blocking out the sunset. Only to see that the government blow up the building a minute later. It fades to night, where the building is back on screen. The movie works best with English sub-titles, but sadly not all the version out there has it. Disappointed that English sub titles end when the Australian in film was talking. I couldn't understand a word, he was saying. Then it picks up, after that. Unfortunately, the ending isn't satisfying as well. Being Cuba's first real horror movie, Juan of The Dead comes as a Latin take on zombie comedy flicks, reminiscing Shaun of The Dead. The zombie slacker film pioneered by Simon Pegg in Shaun of the Dead was, in the beginning, a great twist on a concept starting to grow cold, but just a little, as this movie has its own unique dimension. Can't wait until they make a Chinese version, Wong of the Dead. There's nothing wrong with being a middle of the road horror comedy and, on that level alone, Juan won't win accolades but may win over its share of fans with its exotic setting and subtle geo-political satire along with its walking dead. Zombie junkies should check it out, but keep your expectations down.

Lee Eisenberg Zombie movies have become vogue in the past few years, and now there's one from Cuba. Basically, the plot is that a loser and his friends form a Ghostbusters-style business after Havana and presumably the entire island sees itself overrun by the living dead. I understand that "Juan de los Muertos" ("Juan of the Dead" in English) is intended as part horror flick, part metaphor for the economic and political sluggishness that is considered characteristic of modern Cuba. One irony depicted in the movie is that the government claims that the zombies are dissidents, but what Juan and his friends do is a bigger form of dissent: they start a business to tackle the zombie problem.Otherwise, it's a pretty fun movie. The zombie-busting group is an interesting mixture of people: Juan, his daughter, a muscle man and a flamboyant man, among others. It looks like the sort of movie that they had fun filming, and the special effects were probably fun to create. In conclusion, if there are zombies in your neighborhood, you know who to call!