Better to Get Bitten by a Zombie Than Watch This Film

RATING – 1.5/5*

IIZ Review Movie Talkies:

If dropout students from a film institute were asked to make a movie, it would probably look like IIZ, aka Indian Institute of Zombies. My cinematic memory of zombie films takes me back to classics like I Walked With a Zombie (1943), The Plague of the Zombies (1966), Night of the Living Dead (1968), and Day of the Dead (1985). Having seen films of that calibre, along with some entertaining zombie flicks from the post-2000 era, including the East Asian  blockbusters, IIZ feels like a disease. There is simply no way you can finish it without scratching your head or blaming yourself for deciding to watch it in the first place. It is an absolutely childish and ridiculous film by all means.

IIZ Story:

The story follows an egoistic, mad professor, Darwinder (Mohan Kapur), who wants to change the world by giving superpowers to humans. At an evening seminar, he administers a serum to his students, claiming it will grant them immortality. However, it turns all those class toppers into walking zombies. The responsibility of stopping them then falls on the backbenchers, aided by another teacher who has always opposed the professor’s research and his evil obsession. How do they manage it? Watch the film to see it unfold.

Aakhri Sawal Review: This RSS Promotional Campaign is Conversational But Lacks Cinematic Knowledge

The film may be a low-budget project, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a low-IQ one too. Financial backing and writing intelligence are two entirely different things, and IIZ fails miserably in both areas. In one scene, a woman is holding a gun and shooting zombies; in the next, the gun magically disappears and is replaced by an axe. Why? Such inconsistencies appear every 15 minutes. The characters behave like children rather than college students. You have a typical “nibba-nibbi” couple, a suspended cop who fails to grasp the gravity of the situation, a college boy with a crush on his teacher, a female teacher wearing a suggestive nightgown throughout the film, another student stuck in a lingering crush, and a random “science guy” with chemical knowledge. A few chemical theories are thrown in with the intent of adding logic, and they occasionally succeed—but does that matter when the entire plot is foolish? Not really.

IIZ Cast:

On the acting front, there’s hardly anything to appreciate. Mohan Kapur gets a cartoonish character—like a villain from a children’s fantasy book—but he has zero on-screen impact. Anupriya Goenka looks glamorous, but is that the only reason she was cast? Perhaps. Rose Sardana, Ranjan Raj, Sachin Kavetham, Jesse Lever, and other newcomers simply fill the screen, performing as if they’re still in rehearsals. The supporting cast isn’t particularly different either.

SHOCKING: “We Didn’t Feel Safe,” say a Group of Female Dancers After Quitting Diljit Dosanjh’s Show –

IIZ Movie Review:

As mentioned earlier, IIZ lacks budget, so expectations from the technical team are already low. Still, what we get is even worse at times. The colour palette somewhat survives because most of the film is set at night, but the sound design, lighting, mixing, and background score are outright poor. The editing leaves no impression, and the production design is equally weak. The director duo, Alok Kumar Dwivedi and Gaganjeet Singh, fail big time. This is not how you handle a zombie film. The intention to blend horror with comedy is understandable—since that’s a popular trend—but the level of comedy here is embarrassingly cheap. Moreover, the horror elements are equally substandard. The AI-driven visuals in the climax are particularly annoying. I wonder how all this even got approved at the editing table. Overall, Indian Institute of Zombies is a horrible take on the horror genre and should be avoided at all costs.

Stay tuned to Movie Talkies’ website and social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), along with our YouTube channel, for the latest updates, breaking news, box office reports, movie reviews, celebrity spotting, and interviews from Bollywood, television, OTT, Hollywood, and regional cinema, including South Indian films.