Set in Havana, Cuba, Juan is a dodgy, middle-aged lothario, more interested in robbing western tourists with his tubby companion Lazaro than buying into Castro's socialist idyll. Then, inevitably, there's an outbreak of zombies. In a lovely touch touch the government media channel immediately labels them US sponsored dissidents – but Juan is having none of it. He senses an opportunity, setting up a business to clear up the undead – 'Juan of the Dead, we kill your loved ones!' He's joined by a disparate group - transvestite China, and her hulking boyfriend who feints at the site of blood so has to be blindfolded to fight, Lazaro's son California, and his own estranged daughter.
What follows is a succession of bloody fights, interspersed with many a reference to the fact not much has changed in Havana despite the brain-eating hordes, and some nicely aimed jibes at the much admired Cuban health system.
Anyone expecting a scares will be disappointed, the violence play out in an a comically over the top slap stick style, more akin to Tom and Jerry than Night of the Living Dead - with a variously an oar, machetes and a slingshot employed to beat down the undead. It sometimes bear rather too much in common to videogames, another area where the zombie trope has become a firm favourite in recent years. There's also an unfortunate reliance on repeating the same jokes and references – I lost count of how often the Special Period was said to be worse than the zombie apocalypse. But the claret flows, the laughs keep coming and the unfamiliarity of the location help to lift this above the usual zombie fare.
