Short Film: Zombeer (The Netherlands, 2008)

Zombeer from Blikschade Films on Vimeo.

Here’s a cute little "horror" film written and directed by the Dutch duo Barend de Voogd and Rob van der Velden that combines two of my favourite things: beer and zombies. And less to my liking but fitting perfectly to the film: Japanese tourist groups. Having been many a time to The Netherlands, and at least twice on Queen’s Day, I can easily imagine how successful a person would be who runs around telling the people not to drink the beer. I doubt you could successfully tell that to a Dutchman on any day, much less on that great day of nationally sanctioned drunken excess.

According to the omnipotent imdb, the one-liner plot of Zombeer originated at the 24th Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, when Mr de Voogd showed up suffering from the night before complaining about the bad beer he had had. (He must have been drinking Heineken—really, how can a country that has French fries as good as Dutch French fries and such top-notch weed have a beer like Heineken? Jeez, you might as well drink an American Bud.) Mr van der Veldon cracked "You must have drunk zombeer", and a week later the script was finished. And what is the plot of Zombeer? Well, bad beer turns people into zombies. (So does religion, actually, but that’s another story.)
Mr van der Veldon and Mr De Voogd are still waiting a call from Sam Rami requesting a feature-length version of their short, but till then, enjoy this little piece of cinematic fluff.