Dir. Micah Khan (2024)
The first wedding between a human and a zombie is covered by a news anchor who just hopes to escape with her life.
Weekly World News practically invented the modern tabloid, delivering its slate of absurd (and always completely true, of course) news to every bored housewife and hyperactive child standing in the checkout line with a couple of dollars cash. From Bat Boy to aliens, WWN became the go-to for the craziest shit ever to cross the newsstands, a one-stop-shop for conspiracy theories, cryptids, and the occasional real story that was just too unbelievable to be true. The once-beloved rag went through a number of different iterations over the years before Greg D'Allesandro took over as CEO in 2019, bringing the magazine back into print and establishing a production company that was determined to bring the classic Weekly World New style to the big screen, starting with this year's The Zombie Wedding.
When zombies take over the town of Vineland, New Jersey, the upcoming wedding of locals Ashley Morgan (Deepti Menon) and Zack Porter (Donald Chang) is threatened. This is unacceptable to Zack's overbearing mother Cindy (Cheri Oteri) and Ashley's trailer trash parents Buddy Bob (Kevin Chamberlin) and Betty (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), who conspire to make the wedding go off without a hitch. The hitch, in this case, is zombies, and things go immediately awry as the zombie plague goes out of control. The remaining staff of Weekly World News decides to cover the event, and when the zombies continue their takeover, the WWN staff is forced into a fight for survival (and trustworthy reporting).
The Zombie Wedding is just as bonkers as you'd expect for a film made by Weekly World News, a smorgasbord of zombie violence and ridiculous, over-the-top comedy. With zombie attacks interspersed with newsman voiceovers, Zombie Wedding is absurd on its face and utterly ridiculous. In this case, that's a very good thing, a throwback to all of the insanity that the magazine has been bringing the public for 45 years. In the context of the newspaper itself, the movie is just as true as anything else they've put out, and there's enough legitimate comedy to make the film worth watching even for people who aren't fans of the original newspaper.
The downside of a film like this is that its audience is severely limited. Most people turned their noses up at WWN, which is the whole reason you can't find it on the newsstand anymore. For anyone who wasn't already a devoted reader, The Zombie Wedding is a nostalgic film if its anything. For those that are current subscribers, they're likely too invested in crafting their tinfoil garments to appreciate a ridiculously satirical film. The tiny group in the middle, those who understood WWN's purpose and enjoyed it for what it actually was, are likely too old at this point to appreciate the comedy this film aims to display.
Despite the extremely limited market, The Zombie Wedding, which is based on an interactive play of the same name, is actually pretty funny. It's Bat Boy-shit crazy, and it pokes fun at itself and its audience throughout. There are a ton of familiar faces, including Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy from The Sopranos), Ajay Naidu (Samir from Office Space), Seth Gilliam (Gabriel from The Walking Dead), Heather Matarazzo (Hostel: Part II), Mickey Dolenz (from The Monkees), along with the aforementioned stars. It's really Oteri and Hogan, two SNL veterans, who steal the show, with their interactions making the whole film worth a watch (as long as you can stomach the nuttiness).
The Zombie Wedding is a romantic comedy with brains, and while I can't in any way imagine it becoming a hit, it's a watchable movie that never loses the plot even when its committed to the lunacy. Make no mistake, however, lunacy most certainly abounds. If you're a fan of Weekly World News, you'll appreciate all of the callbacks to some of their classic bits. If you're not, you'll likely want to avoid this one altogether. There's not enough mainstream appeal here to imagine someone not already familiar with their work enjoying the trip.
Who this movie is for: Juvenile comedy fans, Weekly World News devotees, Bed bug zombies
Bottom line: The Zombie Wedding is nutballs. The plot itself is crazy enough, and the saturation with Weekly World News segments makes it a raucous bit of fun for those who don't take themselves (or their films) too seriously. It's enjoyable, though, and it's legitimately funny at times. For those looking for some mindless entertainment, or for people who enjoy the type of totally true news reported by WWN, this one will be worth your time. If not, you should probably avoid it altogether.
