Downton Abbey meets Day Of The Dead in an adaptation of the books which in itself was a parody of the Jane Austin novel. The concept is good, the material promising but there’s  something missing which I think stems from the premise that zombies can think and act normally as long as they don’t feast on human flesh which, while novel, makes a mockery of every concept of what we have traditionally believed a zombie is.

Even if it does feel a bit like a BBC drama piece, the performances are good, Lily James as Elizabeth Bennett, sells her warrior princess role well and is ably assisted by Sam Riley as Mr.Darcy zombie hunter who’s dry demeanour suits his grim purpose to ensure the all of the dead are wiped from the country but the most memorable character is Matt Smith as clergyman Mr.Collins, which is a little strange as his character has the least interaction with the zombies of all.

While starting well with a nice premise and purpose the movie becomes a bit predictable half way through, zombie incident followed by some period drama followed by some zombie incident and so on. It’s not a terrible thing but suffers from the drama undermining the horror and vice versa. Also, while there are zombies galore the gore level never really gets turned up and there no real sense of dread even from a hoard of zombies as every character is armed and trained to deal with the dead.

I have to assume that director Burr Steers was going for a horror comedy but unfortunately the horror is not forceful enough and the comedy misses more than it fails and during the finale it tries to go all end of the world but you never feel that the pending doom of the apocalypse is having any major effect on the characters. It’s not a bad movie it just can’t stand up to Zombieland or the even better Shaun of The Dead in terms of entertainment value.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 out of 10