This is less a remake than an echo of the 1987 American cult horror flick of the same title. As in the previous film, it contains lashings of melted flesh courtesy of practical effects, and a plot engine wherein evil powers are trying to kill off the homeless. This time though the action has been transposed from urban America to a dystopian Cape Town, South Africa, where there is seemingly no middle class: just propertied rich folk making jokes about crypto currency over their phones … and everyone else.
The grubby majority live on the streets, picking through trash to survive. Assorted gangs get into internecine squabbles with each other when it’s pretty obvious the real foes are the rich. That goes especially for Mayor Mostert (Warrick Grier, a cackle and a hoot) who has devised an airborne poison that liquifies people after an especially icky prelude in which they grow brightly coloured balloons of skin filled with multicoloured slush which burst and dissolve, leaving corpses that look like like they had a grisly night out with Body Worlds’ Gunther von Hagens.
One day, our middle-aged protagonist Ronald (Sean Cameron Michael) rescues Alex (Donna Cormack-Thomson) from minions of the Rat King who – surprise! – turns out to be a woman (Suraya Rose Santos). Ronald and his kvetching Jewish-accented wingman Chef (Joe Vaz) take Alex to their plein air hangout and introduce her to their rag-clad gang of misfits, including one guy who has visions of a blue-skinned, foul-mouthed alien puppet creature voiced by director Ryan Kruger. Tedious stretches of vulgar banter are interspersed with equally dull interludes during which people melt. Then it finally gets resolved after 85 very long minutes.
