Zombie Tidal Wave (2019)

Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante [Other horror films: Boo (2005), Headless Horseman (2007), Hansel & Gretel (2013), Sharknado (2013), Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015), Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens (2016), Forgotten Evil (2017), Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017), The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (2018)]

As you can possibly imagine from the title, Zombie Tidal Wave is another in a fine-line of Syfy originals. It even stars Ian Ziering, of Sharknado fame. And you know what? It’s actually not bad. Well, it is bad, but it’s still almost an okay time.

Combining their love for natural disasters and hideous zombies, Syfy outdid themselves with a zombie tsunami (which, on a side-note, it a phrase said by one of the characters, and I for one do not know how Syfy passed on the chance of using that as their title), and it even happened twice. In fairness, I didn’t think that looked too ridiculous, and the zombies themselves (who bleed blue blood and can only be defeated by electrical shocks) didn’t look terrible, but quality special effects were still obviously not the focus for Zombie Tidal Wave.

For whatever else Ziering has done, I thought he did an okay job in this one. He was the action-oriented leader, which, yeah, is both expected and rather generic, but he did it well. Cheree Cassidy didn’t really get enough screen-time to make an extraordinarily educated opinion one way or the other, but she did fine, I guess. Angie Teodora Dick and Tatum Chiniquy both impressed me (as much as any performances can impress me in a movie like this), and I thought Chiniquy did better than Cassidy (who played her mother), so you go, girl.

Not all performances were good, though. I didn’t understand Randy Charach’s character – he was labeled a ‘crazy loner’, but honestly, aside from being a bit standoffish, he didn’t seem that much a nutjob at all. I don’t know what they were trying to do with his character, but I don’t think they did it. Shelton Jolivette was way too much a comedic relief character, and I would have been okay if they dropped him entirely. And though I can appreciate them trying to throw in a character with depth, Erich Chikashi Linzbichler didn’t do it for me.

Throughout, the film is pretty generic as far as both zombie movies and disaster movies go, and combining them isn’t as much a win as Syfy would probably hope, but it’s still a decent movie to throw on and enjoy if you don’t really have much else to do. Below average no doubt, but passable.

6/10