'Get the Hell Out' Review: A Fun and Bloody Zombie-Comedy [TIFF 2020]
“Get the Hell Out” is a Taiwanese horror-comedy from director I-Fan Wang that premiered this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The film follows Hsiung (played by Megan Lai), a disgraced former Member of Parliament (MP) who tried to make a real difference in Taiwanese politics and represent the peoples’ interests, and Wang You-Wei (played by Bruce Ho), a former security guard turned MP acting as a puppet for Hsiung’s political agenda.
During a session of Parliament (or Legislative Yuan as it is referred to in Taiwan), a mutated rabies virus takes hold of the government officers and the Parliament floor turns into a bloodbath as the MPs are being turned into vicious zombies one-by-one.
Wang, a Taiwanese national whose had several short films that have won Best Short at the Taipei Film Awards, makes his feature-length directorial debut with “Get the Hell Out.” Drawing from real-life problems in politics, Wang sought to showcase the brutality and savageness of politicians by focusing on his own country’s parliament, which is especially known to get physical in their meetings.
So how exactly does this martial-arts infused horror-zombie-comedy hold up as a political allegory filled with guts and gore?
To start with, the film begins with a lot of fast-paced high-energy craziness. Right from the first scene, the movie takes off and we experience quick cuts and rapidly-succeeding plot threads. We get introduced to our main character, Hsiung, as a strong and determined independent woman in the Parliament trying to make a difference and stop a factory from being built in her hometown that would ruin the local people’s health and the environment. We get told Hsiung’s story about being removed from her position by getting too physically aggressive with a crass and nosy reporter questioning her motives for the factory’s shutdown.
From there, we are introduced to Wang You-Wei, originally a security guard who turns into a national sensation following his encounter with Hsiung during her fall from grace. Wang then becomes an MP in Hsiung’s place and allows Hsiung to vote and legislate vicariously through him. Wang is easily the best character in the film; he has a clumsy and innocent charm that makes him instantly likeable and attachable. We look forward to seeing where he goes and what he does and we want more than anything to see him survive this and succeed.
The movie presents a lot of very interesting ideas and uses the zombie outbreak as an allegory for the negative impacts of politicians’ selfish and careless decisions. Through the MPs giving into monied corporate interests, they approve of the factory being built in Hsiung’s hometown which ends up creating the zombie virus to begin with in a hilarious irony.
The film acts as a scathing indictment of the greed and corruption in politics and how brutal and savage politics can become. What makes this especially effective is it being a foreign film, which showcases how universal the problems with politics and politicians are. Anyone from any country could watch this film and relate it to people within their own governments.
The zombie action is this film is plentiful, and fans of the horror-comedy subgenre will be very pleased to see lots of bloody and gory craziness as our main characters fight off hordes of infected politicians. The blood flows seemingly nonstop in the final act, and we see some epic zombie kills throughout. Similar to the fun action, the film features many quick-witted tongue-in-cheek jokes that all audiences can laugh at and enjoy.
However, where this film suffers is a thinning of the script and message about halfway through its runtime. While the movie starts off very brisk and fast-paced, it slows down much getting into the middle act and the zombies are staved off until more than half an hour into an hour-and-a-half film. While the first half of the film sems very insightful with allegorical messaging throughout, once the zombies start, the remainder of the film focuses primarily on the blood and action putting most character moments and significant plot points to a halt. The film slows down its commentary and turns the blood dials up to an 11 and can lead to monotony with repetitive action sequences.
The movie is very cartoony and over-the-top and over-stylized, which may seem foreign and unconventional to American audiences. The film is interspersed with animatics and cartoony cutaways and over-the-top performances, akin to a lot of Asian cinema. For unaccustomed western audiences, this may come off as off-putting but helpful in exploring foreign film culture. However, this worked in the film to add to the satirical and parodical elements when discussing politics.
Overall, “Get the Hell Out” is a fun and energetic zombie-comedy that does not hold back on the heavy-handed political satire or the blood and gore that comes with the genre. At times, the movie loses itself in the zombie action and focuses away from its messaging, but that does not detract too much from the overall point of the movie. Definitely check this film out if you are a fan of horror-comedy and Asian cinema.