Wasting Away (2007)

Wasting Away is a zombie comedy with a genuinely fresh hook: it lets you experience the outbreak from the infected side, where four friends think they’ve become heroic “super soldiers” instead of shambling undead, and that warped self-image fuels the film’s smartest laughs. It’s clever in a way low-budget genre movies rarely are, using playful shifts in style and color to underline perspective without ever turning into a gimmick. The tone is breezy, gross, and surprisingly ingratiating—more hangout comedy colliding with horror than grim apocalypse—and the writing and performances sell the absurdity with real commitment. If you like your scares seasoned with wit and you’re open to scrappy charm over glossy production, this one is an easy, original good time.

Wasting Away is clearly aiming for a goofy, splattery zombie-comedy twist, with the “we’re super soldiers, not undead” gimmick doing most of the heavy lifting. The problem is that once the novelty wears off, the jokes can feel stale and repetitive, and the pacing drifts into stretches where not much happens. Performances are a mixed bag, which makes the silliness land unevenly and the story feel dull when it needs momentum. Most importantly, it leans into some awkward, offensive racial stereotypes, so if that’s a dealbreaker (and it should be for many), you’ll want to skip it and spend your time on a smarter horror-comedy.