There are bad zombie movies. There are bad romantic comedies. And then, once in a cursed blue moon, the fates align to produce a movie that is somehow the worst of both. Enter My Zombabe — the cinematic equivalent of leaving a fish out in the sun for a week and then trying to sculpt it into something sexy.
Directed by Bobby Bonifacio Jr., starring Empoy Marquez and Kim Molina, My Zombabe positions itself as a quirky horror-romance—but the horror is unintentional, and the romance is about as natural as a tax audit. This is a movie where zombies aren’t the only ones rotting; the script, pacing, tone, and humor all decay onscreen in real time.
Let’s unpack this necrotic attempt at filmmaking.
The Plot: A Confusing Salad of Dreams, Zumba, and Cursed Romance
The film opens with Pong having a dream about Yasmine, a woman he once loved… except she’s now running through the woods like she’s late for her call time on Shake, Rattle & Roll 27. Welcome to My Zombabe, where dreams and reality mix freely, but mostly because no one involved in the production could tell them apart.
Pong wakes up screaming, as if he just realized he signed a contract to star in this film. His brother Gohan tries to calm him, which is harder than it sounds, because Pong is hoarding photographs of Yasmine in his pillow like a sad dragon who refuses to move on. Gohan tries to tear them up, and Pong reacts as though Yasmine’s spirit will curse him if anyone touches her 4×6 glossy.
Then we leap into the town’s daily activity: ZUMBA. Yes, Zumba—the beating heart of this community and, apparently, the world’s most medically accurate zombie-detection method. If you forget the steps? You’re infected. Honestly, I wish real life worked like this: “Sorry boss, I didn’t finish the report. I must be turning into a zombie.”
Ahmed, their star dancer, looks pale and confused—pretty relatable for any Filipino forced to do Zumba at sunrise—and the Captain violently checks for infection by stepping on his foot, smelling his reaction to a weaponized fart, and eventually pointing a gun at him. This might be the only scene where the film genuinely honors traditional zombie genre rules: when in doubt, shoot first, explain later.
Ahmed’s transformation into a zombie while his wife sings to him is supposed to be heartfelt, but it plays more like a karaoke session gone horribly wrong. People cry, run, and scream—finally matching the reactions I had watching this movie.
The Tone: Like a Comedy, Except Without the Comedy
My Zombabe markets itself as a romantic comedy, but it has all the comedic finesse of a refrigerator falling down a staircase. The jokes feel like they were written by someone who hasn’t interacted with another human since the early 2000s, and the romance between Pong and undead Yasmine has the emotional chemistry of wet cardboard.
Instead of leaning into the absurdity or charm of a zombie-human romance, the film seems embarrassed by its own premise—constantly shifting between slapstick comedy, horror clichés, and earnest melodrama that belongs in a mid-afternoon teleserye where someone is always crying, fainting, or hallucinating.
The Romance: A Love Story No One Asked For
The central pairing is Pong (Empoy Marquez) and Yasmine (Kim Molina), which already sounds like the setup to a dare between casting directors.
Pong is sad, lonely, and absolutely obsessed with Yasmine. He sees her everywhere. He dreams about her. He hoards pictures under his pillow like he’s building a shrine for a cult of one. And when she finally returns—except dead—his reaction isn’t “Oh my God, the woman I loved is back from the grave, holy wow!” but more like, “Oh look, a minor inconvenience.”
Yasmine, bless her undead heart, shuffles into scenes with all the energy of a phone battery stuck at 1%. She growls, groans, and tries to eat people—not out of hunger or rage, but out of frustration that she has to be in this movie.
Their “romance” consists of Pong screaming, Yasmine snarling, Gohan panicking, and everyone else wondering why none of the characters behave like real human beings.
Worldbuilding: The Zumba-Based Public Health System
The film’s worldbuilding is so baffling it deserves its own museum exhibit. The town uses Zumba as their official zombie-detection tool. The Captain performs medical diagnostics using foot stomps and flatulence. People pray constantly. Everyone yells. And the idea of a quarantine seems to have been thrown into the ocean years ago.
This could have been quirky and self-aware, but the movie plays it straight—with bizarre sincerity. It never asks, “Does any of this make sense?” And in fairness, neither should you.
The Supporting Cast: The True Victims
Gohan, Pong’s brother, is the film’s accidental MVP simply for trying to keep this fever dream of a movie grounded in reality. He screams, panics, and questions everything—basically performing the role of the audience surrogate who internally begs for the film to end.
Marisol, Ahmed’s wife, gets a melodramatic zombie romance arc for about five minutes before being forgotten.
The Captain deserves a standalone film called The Zumba Enforcer, because he seems to think he’s the main character, the director, and maybe God.
Everyone else floats in and out of the narrative like NPCs in a glitchy video game.
The Final Act: Or, Pong’s Excellent Undead Misadventure
The climax revolves around Pong and Gohan trying to hide Yasmine from the Captain—who, to his credit, is the only person in this movie with any common sense.
The film ends in a mess of secrets, screaming, running, and emotional revelations that feel both premature and unnecessary… much like this entire movie.
**Final Verdict: 2/10 Brains
(And I’m being generous)**
My Zombabe wants to be Warm Bodies, Shaun of the Dead, and a Nora Aunor melodrama all at once—but ends up as none of them. It’s silly but not intentionally funny, romantic but not compelling, horrific but not scary, and heartfelt but not actually emotional.
The only real zombie here is the script—scavenged, stitched together, and stumbling around with no purpose.
Bad movie.
Bad romance.
Bad zombie.
Good luck.
