<Review by: Sailesh Ghelani>

Directed by Burr Steers. Starring Lily James, Lena Headey, Sam Riley, Douglas Booth, Jack Huston, Matt Smith, Charles Dance, Sally Phillips, Bella Heathcote

Running Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

An utterly awful, seriously boring and poorly written and directed film.

With a title like that you’d expect it to be a spoof, a parody, a wonderfully fun take on the novel by Jane Austen with a wacky twist of Zombies. Unfortunately, in trying to stay true to the novel (Pride and Prejudice) it altogether omits any fun and almost forgets that it is supposed to have ‘zombies’.

Okay don’t slay me but I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice and can barely remember the film. But I do know fellow reviewers who are literature students and absolutely hated this movie.

The problem with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is that it’s not fun at all. It takes itself way too seriously. It’s horribly written and dull. The direction is lacklustre. Sure the period costumes and sets look nice but that’s not what you want in a movie like this.

And to top all that the actual zombies in the film are flat. They’re not scary, they’re superfluous and add nothing to the film. The action sequences are badly choreographed and all the violence and gore seems to have been edited out by the makers so that even 10-year-olds can go see the film.

I’m not getting into the story since no one will really care about that. They try romance, and that doesn’t work. It’s one of those films that’ll have you shifting in your seat and fiddling with your phone and sighing in ho-hum boredom.

The actors do try to make the best of the ridiculous dialogue but apart from Lily James, none of them really make an impact. Sam Riley as Mr Darcy looks like he needs a throat lozenge through the first half of the film – he even clears his throat several times!

If the filmmakers had pursued the whole idea of the dainty Bennet girls being kick-ass zombie slayers then perhaps it would have been fun. But even with the swords and garter belts and bosoms heaving, there’s absolutely no oomph to their action. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is one of those films you should avoid at all costs because it has not merit whatsoever and should never have been made.