If you’ve been living under a rock, Protesternado is a terrible movie by the Syfy channel that somehow went viral, in no small part because it’s so bad. Set in Bangkok during a time of political tension, it sees a giant tornado sweep through the city, pick up protesters, turn them into zombies and then drop them back down into the city.

Some have argued the movie is a form of political commentary, as it sees politicians, aristocrats and the just plain filthy rich classes of Thai society suddenly bombarded quite literally with disgruntled common folk. Most of the time, it feels more like Benny Hill meets Quentin Tarantino, though. In one early scene, ultra royalist zombies crash-land into a populist politician’s daughter’s wedding. The bride eventually gets bitten, and begins to froth at the mouth while growling “dissolution.” Her father, unfazed, pulls out a Desert Eagle Magnum 45 and shots her in the head before quipping, “Dissolve that, honey.”

Perhaps out of concern for fairness, Red Shirt protesters are featured too, the tornado dropping them into a sumptuous villa where MLs and MRs are sipping tea while discussing the horrors of being stuck in the back of their luxury cars in Bangkok traffic. Soon, the zombies are chasing them through the villa, with the maids, drivers and other such staff tripping up the hisos or pointing the zombies to the wardrobe in which their big-haired khun ying has hidden. The army eventually storms the villa, guns ablaze, and a smoldering ruin is soon all that’s left of the palatial home.

But while the Twittersphere has seen hipsters trying to outdo one another in praise of #protesternado (“best movie ever” seemed to be the consensus), Bangkok Post’s Kong Rithdee was less enthusiastic. “The political commentary is shockingly reactionary: 90 minutes of watching protesters get blown up, chopped up and run over. If that’s Thai cinema’s view of democracy, count me out.”
 

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