Zombie films are hardly new news; the first full length return-of-the-dead flick is generally considered to be 1932's White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi.

Despite having the undead rambling ever so slowly on our screens for a large number of years now, it's hard to believe that there are still countries on this planet that have yet to make a zombie film.

Earlier in the year saw Cuba debuted its first zombie film with the supremely entertaining Juan of the Dead. Hot on its heels comes this lifeless effort from Taiwan.

Scientists aren't the most trustworthy lot, as this bunch of lab-coats in Taipei prove; they've been working on some highly classified deadly virus, and would you believe it, an accident happens in the lab and the virus escapes. Of course it couldn't be a cure for anything useful; instead it turns a large community of the city into zombies.

As well as a small number of individuals on the ground, there are two groups that have yet to be infected: a group of cops and a drugs gang. The situation means that the two opposing sides find themselves in the rare position of having to work together to stay alive, but as everyone knows, it's hard to keep a good zombie down.

I really hate it when they do these midnight launches; you get all sorts of crazies turning up.

The fact that this is Taiwan's first attempt at the zombie genre maybe the only thing it's got going for it. Everything about it is unbelievably amateurish. There are some directors who can make an incredible impact with their debut film, and Joe Chien does too, but for all the wrong reasons.

Acting. Story. Special effects. None of these feature in this film. The cast behave with the similar standard often seen in primary school productions; the script consisted of one word 'zombies!!!'; and some of the make-up looks like it was applied by a blind person.

It also manages to over-egg the zombie pudding by adding some truly bizarre moments into the mix; not only do some of the survivors have to avoid zombies, but there are also a couple of serial killers on the loose too. Proving that Chien felt even if it was the first Taiwanese zombie film, it needed something more than just boring old zombies.

Its attempts at humour – particularly of the noir variety – also fail miserably.

Zombie 108 is a mess from start to finish. Its biggest crime however is in the portrayal of some of the blandest zombies ever brought to screen. So much so that any animal villain from any animated film aimed at children would prove to be far more menacing.

If you needed a reason for the dead to never return (other than the obvious) this would be it.