Film Review: Undead (2003)

SYNOPSIS:

When an intense meteor shower covers the countryside, it spreads an incurable infection among the people of a peaceful fishing town, transforming them into flesh-eating zombies. Running for her life, a local girl named Rene finds refuge in an isolated farmhouse, where she meets four others who survived the disaster. Together, they fend off the walking dead and learn the truth about those they’re fighting.

REVIEW:

“Time is short. So you gotta ask yourself: Are you a fighter, Fish Queen, or are you zombie food?”
–Marion

After “Night of the Living Dead” changed zombie movies forever, there has been a limit on what can be done that is new in the zombie world. There have been zombie comedies, zombie dogs and probably a zombie musical but for the most part it has been all part of the now classic formula. Some new disease, or chemical creates a plague of person eating undead and the survivors of the plague have to fight for their lives against overwhelming odds. The Aussie horror/comedy “Undead” is a breath of fresh air into the low budget zombie world.

The citizens of the small town of Berkeley are assaulted by a rain of meteors that turn some of the unlucky population into zombies, while aliens appear to be taking people, insects, and animals into the sky. To complicate matters a wall has appeared surround the town and is stopping any chance of escape. What do the aliens want? How will our heroes survive? And why does the rain sting like acid? The Spierig Brothers have created a peaceful little town full of fish queens, crazies and incompetent cops and then attacked them with zombies and mysterious aliens. All the computer graphics were done on a home type computer maxed to the limit. There are truly some beautiful (yet funny) images of a small plane running into all the floating bodies of the town folk under a full moon. Marion, the town crazy has guns coming from everywhere including parts of his body you wouldn’t want to check. And the zombies are classic flesh eating, only die when you shoot them in the head, monsters that keep coming back for more. The comedic parts of the movie can be hit or miss, but more hit than miss and this was become “Shaun of the Dead” was even though of.

First of all what worked for me:

* The first meteor strike of the poor old lady coming out of the grocery store. I laugh every time she is plowed to the ground. If you laugh at this I think you will love the rest of the movie, if you don’t rewatch “Night of the Living Dead”.
* The small plane driving into the group of floating town people. The image is pretty by moonlight but funny and painful all at the same time.
* The film being shot in warm yellows for the beginning and switching to cold blues for the rest of the film.
*Marion jumping in the air and catching his spurs on the wall giving him enough time to switch guns. Totally over the top and I loved it.

What doesn’t work for me:

*The fact I had to switch on the subtitles to understand all the swearing the lead cop was doing. He was very funny but hard to understand.
*The fact that Marion was dubbed and his voice seemed at a different volume than everyone else.

“Undead” is a great movie to spend an evening with. The filmmakers worked very hard to make the most of a small budget and give us an unrated action/horror/comedy zombie epic. I give it 4 out of 5. Pop some popcorn, watch for meteors and give this one a chance. The DVD is available from Lion’s Gate Bay and can be found on Amazon.com.