Undead

In a nutshell, UNDEAD is a tedious and tiresome film. I am a lover of the zombie genre. Love it to death. Can't get enough of them. I will watch any type of zombie film, from no-budget to big-budget and enjoy them all the same. But UNDEAD, a film that I had eagerly anticipated, tried my patience. I can't stress enough how much I looked forward to this movie, and how much I love the genre. But UNDEAD is simply...UNbearable. In short: the characters are not funny, but are in fact grating on the nerves. The actors are amateurs and do not sell their roles. The script is horrible and reeks of over compensation. The story is gibberish and, by movie's end, becomes so convoluted that it becomes completely incomprehensible. I dare anyone out there who raves about this movie to tell me the purpose of the alien invasion. Other things: the action direction was nice, even though it gets repetitive. In fact, the entire movie is repetitive, consisting of basically the same sequence repeated over and over. To wit: Marion saves survivors; survivors insult Marion and take away his gun at gunpoint; Marion saves survivors again; repeat sequence. I guess the filmmakers could only come up with one idea and just decided to repeat it ad nauseum. Overall, UNDEAD is a poor zombie movie. Worst, it attempts to be "more" than a zombie movie, and only succeeded in being unbelievably tedious, dull, repetitive, and amateurish. 2 out of 10

This is the biggest disgrace for the Australian film industry. A concept which had potential, but was let down by a very bad script, Very very bad acting, bad production work, bad CGI. In fact everything about this movie was VERY BAD. Technically this film was inferior, the whole camera movement within the bomb shelter, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!! these people obviously had no idea on how to make a film. The director, director of photography as well as the camera man and editor should all be shot on site. But i don't blame then, i blame the producers and anyone else who gave them the funding to make such a utter piece of crap. Movies like this are the reason why the Australian film industry is nearly dead. Heaven help us film makers in the future, What will become of us???

Undead is certainly one of the better zombie movies to come over the last few years, but it is a movie of two halves. It starts out well; it's very gory and there is an abundant comedy angle, which is absurd and, at times, highly amusing. However, it takes a very ill-advised twist half way through and really, it spoils the movie. This movie is penned and directed by the Spierig brothers, and this is their first movie. The cast doesn't feature any big names as for this is, for most of them, their first and only movie. The cast isn't very impressive, the acting isn't good and therefore non of them make an impression; but it doesn't matter because it's the effects that are the star of the show, not the acting. The effects on the zombies in the film are generally good, if a little overblown at times. The film does feature some action stunts, most of which seem of place in the movie. A lot of them are silly too; and I feel that lets the movie down. This movie does, however, feature some very funny comedy moments. A lot of the one-liners hit the spot with regards to comedy, most notably the part of the film where the main characters find a huge fence erected around the town, to which one of the characters takes a jibe at his local council. However, some parts of the film, such as the part where the character of Rene slices her way through multiple zombies don't work well; so it's hit and miss with regards to comedy. Despite it's failed attempt to be original with it's twist half way through, Undead is still a decent zombie movie, and is still therefore recommended to fans of the genre.

Who else has grown tired of these zombie movies? The last good one was the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and even that one didn't do too great. This summer, we are being plagued with not one, but two zombie flicks. Why anyone would release two films that are simple mirror images of one another is beyond me. Following George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, Undead (is there an echo in here?)is doomed to failure. Not to say the the previous flick will be any better, but with a lower budget, unknown cast, poor release timing, and horrible effects/gun play, who will want to sit through another 1:30 of what they saw two weeks before? Who cares if it takes place in Australia, such a grand twist though it may be, zombies are zombies! Originality goes out the window when anyone tackles this genre of film and you know what to expect if you ever see one. In short, Undead will most likely cling to the tail feathers of it's more popular predecessor for about two weeks and then become just another mediocre horror rental cluttering video store shelves nationwide.

I've seen quite a few positive reviews of this movie, which, quite frankly, disgust me. This movie is apparently trying to be a comedy/drama/horror/sci-fi flick at the same time...none of which are executed well. A bad comedian in rainbow suspenders is funnier than this movie. Seriously, this movie is not funny unless you have a very, very simple sense of humor. In fact, the only funny thing about this movie is the reviews on the back cover. "Everything about this film is exceptional" - Harry Knowles. I'd say this movie was exceptional if someone passed me a check, too. The acting in this movie is so atrocious I'm hesitant to even call it acting at all. They blame it on a low budget; doing one or two takes for most scenes. This doesn't make it commendable, though. The plot is original, but executed very poorly. The visuals were average, the plot was "loose" at best, and the characters were just plain lame and uninteresting. It truly was a pain to finish this film and I can tolerate a lot of crap in movies. I was so enraged that I paid $7 for this trash; I literally blew it to smithereens with a 20-gauge shotgun the day after I viewed it. Is this movie funny? No. Is it scary in any way? No. Is it interesting? No. Is it worth watching? Not even in the slightest bit. PLEASE don't torture yourself and rent/buy this movie. Heck, don't even watch it for free.

While leaving Berkeley through a shortcut after a meteor shower, the former 2002 Miss Catch of the Day Queen René Chaplin (Felicity Mason) and her boyfriend are forced to stop their car due to an accident on the road. However he is attacked by a zombie and René is saved by the fisherman Marion (Mungo McKay). They run to his small farm, Marion's World of Weapon, and Marion explains that he had been abducted by the aliens while fishing and the acid rain is part of the big plan of aliens. Sooner a small group of survivors reach the spot and they have to fight against the zombies and try to escape to another town. However, they find that aliens built a wall around the area and are abducting the people. What a great surprise this "Undead" is! The story begins like George Romero's classic "The Night of the Living Dead", is a splatter movie, like Peter Jackson's "Brainded" or "Bad Taste", or Philip Brophy's "Body Melt" and mixes horror with sci-fi in a very funny way. The weak point is the imbecile character of the police officer, who was supposed to be funny, but it is annoying with his stupid lines and attitude. The smart conclusion, when the outbreak is spread by the pilot Wayne, is a little confused and should be developed more clearly. The special effects are excellent. Therefore, "Undead" is a gory zombie movie that deserves to be discovered by fans of trash-movies and with a great potential of cult-movie. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "Canibais" ("Cannibals") Note: On 24 June 2010, I saw this movie again.

Berkley, small town in the backwoods of Australia. One sunny day turns suddenly for worse, when a meteor storm raids over the village, turning everyone in to a brain munching zombies. But soon it comes evident, that it's the aliens who are behind all this. Well, the heroes of the film are our regular ragged bunch of men and women, some of them cool, some of them nervous as bleep. Two cops, pregnant woman, woman with problems, a pilot and a village idiot. And only the village idiot seems to know whats going on. Or does he? Undead is your typical small budget, gore infested zombie flick, with a one difference: it has actually pretty neat special effects and some of the photography is pretty good looking. But, then it comes to the plot: some jokes work, some don't. Behaviour of people stranded in Berkley doesn't have any sense at all, mostly they are just running around. But thanks to good directing this movie rises above the most poorest excuses of the genre. It certainly is watchable.

Why didn't anyone tell me about this film? It is 3 years old by the time I first watched it, having spent my horror-watching hours on hateful crap like 'Saw' and the other torture flicks Hollywood has been churning out in that time. This is a funny and creative gore flick along the lines of early Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi: 'Bad Taste' comes to mind. I can't say this is a great film- but it does show great promise for the writer/directors. The effects are cheap but decent. Flawed in many respects, the kitchy attitude helps to gloss over the faults allowing an enjoyable experience. If you enjoy gooey gore, over-the-top dialog and craziness- and willing to look past a low budget ... add another 2 stars and WATCH THIS FLICK.

UNDEAD (2005) 0 * Arguably one of the worst films I've ever seen – nonsensical hodgepodge about a meteorite shower causing an Australian fishing village to become zombies with it's so-sure-of-itself-smugness incorporating (ok --- Stealing! Robert Rodriguez camera angles, "Matrix" type pacings and Peter Jackson's seminal "DeadAlive" to name three counts of plagiarism) far too many hybrids and quite frankly a real mess overall. I realize low-budget independent movies should be given some slack but the bargain basement bloodiness (while plentiful) is the least of this film's problems. There is no rhyme or reason to the film as it progresses and by the end it doesn't explain anything that has just transpired (or even attempts too!) I'm not even going to include the lame cast and simply say the directors : Michael & Peter Spierig should just give it all up and stop while they're behind. Atrocious!

Both 'Bad Taste' and 'Braindead' (both horror comedies) have obviously inspired the Spierig brothers, Michael and Peter, but comparisons are not necessary. 'Undead' is its own movie: a blood spattering, one-liner comedy gore fest, with blood and laughs both frequent. It is hilarious opening: the fact that this movie is horror is obvious, but the set up and background movie are like that of a happy rural sitcom. But first glances may well be deceptive. Meteores strike rapidly, causing chaos, as well as blowing up an old lady. Miss 'Catch of the day' is on her way out of the little Australian fishing village, but her trip comes to a halt when a meteorite stops the trip and no later and zombie kills her driver. But then local weirdo farmer Marion (in an obvious Clint Eastwood spoof) pulls out a three shotgun, er, shotgun and blows the zombie body apart in hilariously gory detail, leaving an even funnier sequence- a walking spine, resembling that of a tall headless chicken. They are forced to hide out in his heavily protected farmhouse as well as others (including a foul mouthed cop) who seems to swear unnecessarily, but has some brilliant lines: "I'll f*ckin finish you off faster than a f*ckin birthday cake at a fat chicks f*ckin party!" or "in our day, we respected our parents: we didn't f*ckin eat em!" In short, Undead is an enjoyable horror comedy with occasional flashes of sly genius to keep everyone happy. *** out of **** (3 out of 4)