Undead DVD Review:

It’s a peaceful day in the outback, the folks are playing cricket and drinking beer and beautiful young Rene is ready to leave her small-town life with the money won from a beauty contest. Suddenly yellow gobbets appear on the horizon, coming down to earth in the middle of a cricket-game, in the middle of a cricketer actually and life will never be the same. Some infectious disease has been transported with the meteorites, and before you can say g’day cobber regular citizens are turning into human-flesh-eating zombies. Rene flees from the horrific scenes around her into the woods where she encounters a mysterious, cowboy-type stranger, who has been waiting for the moment of disaster. This is Marion, once considered the town loony for his stories of alien abduction, who now offers refuge to a small band including a couple and two police officers. Planning to break out of the infected area, the group have to fight off the zombie hordes and not only; in a double whammy, the film turns out to feature aliens too, apparently the minds behind the monsters. Meanwhile, the armed forces and a mob of aspiring alien abductees (with boards saying ‘take me to your leader’) have raced towards the area, only to find themselves up against the same mysterious wall that our heroes face on the other side.

Zombie and slasher movies have undergone their own version of the ironic updating received by the horror genre in ‘Scream’ and ‘Scary Movie.’ ‘Undead’ is ironic, more or less in this vein, but (unlike ‘Cabin Fever,’ say) it also has a sense of humour. The humour is not just in the lines, though there are some good ones; says a panicked police officer, “in my day kids respected their parents, they didn't fuckin' eat 'em.” The whole movie works with dead-pan, without alerting you to what are intended to be its funny moments, blending irony in with the whole (this also covers up to an extent what seems to be bad acting in the supporting cast, which is both intended as part of the joke, and plain bad acting). Humour works on a visual level too. The first death in the film takes place during a cricket match when an adult, playing against a team of kids, shows off by hitting the ball into the air so high that it disappears; everyone stares up and a glowing yellow ball shoots back down, blasting a whole out of the batsman’s stomach, a tit for tat worthy of Peter Jackson. One of the sequences that could be presented in a cult anthology of Zombie movies takes place when Marion tells his history to Rene; there are flashbacks to a sepia-toned time when he was a simple fisher on the lake, interrupted by meteoric pellets. Suddenly the fish that were lying dead in the boat begin to squiggle and in a Pythonesque moment (remember the killer rabbit?) launch themselves at Marion’s face, only to be blown away with a deft series of pistol shots. This alone is as good as a trailer. The zombies, like the actors, are in a half-world between authenticity and the cheap-budget scenario which a homage to B-movies calls for. You might notice references to other films here such as Peter Jackson’s ‘Braindead;’ the zombie with the spade in his head, as a genre reference, is a dead give-away.

The film’s most original moments come from the alien/zombie crossover which is a good intuition not really thought out. The aliens apparently have infected mankind with a disease only to ultimately heal their victims as a spiritual warning, though it’s not clear at the end of the film what anyone remembers of the whole malarky, and confusingly, in the last shot, there’s still a horde of the undead in town. Well what did you expect from a zombie movie, brain-power? The direction is assured and the use of a classical movie score rather than jagged-edge creaks and jumps is effective. Felicity Mason who plays Rene is sexy and talented and may well go on to less gory things. What’s been done with under a million Australian dollars is impressive. I’ve given this a two-star rating because unless you enjoy the genre you won’t be have any desire to see this – this is pretty much for fans. If you do, then you will probably give this a three pushing on four. Don’t forget your munchies.

Catalogue number: ABD4239

Cert : 15

Region 2

Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

Extras

The making of Undead

Peter and Michael Spierig spent two and a half years putting together their homage to the B-movie zombie genre (is there a Zombie A-movie or would that be a contradiction in terms?). The brothers attempted to make this film look as if it was shot with big dollars; their actual, modest budget ran out on the first day, or so they say, and this is the story of their trials and tribulations. And their fun with the DIY school of film-making. Anyone wishing to follow in their footsteps could profit from repeated viewing of sections showing how they got ahead without a green screen (hoisting up a green canvas in the back yard instead), without candy glass and without a recording studio. Heavy-duty CGI was effected in the directors’ own bedroom on their laptops. Much of this is the usual love-in between actors and directors; poker-faced comments from the cast and crew, and there are several unwitting laughs – ‘this is my character’s first day at work and it’s quite a hard day for her’/‘There’s never been a movie made like this…anywhere.’ There has been, of course, which is half the fun.

The Toronto Film Festival

Undead went down a treat in Toronto, and you can follow the question and answer session between the directing twins and their audience.

Deleted and extended scenes

There are eight of these; none significantly different from the film as it stands.

Camera and make-up tests

How to create that edgy, cinema-verite look with your zombie extras.

Home-made Dolly Construction Video

See the guys at work on their DIY dolly, experimenting with crane and vertical shots.

The Zombies Internet Featurette

The Zombie extras are put through their paces, tongue in malodorous cheek.

The list of other extras:

Theatrical Trailer

Teaser Trailer

Animatic to Film Comparison

Production Notes and Stills

Cast and Crew Biographies



Dominic Gavin

Zombie films have become so commonplace that it seems silly to expect anything remotely original anymore. The Spierig Brothers seemed to think that this was a problem, because with Undead they went out of there way to throw as many unexpected twists at the audience as possible. Despite the horrible acting, extreme gore, and silly twists, or perhaps because of these things, Undead is a wild and entertaining film. It just goes to show that not all films need to be great in order to be fun to watch.

Undead begins by introducing us to a small fishing town in Australia, which may as well be dead. Nothing exciting is happening and because of this it comes as a giant shock when a meteor shower rains down on many unsuspecting victims. The space rocks tear through flesh un-forgivingly, but surprisingly the victims don’t remain dead. The meteors somehow engage a zombie activity, which sends the town into a panic. Five survivors find themselves trapped in a farmhouse, but luckily they have an assortment of creative weapons to fend the zombies off.

What makes Undead interesting beyond the strange involvement of aliens in the plot, the extreme and comical gore, and the awful deadpan acting, is the direction the film goes in. Most all zombie films classify it as an outbreak of some sort, and yet they never look to find a cure. Instead we know that as soon as they turn it is time to put a bullet in their brain. Undead goes in many strange directions, but the most logical is the fact that a cure becomes part of the storyline.

Because of the fact that this film was made with a low budget, they seemed to take great care in documenting the process. The result is a great deal of special features for horror fanatic’s enjoyment. The most substantial of the features is The Making of Undead, a great featurette with tons of behind the scenes footage and interviews. The filmmakers talk about the trouble with the shoot including their lack of sleep and how at one point one of them was so sick that his mouth was bleeding.

There is a Q&A segment from the Supanova Convention in Australia. The footage and sound is quite rough, and was obviously just put together by a friend or family member, but the fact that it was recorded is still admirable. Along the same lines is The Toronto Film Festival Screening footage. It actually has a great deal more fun footage, including watching the fans make a mad rush for the theater.

There is also a bunch of footage showing the special effects for the film. There is an internet featurette on the zombies, the camera and make-up tests, and animatic to film comparison. One cool little feature is the construction of the homemade dolly. There are also deleted scenes, extended scenes, artwork, trailers, and a preview for the upcoming horror film SawII.

Ryan Izay