Undead DVD Review
Meteorites fall from the sky in a sleepy little fishing village bringing with them a zombie plague. The story follows a newly crowned Miss Catch of the Day, Rene, a local beauty contest winner. Her and her agent are heading out of town when they are accosted by the living dead at the scene of a car crash. Rene runs away form the scene and stumbles upon a farm house owned by Marion of Marion’s World of Weapons. You wouldn’t know it, but Marion’s packing about fifty guns on his person and he’s not surprised when zombies start popping up, literally, from nowhere. Sooner than later a cop and his new partner show up at the house wanting to take charge of the situation no matter how many times they prove that they are ill-equipped to do so. Another couple show up at the house, a man and his very pregnant wife, who just so happens to be an out-talented rival beauty queen with a chip on her shoulder as big as the bun in her oven. As the zombie gather more and more, the group heads for the basement and down into a bomb shelter that has no food, no water or anything else that you would no doubt need to have to survive in a bomb shelter. The group decides, after an emotional outbreak from the mother-to-be about how Rene stole her crown, to leave the shelter and escape town. Of course they need to get past all the zombies, but that’s a cinch when your a bad-ass gun store owner or a beauty queen, not so much for the trained police officers. On their way out of town, they run into a large spiked wall that’s surrounding as far as the eye can see. This is when Marion starts having flashbacks about being abducted by aliens after a zombie fish attack. The group keeps getting rained on, which starts them smoking and needs to be washed off with a bit of water. Marion’s aliens appear, scaring the shit out of the group sending them running back to town. After a blood bout with a pack of zombies at the general store, Marion is abducted by aliens as the group heads off to the airfield to make their escape over the wall. After getting their plane started, they run into zombie problems, not to mention the rain that makes them smoke persists. But, at the airfield, just as the zombies are about to bite, they mysteriously start to change back into humans. Now the problem is not being abducted by aliens!
I don’t wanna spoil the movie for those that may want to see, but I just plain didn’t like this movie. The whole style of the movie seemed to be totally biting Peter Jackson’s style ala Bad Taste and Dead Alive, which is funny, because the quote on the front of the box says “The most inventive zombie film since Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead [Dead Alive]“. Most of the characters are just old standby clichés, hamming it up in front of the cameras. There’s the main character’s sleazy agent who chews gum with his mouth open, has a plastic smile and assures her she’s gonna be huge. There’s the headstrong, boisterous cop with no real backbone and his jittery, nervous, asthmatic deputy fucking everything up. Then, there’s the “bad ass” gun store owner that talks in a low voice with his head cocked down, he’s always one step ahead of the zombies, every shot is perfectly placed even if he’s looking in the other direction and, at one point, even though previously naked, still pops out two guns, presumably from his ass and fires away. I understand that they’re probably spoofing on all the action films with this character, but it seems like even that’s over done.
The movie is well made and even has an interesting twist. The core group is comprised of pretty good actors and the CGI and special make-up effects are cool to look at (i.e. done well). The zombies looked pretty cool, although there’s not much of a transition from human to zombie. They go from being normal to gruesome zombie with no in between and sometimes back again. But, like I said the zombies look pretty cool.
Comments(7)
It certainly doesn’t compare to Braindead, but I didn’t think it was that bad of a flick. (I also thought the scene where Marion draws weapons from nowhere was a nice touch, so I guess it’s a matter of different tastes.) Besides, we don’t have too many zombie movies from Australia.
How many continents are left which haven’t made zombie movies? It might just be Antarctica at this point…
i rented this movie about a year ago, maybe longer. i just returned it not too long ago. i hated it. it’s not that i wanted to acrue a large fine, i just didn’t want anyone else to rent it. the movie is fucking awful. the movie is a matter of tastes, people with good taste will strongly dislike it. hahaha just kidding, it’s a love it or hate it movie. i hate it, but i have talked with people who loved it.
are you seriously complaining about bad character stereotypes in a movie with ZOMBIE FISH?!? (the effects for which were infinitely better than the ones mr. jackson used for the damned sumatran rat monkey.) have you ever watched braindead? i mean, an old lady is taken out by a meteor in the first five minutes of undead, and then she gets back up and walks around with a gaping hole in her abdomen. did any of you watch the special features on the dvd? these guys made this movie on a shoestring budget, if that, and still managed to make it hilarious and full of convincing gore. they built their own damned dolly, and used the van from the movie as their production vehicle until it crapped out. then they drove the van into a ditch for a shot, and to put it out of it’s misery. they kill a zombie with the club! they have four-barreled shotguns! what the fuck are you people smoking that kills the humor/gore-loving part of your brain?
The makers of Undead did have 11 years of technology on Peter Jackson’s Sumatran Rat Monkey. Yeah, the shotgun thing didn’t get me. It just seemed stupid.
Undead is far superior to Braindead and ESPECIALLY Bad Taste. materbates seems to better understand how well constructed this movie is and how much attention to detail was paid on part of the directors. To badhammer, I’m actually someone who actually watches and formally analyzes ‘films’, not movies or flicks mind you, outside of the zombie horror genre, whereas I doubt you’ve ever seen Godard or Bergman (and you probably think Eli Roth is a good director and that the Saw series works on some level). This post sort of makes me want to start submitting formal reviews to ZRC, as this movie is well under-evaluated (and I usually find Jef to be a bit more thorough, but maybe he is right insofar as this is a love it or hate it movie, and hating it, he cannot find more to say)). So for now, this is just oil on the fire, and until I have a full review written for Undead to submit, I won’t carry on any more.
This was one of the movies to get me back into the zombie genre. I thought it was great, and I never saw the plot twists coming at the end. That said, I don’t go into my monster movies looking for a refined film experience, and I did prefer Braindead. I’d love to see more reviews from anyone, so bring ‘em on…decent zombie movies can sometimes slip through my radar.
take care,
Tec
I liked the movie but as the guy said “I guess it’s a matter of different tastes.”
There was one part in the movie when the face of the aliens is revealed it had subtitles telling us what the aliens were saying but in the DVD they didn’t show it???
Nice review.
P.S. Never got the way they change from zombie to human but, like you said the zombies look pretty cool.