Undead (2003)
Posted on September 18, 2005
Filed Under Zombies
The debut feature from Australia’s Spierig brothers, Undead has secured a cult reputation (mainly through DVD) over the last couple of years, but could probably achieve a degree of mainstream success if given the distribution. Although it’s a low-budget, independent horror, it aims unashamedly high, taking on the epic scale of a blockbuster without ever once feeling like a cookie-cutter studio picture. Essentially a very gory action movie, its piercingly witty script and outrageously choreographed action make it a relentlessly enjoyable but never mindless ride, even if it offers nothing substantial to think about.
Strange things are afoot in the small town of Berkely. Meteorites are striking down members of the public, and very soon they’re returning as zombies to feast upon the living. A rag-bag gang of survivors, led by former beauty queen Renee and enigmatic fisherman Mason, attempt to hold out against the spreading zombie plague, but as they attempt to flee the town, they realise that their problems extend a lot further than just the undead…
One of the most refreshing things about Undead is the way it proudly wears its Australian roots on its sleeve. One of the first shots of the film is of a fat man in shorts playing cricket, swigging a beer shortly before being decapitated by a meteorite; his companion’s startled reaction is to shout “bugger me!” in probably one of the broadest accents in screen history. Although never played exclusively for laughs, the film is full of genuinely funny one-liners, mainly from Steve Greig’s hysterical (in both senses) cop. Upon seeing a zombie kill someone for the first time, he shouts “When I was a kid, we use to respect our parents, not fucking eat them”, before turning his gun on Mason and threatening to “finish you off faster than a birthday cake at a fucking fat girl’s birthday party”.
Lines like this keep coming, and provide a happy distraction from the plot, which starts off as a fairly routine runaround and becomes increasingly nonsensical. It also shamelessly steals sequences from other films; when the survivors attempt to hole up in Mason’s basement, it’s effectively Night of the Living Dead on acid, and we later get tributes to Dawn of the Dead and, in the final third, Independence Day. This last part gets very sci-fi very quickly, and the lack of any real explanations for what’s going on get a little wearing, even though there’s enough funny dialogue and entertaining imagery to hold the attention. I’m not asking to be spoonfed, but a little more information as to who the aliens are and how they relate to the zombies would have been nice.
Aside from the dialogue, Undead’s triumph is its action. Having watched a lot of Fulci movies lately, I thought I’d seen every possible disembowellment, but some of the initial deaths are jaw-droppingly inventive. We get zombies managing to punch someone’s entire brain out, as well as the aforementioned meteorite hits. Surprisingly, the human retaliation is great too; one zombie is sliced in two at the waist and his legs continue to run around like a chicken, whilst Renee’s zombie massacre with nothing but a broom handle and a rotary blade makes Kill Bill look like childsplay. Mason’s gun-toting is pretty dextrous, but probably the most memorable killing involves a zombie, a can of pop, a soapy floor and a ball-point pen; the results are astonishing.
Okay, so the music’s a bit intrusive, and the acting variable, especially Mungo McKay’s phoned-in performance as Mason, but how many movies have shown a man punching a flying zombie fish? And made it slightly menacing as well as funny? That’s Undead in a nutshell - not deep in any way but smart, very funny and never cheap, despite its low-budget origins. On the strength of this I’d like to see more films from the Spierig brothers, and I’d recommend Undead to anyone with a love of quirky blockbusters.
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