I caught Undead's second and final Festival screening last night, and it is just fantastic. I cannot understand how a film so cheap (cost about two million Australian, as I recall) could look so incredibly good. Most of the visual effects were done on a laptop, and they are just stunning. According to one of the Spierig brothers (the identical twins who wrote, directed, and produced the film, as well as managing the effects) the film contains 305 special effects, and maybe ten of those effects shots don't quite work.
Technicalities aside, it is also damned funny, extremely gory, and a whole lot of fun. The humour is not just slapstick gore, either - there are some priceless moments of character humour and a handful of absolutely classic lines, arguably the best of which can be heard at the end of the trailer. Surprisingly, the plot is quite strong, too, with a ripper of an ending that left me deeply impressed.
It isn't without its flaws - a few gags fall flat, the dialogue can be a bit hard to hear at times, the pacing is a tad shaky, and the final reel or two could do with a little bit of fat trimmed, plus the hero of the piece is just a bit annoying, with a whole lot of dialogue that is meant to be cheesy, but gets a bit TOO cheesy more than once - but for a first film made on a shoestring, it is just incredible. We are talking about the Bad Taste of the digital age.
I know it is getting a small mainstream cinema release here in Oz in early September, and I have heard it is getting a little release in the US and UK as well. Fans of early Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, and George Romero owe it to themselves to go along and laugh themselves sick.
