Undead

I'm Australian, so i know what a bad movie is. this surprisingly enough isn't one. They only thing missing from this movie to keep it from touching the stars (so to speak) is originality. it has everything else, its funny and violent, and even thru bad acting you can see a great vision. but for me this movie was so good that i can hardly believe it was made by a couple of aussies. Aussie horror has not always been met with open arms by the horror fraternity but hopefully this will erase some of the embarrassment of the horrible horror we have produced.

on top of that this movie has aliens comfortable with being naked, i didn't see that in signs.

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)

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.

Something is seriously wrong in the quiet Queensland hamlet of Berkeley: rocks are falling from the sky, carrying a virus that turns local residents into flesh-crazed fiends. And that's just the start of the powerhouse slam-bang debut from Brisbane twin filmmakers Peter and Michael Spierig, an audacious triumph of invention and imagination over budget and genre constraints. Even more remarkable is the fact that two local Brisbane boys have achieved the impossible and created an original Aussie zombie epic that is set to lay waste to the international horror community.

Ever the post-80s horror boom cultural vultures, Spierigs plunder shamelessly from the expected sources - the grey apocalypticism of George A Romero's Dead trilogy, the outrageous gore setpieces of Peter Jackson's blood-soaked Bad Taste and Braindead, the camera histronics of early Sam Raimi and Coen Brothers efforts - while breathing new life into the long-exhausted zombie cycle and making a film that is entirely their own. Undead marries a wholly unpredictable narrative, jawdropping effects (graphic enough for the most jaded of gorehounds) and a frighteningly assured grasp of cinematic language. As expected there's buckets of gallows humour, but the film never trades cheap laughs for its primary purpose: delivering good old-fashioned blood-curdling shocks.

If Aussie horror is a dead duck, Undead blows it out of the water.

Rene (Felicity Mason), the town beauty queen of Berkley, Austrailia, wants desperately to get out. But as her and her boyfriend are driving out of town, meteorites fall from the sky turning various town-folk into rampaging zombies. When Rene's boyfriend gets changed, she watches as a mysterious stranger (whom we later learn is the town 'crazy') dispatches the now zombiefied BF. She decides to hole up in the isolated farmhouse of said 'kook'. It's soon up to her, the guy, a husband, his pregnant wife, and two cops to survive long enough to figure what the hell is going on.

This Aussie film, while hopelessly derivative and ripping-off a great many great genre movies, is still a lot of fun. It looks far better than it's budget would imply and gore-hounds will be satisfied. That being said, the acting isn't the greatest and the movie pretty much loses steam towards the end when it veers decidedly off-course. But it's still very enjoyable for fans of the genre.

My Grade: B-