Undead

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.

It seems to be the latest fad - movies directed by duos (brothers usually). You've got the Pang Brothers who brought us the magnificent The Eye, the Wachowski's for the Matrix trilogy, and the Coen Brothers to mention the biggies. Now add to that list the Spierig Brothers - these guys are going to be big, believe me. And if their film, Undead is any indication, they won't be unknown for too long.

I was fortunate enough to see a copy of this film on the weekend, and I must admit, I went into it not being a huge fan of the zombie genre, but I have come out a total fan!!!

The thing that stood out the most to me about this film, was the CG effects. They are simply flawless!! I cannot compliment the team behind them enough. You would be hard up to find effects of this ilk in any film produced outside of Hollywood. I think the effects alone raise the film above schlock and unbearable to watch to something that screams mass-release!!! There is definitely a market out there for this film, and I am so glad that it is being released to major markets shortly.

The comedy in the film was timely, the horror and effects were appropriate, and the acting was, was... Australian!!!! My only criticism was some of the music score - it went a bit over the top with the comical undertones in places where I thought it could have been stronger with its intensity. It's really a small criticism in the scheme of things as I thought the movie as whole was an impressive addition to the Speirig Brothers CV's.

Why didn't anyone tell me about this film? It is 3 years old by the time I first watched it, having spent my horror-watching hours on hateful crap like 'Saw' and the other torture flicks Hollywood has been churning out in that time. This is a funny and creative gore flick along the lines of early Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi: 'Bad Taste' comes to mind.

I can't say this is a great film- but it does show great promise for the writer/directors. The effects are cheap but decent. Flawed in many respects, the kitchy attitude helps to gloss over the faults allowing an enjoyable experience.

If you enjoy gooey gore, over-the-top dialog and craziness- and willing to look past a low budget ... add another 2 stars and WATCH THIS FLICK.

Another great splatter horror film from the Southern Hemisphere! It is so rare these days to set eyes upon a film that is not subjected to the boring, rehashed, commercially-hungry, modern American sub-genre of horror movies such as Cabin Fever and a host of recent slasher movies that try, beyond hope, to scare or shock the viewer by throwing as much blood and fast camera movement ("Boo, are you scared?") at the screen, with little to no success. Undead finally gets back to the roots of true splatter horror in a way that would make Jackson and Raimi proud and is a superb treat to the mature viewer who has grown up with these classics and is not simply into gratuitous pure shock-value.

Undead is "cheesy" and off-the-cuff. It pays hommage to a number of cult classics out there such as Romero's Trilogy of the Dead (the isolated farmhouse from NotLD, "Let's shop!" from Dawn and the police powerplay from Day), Raimi's Evil Dead ("Join us!"), Jackson's Braindead (the shovel in the bank manager's head) and Bad Taste (the alien contingent and appearance).

Do not expect great acting (though I am sure these actors are more than capable of doing so) or a totally original script (though the ending was actually quite unusual and surprised me), for this is not what this film is about. It is about having a fun 2 hours and, in my opinion, rewarding the fans of cult classic splatter horror (and hopefully introducing a number of younger individuals to this fantastic genre).

Not a great film, but a fun (non-American, something that is so rare these days) film!