Handling the Undead

Somehow they manged to take the original story and remove most of the interesting parts, leaving us with a slow and atmospheric exposé of loss and grief. What it does it does great, it's beautifully filmed and the acting is good, but it's just not enough. The entire point of having the dead come back to life is to examine all the implications of this happening, the original story understands this, it's in the title "Handling the undead", it asks the question of how to deal with this situation. But here most of those implications are glanced over or not touched upon at all, making the supernatural elements superfluous. Ultimately this movie had worked much better if it was just a story about three families experiencing loss, maybe in some kind of sliding doors scenario. It unfortunately feels like a missed opportunity and a waste of good source material.

In an already tired genre, Handling the Undead aims for a more contemplative and somber face than what we're used to with said genre. The standouts here being the music and atmosphere, one must think such a devotion to visuals would garner strong staying power, yet such was not the case. It's grief observed, through the lens of dark corridors and isolated pastures, asking the singular question, "if you had one more chance to talk to your loved one, what would you say?". Throughout the runtime I discovered the film wasn't exactly interested in exploring this question through a vessel or character of sorts, as it's practically nonexistent. In the end I was left starved, yearning for a connection. A film with a pulse that slowly fades into obscurity.

The film discusses the idea of death and how we deal with it as humans How pain largely lies in the loss and absence of the feelings we need Death is likened in the film to the absence of feelings How the absence of feelings in humans is extremely terrifying and sometimes even harmful How this makes a person feel dead and unwanted What distinguishes life are feelings and the ability to express them, such as love, joy, fear and pain...and losing them is like death What connects us as humans are mutual feelings How a person is willing to abandon the people closest to him if he lacks certain feelings towards him and we reviewed this concept in the film on three different levels childhood, maturity, and old age, and I think that this gave greater depth to the message that the film wanted to convey The pace of the film is slow but very poetic and the soundtrack is beautiful.

Your potential movie-watcher is likely to arrive at this expecting something different than it is; billed as a 'zombie horror' and written by John Ajvide Lindquist (it was his follow up novel to Let The Right One In). This is something quite different however.

A bit more light is shed by being aware that this is Norway's entry to the Oscar for the Best International Film. Rather, it is a fairly slow-moving and tragic drama, though it does involve the dead reawakening. The measured pace is symbolic of the mood of the characters as they grieve. The film is, in effect, a triptych, concerning three families who have just lost loved ones. The cinematography is the highlight, and it is a fine achievement and a first break through feature for its director, Thea Hvistendahl.

Its IMDb score is understandable as so many will stumble on this expecting something quite different; zombie films have jump scares and often dark humour, this is meditative and thought provoking, though it would have benefitted from a few lighter moments.

I had the chance to see this for the Sundance film festival. I wish I had chosen something else. Anything else. This was almost the slowest thing I'd ever seen, and I just followed it up by watching "The Stalker" by Tarkovsky, so when I say slow--I mean sloooooooow. At least Tarkovsky had a meaning and philosophy being told as part of the story for you to ponder during slow scenes. This movie left you wishing everyone in it would die a horrible interesting death because their lives were so monotonous. There wasn't a single likeable character besides the innocent Kian, and he had essentially no lines! In fact there was hardly any dialogue of any kind in the entire movie. Hardly anything happened at all, then when something sorta kinda does, it ends abruptly. I've got the book, and "Let the Right One In" is one of my favorite movies and books, so it's not as if I'm not the right demographic here. This just has nothing going for it. I regret the time spent on it, the money spent, and the hours of backlash I had to hear afterward from my husband who was equally upset by the time he so rarely gets being wasted watching nothing happen. Boring doesn't even begin to describe it. More like mind numbing. Don't say I didn't warn you.