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Undead (2005) DVD Review
Undead (2005) DVD Credits:
Undead (2005) Directed by:
Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Undead (2005) Written by:
Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Undead (2005) Cast:
Felicity Mason, Mungo McKay, Rob Jenkins, Lisa Cunningham, Dirk Hunter, Emma Randall, Steve Greig, Noel Sheridan, Gaynor Wensley, Eleanor Stillman
Undead (2005) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
2
Undead (2005) DVD Release Date:
1st January 2006
Our Rating: Extras Rating:

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Undead (2005) Synopsis:

Peaceful, rustic Berkeley is a charming fishing community where life is sweet and the people friendly. All that is about to change. After losing her childhood farm to the bank, local beauty Rene decides to leave town and head for the big city. Suddenly, an avalanche of meteorites races through the sky, bombarding the town and bringing an otherworldly infection. Departing is going to be much more difficult than she had planned. The living dead are awakened and Rene is now caught in a nightmare of zombies hungry for human flesh. She manages to find salvation in a small isolated farm house owned by the town loony, Marion. There she is met with four other desperate survivors. Together they battle their way through a plague of walking dead and discover that there is more transpiring than just an infection. Undead is a horror film in the vein of Night of the Living Dead and The Evil Dead and features an overflow of gore and visual effects to make any horror fan squirm with delight.

Undead (2005) DVD Review:

It’s a peaceful day in the outback, the folks are playing cricket and drinking beer and beautiful young Rene is ready to leave her small-town life with the money won from a beauty contest. Suddenly yellow gobbets appear on the horizon, coming down to earth in the middle of a cricket-game, in the middle of a cricketer actually and life will never be the same. Some infectious disease has been transported with the meteorites, and before you can say g’day cobber regular citizens are turning into human-flesh-eating zombies. Rene flees from the horrific scenes around her into the woods where she encounters a mysterious, cowboy-type stranger, who has been waiting for the moment of disaster. This is Marion, once considered the town loony for his stories of alien abduction, who now offers refuge to a small band including a couple and two police officers. Planning to break out of the infected area, the group have to fight off the zombie hordes and not only; in a double whammy, the film turns out to feature aliens too, apparently the minds behind the monsters. Meanwhile, the armed forces and a mob of aspiring alien abductees (with boards saying ‘take me to your leader’) have raced towards the area, only to find themselves up against the same mysterious wall that our heroes face on the other side.

Zombie and slasher movies have undergone their own version of the ironic updating received by the horror genre in ‘Scream’ and ‘Scary Movie.’ ‘Undead’ is ironic, more or less in this vein, but (unlike ‘Cabin Fever,’ say) it also has a sense of humour. The humour is not just in the lines, though there are some good ones; says a panicked police officer, “in my day kids respected their parents, they didn't fuckin' eat 'em.” The whole movie works with dead-pan, without alerting you to what are intended to be its funny moments, blending irony in with the whole (this also covers up to an extent what seems to be bad acting in the supporting cast, which is both intended as part of the joke, and plain bad acting). Humour works on a visual level too. The first death in the film takes place during a cricket match when an adult, playing against a team of kids, shows off by hitting the ball into the air so high that it disappears; everyone stares up and a glowing yellow ball shoots back down, blasting a whole out of the batsman’s stomach, a tit for tat worthy of Peter Jackson. One of the sequences that could be presented in a cult anthology of Zombie movies takes place when Marion tells his history to Rene; there are flashbacks to a sepia-toned time when he was a simple fisher on the lake, interrupted by meteoric pellets. Suddenly the fish that were lying dead in the boat begin to squiggle and in a Pythonesque moment (remember the killer rabbit?) launch themselves at Marion’s face, only to be blown away with a deft series of pistol shots. This alone is as good as a trailer. The zombies, like the actors, are in a half-world between authenticity and the cheap-budget scenario which a homage to B-movies calls for. You might notice references to other films here such as Peter Jackson’s ‘Braindead;’ the zombie with the spade in his head, as a genre reference, is a dead give-away.

The film’s most original moments come from the alien/zombie crossover which is a good intuition not really thought out. The aliens apparently have infected mankind with a disease only to ultimately heal their victims as a spiritual warning, though it’s not clear at the end of the film what anyone remembers of the whole malarky, and confusingly, in the last shot, there’s still a horde of the undead in town. Well what did you expect from a zombie movie, brain-power? The direction is assured and the use of a classical movie score rather than jagged-edge creaks and jumps is effective. Felicity Mason who plays Rene is sexy and talented and may well go on to less gory things. What’s been done with under a million Australian dollars is impressive. I’ve given this a two-star rating because unless you enjoy the genre you won’t be have any desire to see this – this is pretty much for fans. If you do, then you will probably give this a three pushing on four. Don’t forget your munchies.

Catalogue number: ABD4239

Cert : 15

Region 2

Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

Extras


The making of Undead

Peter and Michael Spierig spent two and a half years putting together their homage to the B-movie zombie genre (is there a Zombie A-movie or would that be a contradiction in terms?). The brothers attempted to make this film look as if it was shot with big dollars; their actual, modest budget ran out on the first day, or so they say, and this is the story of their trials and tribulations. And their fun with the DIY school of film-making. Anyone wishing to follow in their footsteps could profit from repeated viewing of sections showing how they got ahead without a green screen (hoisting up a green canvas in the back yard instead), without candy glass and without a recording studio. Heavy-duty CGI was effected in the directors’ own bedroom on their laptops. Much of this is the usual love-in between actors and directors; poker-faced comments from the cast and crew, and there are several unwitting laughs – ‘this is my character’s first day at work and it’s quite a hard day for her’/‘There’s never been a movie made like this…anywhere.’ There has been, of course, which is half the fun.


The Toronto Film Festival

Undead went down a treat in Toronto, and you can follow the question and answer session between the directing twins and their audience.


Deleted and extended scenes

There are eight of these; none significantly different from the film as it stands.


Camera and make-up tests

How to create that edgy, cinema-verite look with your zombie extras.


Home-made Dolly Construction Video

See the guys at work on their DIY dolly, experimenting with crane and vertical shots.


The Zombies Internet Featurette

The Zombie extras are put through their paces, tongue in malodorous cheek.

The list of other extras:


Theatrical Trailer

Teaser Trailer

Animatic to Film Comparison

Production Notes and Stills

Cast and Crew Biographies

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Undead (2005) DVD review written by: Dominic Gavin

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