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Undead

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Undead (2005)

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Reviews Counted:73

Fresh:21

Rotten:52

Average Rating:4.3/10

Consensus: This low-budget homage to the zombie genre borrows heavily from superior predecessors and revels in a pile of its own campiness -- neither original nor watchable enough to entertain.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong violence and gore, and for language.

Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins

Genre: Horror/Suspense

Theatrical Release:Jul 1, 2005 Limited

Synopsis: Australian brothers Michael and Peter Spierig directed this entry in the flesh-eating zombie genre, a full-on gore and gag fest, outback style. The plot finds local beauty contest winner Rene... Australian brothers Michael and Peter Spierig directed this entry in the flesh-eating zombie genre, a full-on gore and gag fest, outback style. The plot finds local beauty contest winner Rene (Felicity Mason), about to head out of her isolated lakeside hometown to the big city when a meteor shower animates some corpses, with the usual grisly results. She and some other survivors hole up in an old farmhouse owned by the taciturn antihero, Marion (Mungo McKay), who likes performing slow motion back flips while blasting the heads of zombies with his endless supply of .45 automatics. When everyone tires of shouting at each other they try and escape the endless zombie onslaught in Marion's van, only to run into a giant, spike-covered wall blocking the road out of town. If that's not enough, there's the problem of acid rain (resulting in the need for the foxy Rene to remove her over garments) and random alien abductions of insects, livestock, and supporting actors. Shot on digital video with an array of surprisingly convincing (for its obvious low budget) special effects, the film plants its forked tongue firmly in cheek as it references other Aussie gross-out hits like Peter Jackson's BAD TASTE and DEAD ALIVE, as well as midnight favorites like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Highlights include a fight scene involving some undead fish, and a hair-raising twist ending. While it's more satiric and self-mocking than genuinely scary, there are still some major shocks and youngsters might blanche at the plethora of gore and severed body parts. [More]

Starring: Felicity Mason, Mungo McKay, Rob Jenkins, Lisa Cunningham

Starring: Felicity Mason, Mungo McKay, Rob Jenkins, Lisa Cunningham, Dirk Hunter, Emma Randall

Director: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig

Director: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Screenwriter: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Producer: Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig
Composer: Cliff Bradley
Studio: Lions Gate Films

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Release:

Oct 11, 2005

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Reviews for Undead

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1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z)
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Unlikely to satisfy horror fans...but the Spierigs might have a future in this genre if they put more effort and imagination into their scripts.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
03/01/07
Ethan Alter
Ethan Alter
Film Journal International

The Spierig brothers' horror comedy has some twists of its own and a fine pair of heroes in beauty-queen Rene (Felicity Mason) and stoic action-man Marion (Mungo McKay).

Full Review Source: eye WEEKLY | comment Comment
10/01/03
Jason Anderson
Jason Anderson
eye WEEKLY

Watching it is a smidgen like listening to the same monkey-walks- into-a-bar joke for the 105th time, but for the Spierig brothers, it is clearly a demonstration of fast-cheap capabilities and a one-way ticket straight out of Queensland.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
06/28/05
Michael Atkinson
Michael Atkinson
Village Voice
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Directors Peter and Michael Spierig have a tendency to push the performances into camp, but that energy and slapstick mayhem helps keep the film racing along.

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
07/07/05
Sean Axmaker
Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

It's downright boring for an hour, then picks up, at least visually, when the zombified are hauled into space and hung there as if in a cosmic closet.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
07/01/05
Jami Bernard
Jami Bernard
New York Daily News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

An amusingly outrageous Australian variation on the familiar zombie theme, played mostly for laughs.

Full Review Source: ESplatter | comment Comment
07/16/08
Steve Biodrowski
Steve Biodrowski
ESplatter

What the movie lacks in clarity it makes up for in gallons of campy gore. Undead sure ain't art, but it sure is fun.

Full Review Source: SPLICEDWire | comment Comment
07/06/05
Rob Blackwelder
Rob Blackwelder
SPLICEDWire

No amount of Zombie Rules can explain a movie like this, or the recent filmmaker fascination with a creaky old genre.

Full Review Source: Denver Post | comment Comment
07/15/05
Michael Booth
Michael Booth
Denver Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

some sort of retarded uncle to Peter Jackson’s early features

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
07/16/05
Keith Breese
Keith Breese
Filmcritic.com

...so amateurish and unimaginative, the big mystery is why anybody bothered to put it in theaters. It's the first horror film that's shot like a sitcom.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Weekly | comment Comment
07/06/05
Sean Burns
Sean Burns
Philadelphia Weekly

Rigor mortis has set in.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
07/08/05
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

...we need more quality zombie films like this to show Hollywood how it should be done.

Full Review Source: Dread Central | comment Comment
01/30/06
Johnny Butane
Johnny Butane
Dread Central

Undead is sort of imaginative and considerably scattershot....succeeded only in making me groggy.

Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews | comment Comment
08/05/05
Peter Canavese
Peter Canavese
Groucho Reviews

Unendurably boring in its superfluousness, its ersatz feel accentuated by a plethora of digital effects, Undead is simply a stiff

Full Review Source: Film Freak Central | comment Comment
09/14/03
Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Film Freak Central

...it is difficult to not give a little respect to a film with zombie fish that stars a guy named Mungo McKay

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
06/29/05
Laura Clifford
Laura Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Absolutely unhinged in a way only Australian filmmakers can ever get right.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
11/18/04
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

Though it sometimes veers toward the ludicrous, at least it's never uninteresting.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
07/05/05
Tim Cogshell
Tim Cogshell
Boxoffice Magazine

The film will frighten only those with phobias about boredom and amuse only viewers with expectations lower than the filmmaker's miniscule budget.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
07/07/05
Colin Covert
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

If only the Spierigs had put as much effort into their writing as they did into the special effects, Undead"might not be such a recycled, redundant bore.

Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
08/25/05
Paul Doro
Paul Doro
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The kind of movie that would be so bad it's good, except it's not bad enough to be good enough.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
07/07/05
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
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