No amount of Zombie Rules can explain a movie like this, or the recent filmmaker fascination with a creaky old genre.
Undead (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:20
Fresh:1
Rotten:19
Average Rating:3.2/10
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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Reviews for Undead
The film's genre-merging cleverness works against it, and releasing it in the wake of George Romero's zombie knockout Land of the Dead invites comparisons that may be unfair but inevitable.
There are about 2,000 hard-core Fangoria readers in the Bay Area who are going to absolutely love this film. But the 6,698,000 other residents will find it at best a little boring and at worst stomach-churningly offensive.
However visually striking, this Australian film is ultimately as tedious as it is derivative.
The storyline becomes pretty tedious, thanks to an incredibly slow beginning and a scenario based entirely on running around in circles to get away from the undead.
The film will frighten only those with phobias about boredom and amuse only viewers with expectations lower than the filmmaker's miniscule budget.
Away from the killing field, the Spierigs' actors prove themselves to be the most zombie-like, devolving into a din of screechy bickering that'll leave you running for the exits.
The kind of movie that would be so bad it's good, except it's not bad enough to be good enough.
Despite its clever low-budget visual style and campy sensibility, Undead is just too derivative to go on as long as it does.
While the low-budget film serves up a remarkably cost-effective arsenal of wild visual effects, the over-the-top tone gets stale awfully quickly.
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.
A stale, derivative mess that borrows heavily from every zombie and alien movie worthy of imitation, to only ho-hum effect.
A modestly budgeted but precociously inventive horror pic that combines brain-eating zombies with outer space aliens.
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.
Latest News for Undead
October 06, 2005:
Summer Tomatometer Wrap-up #4: The Worst of the Summer
Over the past few days, we've tried to counter the common misconception that this summer's cinematic fare was bereft of quality. However, that doesn't mean the season was... More...
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