Undead (2003)

Marion: "Crazy's definitely come to this town for a visit."

By Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig
With Felicity Mason, Mungo McKay and Rob Jenkins

I learnt about Undead after watching The Toxic Avenger (1984)--it was amongst the similar movies on IMdb, along with Bad Taste (1987) and Slither (2006), both being films that I enjoyed. I decided to see it. The cover of Undead also pleased me as zombie movies interest me.

Undead is set in Berkeley, Australia. The town is the target of meteors and soon after the meteors, people start turning to zombie flesh-eaters and brain aficionados. A group of young people find itself strained on the lone farm of Marion, a fisherman with a passion for firearms who, fortunately for them, has had UFO theories and has built himself a bunker in case of such an attack. However, one of the young lady happens to be pregnant and hiding in the bunker will not suffice. They decide to go out and investigate the reasons behind the attack.

To be entirely frank, I was disappointed with Undead. Maybe I was expecting too much out of it simply because of the movies it had been compared to. I can see why those movies were related, in a way they are all action comedies with graphic scenes of horror, but Undead also has an UFO/ Sci-fi element to it, which I felt was a unnecessary and it made me lose some interest in it.

However, the movie can be funny at times and the character of Marion is really hilarious but the other characters were lacking and mostly stereotypical. Some of the special effects are not really convincing, apparently it is because of the low budget of the movie, however, I have found that people have done some really good horror effects by using simple tricks. Here it seems they opted to go for CGI, but on a low budget, it doesn't look that good. The zombies are not particularly scary, but they do the trick alright. Some of the best scenes are out in the open and with the orange of the sunset, they render really well. It is also a staple that the Spierig brothers have used in their more famous movie Daybreakers (2009).

I liked: The blood. Marion. The shopping scene. Funny.

I disliked: The use of aliens. Not really catchy. Most of the characters are useless.

51/100
Undead is fun at times, filled with actions and guns, but if you're looking for a zombie movie you will most likely be disappointed.