Review: Undead (2003)
Andrew Staker
That fact that Australia has produced a genre film is a point of
excitement; it's a refreshing change from dreary melodramas or
drearier comedies. Now known as the Spierig Brothers, Brisbane's
Michael and Peter have gone 'all out' with their take on the zombie
films of a few decades ago.
In a sweet-as-sunshine town in the outback, everything seems fine. We
meet our characters in their normal situations. There's the young
married couple, the Fish Queen beauty pageant winner and the town
weirdo who has an amazing house and an even more amazing collection of
weapons.
When mysterious meteorites cascade through the sky, and start hitting
the townsfolk, you know Undead is underway. Whoever gets hit by a
piece of cosmic rock turns into a flesh-eating zombie. To stay alive,
it's natural for our foursome to flee. What's frustrating is that it
takes them a while to work out that shooting a zombie through the head
(or some other way of smashing its brain) is the only way to kill an
undead being.
The sky grows increasingly gloomier and the tension rises. The comedy
works even if you have no idea who George A Romero is; but of course,
the references to zombie classics made the audience laugh just that
bit more. The fact that aliens are intimately involved with the
narrative takes the movie in a slightly different direction to
orthodox zombie films. The special effects are self-conscious and at
no point does the film take itself seriously. This might, of course,
upset genre purists.
Given their meagre financial parameters, the Spierigs have created an
Australian horror flick with tinges of local in-jokes. It's also
interesting to note that the film rose out of obscurity through Sydney
and Melbourne film festivals and has achieved a nation-wide release.
This is entertaining. Any underlying moral message that earlier films
carried has been shaved off Undead. It is just a fast-paced
stay-alive-or-else horror comedy with its highest aspiration being to
make the audience giggle unstoppably in their seats. And at this, it
succeeds, for the most part.
Andrew Staker
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