Undead (2003)

Directed by Michael Spierig [Other horror films: Daybreakers (2009), Jigsaw (2017), Winchester (2018)] & Peter Spierig [Other horror films: Daybreakers (2009), Jigsaw (2017), Winchester (2018)]

I want to be as fair as possible, so I need to first say that as I write this, I am both sick and tired – I don’t mean figuratively, I mean I am literally sick and extraordinarily tired. I don’t really feel that bad – my throat is a bit rough, but otherwise, I’m okay. Still, I’m exhausted, and just wasn’t in the mood for this movie at all.

Undead is a lower-budget zombie science-fiction comedy movie. It has interesting ideas, I guess, but I hated the comedy, so I really can’t find it in me to care that much. Certainly zombie comedies can be done right – even ignoring larger budget films, check out New Zealand’s Last of the Living, which was pretty okay. The comedy here, though, wasn’t at all something I cared for in the least.

Also, while I can’t describe this fairly, the music was horrible. I can’t explain why. It sounded cheap and silly. That’s the best I can do. It was just shitty throughout, and that alone cost the movie something like two points. Godawful.

Look, the idea was interesting – instead of a generic zombie movie, Undead tried to do something new by throwing in acid rain, aliens, and giant walls made of metal. Even come the end, I didn’t really get what they were going for, and the story still confuses me, but I can appreciate that they tried to do something new with a sub-genre that’s overwrought with repetition.

I respect it, but I just can’t like it.

Only one performance did anything for me, being Mungo McKay’s. I didn’t get his character, but I didn’t get any of the characters, many of whom were over-the-top in their silliness, which of course makes me rather dispositioned to despise them.

Also loved all the ammunition wasting. It wasn’t until 40 minutes into the movie that they discovered they should aim for the heads. It made me think that zombies weren’t something people in this universe had a concept of. As it turns out, they did – later on, one of the characters admits that the people walking around are zombies. If they had a concept of zombies beforehand, why didn’t they just immediately try and focus on headshots?

Some people might call that a small nitpick, but that type of thing really annoys me, and it just gave me cause to dislike this movie more.

Even so, Undead, at the time of this writing (March 11th, 2022), has a 5.4/10 on IMDb (with 14,188 votes). Enough people found it decent enough to rate it above a 5/10, which personally amazes me. I get it – throwing in aliens and acid rain was a neat idea, and if it landed for some people, then glory be to God.

I’m just tired and bitter. I didn’t care for the comedy of this movie at all, nor most of the characters, and as interesting as some of the concepts here are, I don’t think they were explained all that well. I didn’t have a good time at all with this, but if it sounds like your type of thing, it may be worth a watch.

3.5/10