Before they hit Hollywood with the likes of Daybreakers (2009), Predestination (2014), and Jigsaw (2017), the Spierig Brothers, Michael and Peter made their cinematic start with this low budget, fun horror/sci-fi mashup.
René (Felicity Mason) is wanting to leave the outback fishing village of Berkeley, but just as she’s making her getaway meteorites start falling from the sky. A side effect of this is people are turning into flesh-eating zombies. Not an ideal situation, then. Inadvertently teaming up with a survival nut (Mungo McKay) who runs the local bait store, a couple imminently expecting a baby, and a pair of enthusiastic but lacklustre police officers, she attempts to survive the onslaught of the undead. As they make their way out of town, however, they find the town they discover the dead are the least of their issues as a metal wall has been erected and the meteors have extraterrestrial origins.
Like Peter Jackson before them, the Spierig Brothers display their inventiveness and passion for storytelling with buckets of blood with their feature debut. Without the budget for slick special effects and intricate makeup, the results are crude but effective. A number of the gore gags are repeated, which shows that the pair were a little too over keen to showcase the parts that work, but also how excited they were putting their vision on screen. Beginning life as a trilogy of short films (the first is included in the extra features of Umbrella’s Blu-ray), Undead takes elements from the zombie films that came before and squishes them into a Close Encounters-type tale. Spielberg’s film is clearly a direct influence on a number of sequences later on. Sadly, it’s when the aliens arrive that things start to fall apart. The idea is over-ambitious and the shift in tone is far too noticeable.
However, for every part of the story and execution that doesn’t work, there’s a joyous, splatter-filled element that’s worth celebrating. It’s these moments that linger in the memory longer than anything that follows.
Australia’s Umbrella Entertainment has done the brothers and the film proud, though. As well as presenting the film in HD, there are a host of interesting extras that give insight into the passion and enthusiasm of all involved. Several behind the scenes features and the commentary from the brothers and cinematographer Andy Strahornon underline how much the Spierig siblings are fans of the genre and from what’s on display, it’s obvious why Hollywood came calling. The bonus features are topped off with a separate CD of the film’s impressive soundtrack.
Undead might be a patchy watch, but it’s easy to forgive some of the shortcomings. The package Umbrella has presented the movie in is impressive enough to steal it an extra point.
