Review of Undead (2003) by Tim B — 21 Jun 2011

When I see an independent horror flick being made by filmmakers who love the genre, I can't help but respect it to some degree. The Spierig Brothers have outdone themselves with this zombie homage.

There were nods left and right here with the main ones being Romero's Living Dead series. I caught references to the first three films in the series everywhere. However, this movie was also pretty unique in itself where it carried a Western flick feel throughout.

Many shoot outs and badass lines were delivered with the carnage. The effects here were very creative, very graphic and a hootenanny to witness. Some kills here were absolutely insane and I had a blast with the gory bits here.

Holy crap! Finally, the ending switched to a science fiction mode by tying the story in with aliens and spaceship elements added. For the uniqueness alone, I got into the storyline of this one. The Spierig Bros had crazy angles, great colorful lighting and considering the budget of the flick, sported some amazing effects as well.

Love their work! Felicity Mason was a chick to root for as she was very independent and had a strength about her character that I couldn't shake. Excellent work. Mungo McKay did what he had to do well.

Rob Jenkins was great in his role. I rooted for him. Lisa Cunningham was cute and effective. Emma Randall didn't try to be over-the-top and I liked that. She got a lot more smirks from me watching her performance.

Dirk Hunter was annoying but I'm pretty sure that was the point of the character so I'll say his acting was good. However, his character was extremely grating. I couldn't understand where he was coming from so whenever he popped up in a scene I wanted him dead, fast.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen for quite a while. Speaking of which, although I dug on Mungo McKay's performance, I wasn't convinced on his character. There was something uneven about him.

His performance was fine, I just didn't fully buy in the character. Ask me later about it when I'm drunk... The characters did a lot of fighting and bickering here again which generally grates my nerves, especially given the situation they were in.

Put your baby ways aside and try to survive, fools! Finally, this wasn't the laugh riot I was expecting it to be. I did laugh a few times but the tone of this was dead serious for me so I didn't gel with all the jokes they threw in for this.

Regardless of my picky picky needs, this is still a very creative zombie flick with amazing directing, a unique plotline and some great production values. I dug on what this accomplished and will gladly watch it again in the near future.