[image=left]http://www.alternativenation.net/gallery/files/1/6/8/7/undead.jpg[/image]This is a low budget, high style Australian zombie flick with a twist that has gnawed its way into my heart.
The quiet outback town of Berkeley, Australia becomes the spawning ground of the undead after a meteor shower rains down, and with the infection spreading so swiftly, a band of survivors is forced to group together to try and survive.
Sound familiar territory? Well, that's because it is. Does that make it any less enjoyable? Fuck, no. With its tongue firmly poking out of its decomposing cheek, this owes a lot to LOTR director Peter Jackson's early films
Braindead and
Bad Taste, and Sam Raimi's
Evil Dead trilogy (I swear I heard the zombies in this moan 'join us' a couple of times). It's drenched in bucketloads of gore, and some half decent, if not perfect CGI, to dress it up a little. We have a token feisty female, some cops, a pregnant woman and her boyfriend, and the mysterious triple-shotgun wielding chap named Marion, who seems to have more guns on his person than most people have hair follicles. This chap also seems to be the baddest motherfucker in the southern hemisphere, and makes the best use of spurs in recent cinema history.
Whatever is causing the zombie plague also seems to be affecting the weather, with the rain causing our heroes pain; this also works as a fantastic plot device to get the cast in their smalls about halfway through, where an unexpected sci-fi element seems to come into play atop the undead after they realise that they are walled into the town.
But above all else, this is
enjoyable. Plenty of humour, some wonderfully ridiculous action scenes, near escapes, and the last couple of scenes made it all worth watching, and I assure you - there will not be a better zombie fish scene in any film this year.
This seems to be the first major effort from writer, director and producers Michael and Peter Spierig, and I hope will not be the last.
Undead appears to be available now, though tricky to get a hold of.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0339840
