User Reviews

The Spierig Brothers' (Peter and Michael) "Undead" would seem even more like a cheap '50s drive-in "B"-movie if the film just billed itself as a cheap '50s drive-in "B"-movie outright instead of masquerading as a zombie-splatter flick spoof. In "Undead," we get zombies, aliens (aliens?), laughs and gory head shots that are delivered to us in such a fashion, the film plays out like a head-on collision between each genre.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've seen enough zombie flicks over the last two years to know. I've seen enough over the last two years to realize that alongside comics and video games, zombie movies represent one of the remaining avenues left for truly innovative (if not completely original) film-making. After the success of the "Dawn of the Dead" remake, "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" and "Shaun of the Dead" last year, WE should not be surprised.

"Undead," unlike these films, did not receive a major distribution in the United States (it certainly didn't come to theaters anywhere where I live here in Virginia), and it's set in the Land Down Under. It's an exotic place, Australia, with beautiful seaside communities, friendly people, and nut-job backwoodsmen. The film takes place on the continent's fishing mecca Berkeley and as it opens, ominous meteorites have been raining down on the countryside, shooting through unsuspecting townspeople (leaving holes in them so big you can New Zealand), and turning them into flesh-hungry zombies.

Meanwhile, poor Rene (the strangely attractive, doe-eyed Felicity Mason), a recent "Catch of the Day" beauty queen, is on her way out of Berkeley when the occurrences begin. The bank has just foreclosed on her family's farm because of her deceased parents' skyrocketing debt and wants to say good-bye to this place once and for all. Well, one thing leads to another and she soon finds herself locked in the farmhouse of the town nut and survivalist Marion (Mungo McKay), who manages to save the frightened young woman from the legions of living dead lurching in the countryside. Along for the ride are Wayne (Rob Jenkins), his girlfriend(?) and Rene's beauty queen rival Sallyanne (Lisa Cunningham), and constables Harrison (Dirk Hunter) and Molly (Emma Randall).

"Undead" is boldly original in its own twisted, off-beat way. Some might say it's in bad taste. The strange thing is, they're correct. It's in "bad taste" the way the early zombie flicks of Peter Jackson were, or the "Evil Dead" films of Sam Raimi. Yet, in America, we hold those movies to some pretty high standards, though I doubt the same blessing will fall upon "Undead." The movie is indeed in bad taste and deliberately so, but unfortunately it seems to forget to also be watchable in ways to elevate itself above its bad-taste rating and into "B"-movie greatness, which it wants real bad.

Though you can't really hold that against it. There are some pretty good visual-effects zombie-kills, including a scene where young Rene takes a stick, attaches a saw blade to it, and swings away at approaching undead. Now that's creative thinking in exterminating zombies. It's also pretty funny in some spots with some wicked social commentary and jabs at American zombie movies, which suffices the plentiful gore. But unfortunately, creativity seems to go out the window with the somewhat unneeded alien invaders and their purpose in bringing the dead to life to chew on the flesh of the living. It's revealed why they are here but it is neither surprising or convincing - certainly the result of lackadaisical (or brain-dead?) writing on the part of the Spierigs.

Don't go in expecting Academy Award material performances either; if you do, you're a fool - plain & simple - you'll be as dead as the zombies if you do. Many of the characters are pretty unlikeable, as the only real ones you can relate to are Rene and Marion, the latter of whom has had an apparent run-in with the invaders before (killer fish!) and is ready this time, and Rene is pretty one-dimensional - what scream queen isn't? Still, there are plenty of scenes of Marion in action, dual-wielding handguns, Woo-style, and unloading literally hundreds of rounds into approaching hordes of zombies.

As far as "Undead" goes as a zombie movie, the Southern Hemisphere may have a winner on its hands. Horror seems to be the new "it" for aspiring filmmakers. Look at all those who started out in the genre and have graduated to greener pastures in the film-making community... well, some have. This obviously isn't the last we have heard from the Spierig Brothers, since, as the film's ending would lead you to believe, an "Undead 2" could hit American theaters in two years or so.

6/10

Rene (Felicity Mason), the town beauty queen of Berkley, Austrailia, wants desperately to get out. But as her and her boyfriend are driving out of town, meteorites fall from the sky turning various town-folk into rampaging zombies. When Rene's boyfriend gets changed, she watches as a mysterious stranger (whom we later learn is the town 'crazy') dispatches the now zombiefied BF. She decides to hole up in the isolated farmhouse of said 'kook'. It's soon up to her, the guy, a husband, his pregnant wife, and two cops to survive long enough to figure what the hell is going on.

This Aussie film, while hopelessly derivative and ripping-off a great many great genre movies, is still a lot of fun. It looks far better than it's budget would imply and gore-hounds will be satisfied. That being said, the acting isn't the greatest and the movie pretty much loses steam towards the end when it veers decidedly off-course. But it's still very enjoyable for fans of the genre.

My Grade: B-

Undead is certainly one of the better zombie movies to come over the last few years, but it is a movie of two halves. It starts out well; it's very gory and there is an abundant comedy angle, which is absurd and, at times, highly amusing. However, it takes a very ill-advised twist half way through and really, it spoils the movie.

This movie is penned and directed by the Spierig brothers, and this is their first movie. The cast doesn't feature any big names as for this is, for most of them, their first and only movie. The cast isn't very impressive, the acting isn't good and therefore non of them make an impression; but it doesn't matter because it's the effects that are the star of the show, not the acting. The effects on the zombies in the film are generally good, if a little overblown at times. The film does feature some action stunts, most of which seem of place in the movie. A lot of them are silly too; and I feel that lets the movie down.

This movie does, however, feature some very funny comedy moments. A lot of the one-liners hit the spot with regards to comedy, most notably the part of the film where the main characters find a huge fence erected around the town, to which one of the characters takes a jibe at his local council. However, some parts of the film, such as the part where the character of Rene slices her way through multiple zombies don't work well; so it's hit and miss with regards to comedy.

Despite it's failed attempt to be original with it's twist half way through, Undead is still a decent zombie movie, and is still therefore recommended to fans of the genre.

I caught Undead's second and final Festival screening last night, and it is just fantastic. I cannot understand how a film so cheap (cost about two million Australian, as I recall) could look so incredibly good. Most of the visual effects were done on a laptop, and they are just stunning. According to one of the Spierig brothers (the identical twins who wrote, directed, and produced the film, as well as managing the effects) the film contains 305 special effects, and maybe ten of those effects shots don't quite work.

Technicalities aside, it is also damned funny, extremely gory, and a whole lot of fun. The humour is not just slapstick gore, either - there are some priceless moments of character humour and a handful of absolutely classic lines, arguably the best of which can be heard at the end of the trailer. Surprisingly, the plot is quite strong, too, with a ripper of an ending that left me deeply impressed.

It isn't without its flaws - a few gags fall flat, the dialogue can be a bit hard to hear at times, the pacing is a tad shaky, and the final reel or two could do with a little bit of fat trimmed, plus the hero of the piece is just a bit annoying, with a whole lot of dialogue that is meant to be cheesy, but gets a bit TOO cheesy more than once - but for a first film made on a shoestring, it is just incredible. We are talking about the Bad Taste of the digital age.

I know it is getting a small mainstream cinema release here in Oz in early September, and I have heard it is getting a little release in the US and UK as well. Fans of early Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, and George Romero owe it to themselves to go along and laugh themselves sick.

I would like to point out before starting this review that I love Zombie films. I am the kind of person who appreciates the subtleties of this genre and am prepared to give most things like poor plots or bad special effects a fair chance. In many cases 'B' grade Zombie movies can be as good as 'A' grade ones in their ability to provide amusement as well as insightful social commentary. e.g. conformity vs. deviance etc, what it means to be human etc.

Having said all this, the Australian film 'Undead' would have to be one of the WORST Zombie films ever made. It is one of those few films that are so bad, you cannot even enjoy making fun of it. Its plotline is incredibly poorly put together, matched only by appalling performances given by the majority of the cast (perhaps with the exception of the female lead). The characters are as annoying and as they are unbelievable. displaying inconsistent behaviour right throughout the film. There is very little suspense offered to the audience which is made worse only by the obviously repeated special effects sequences. There is absolutely no clever social commentary made about Australian society or about even people in general. It was also difficult to empathise with the characters, which really limited the enjoyment factor of the movie.

The film does have a few good points, like the style of weapon the hero used and his overall combat proficiency (even though he was repeatedly stepped on by other characters in the film). The special effects were reasonably well done with plenty of gore in some parts. There were three notably funny scenes: one of a severely injured Zombie still walking around, another scene involving a zombie with a shovel, and a third entailing a discussion between two extraterrestrials. Other than that, the movie was utterly humourless. The heroine was smart, sexy and confident, but her good performance was regrettably drowned out by the horde of bad actors surrounding her.

Although the good points may seem promising, the film fails to 'live' up to its potential. Regrettably this movie does not have enough going for it to warrant seeing it at the cinema or even on video/DVD. I am fairly certain that even the most self respecting of Zombies would cringe at the production values of this film.

Both 'Bad Taste' and 'Braindead' (both horror comedies) have obviously inspired the Spierig brothers, Michael and Peter, but comparisons are not necessary. 'Undead' is its own movie: a blood spattering, one-liner comedy gore fest, with blood and laughs both frequent.

It is hilarious opening: the fact that this movie is horror is obvious, but the set up and background movie are like that of a happy rural sitcom. But first glances may well be deceptive. Meteores strike rapidly, causing chaos, as well as blowing up an old lady.

Miss 'Catch of the day' is on her way out of the little Australian fishing village, but her trip comes to a halt when a meteorite stops the trip and no later and zombie kills her driver. But then local weirdo farmer Marion (in an obvious Clint Eastwood spoof) pulls out a three shotgun, er, shotgun and blows the zombie body apart in hilariously gory detail, leaving an even funnier sequence- a walking spine, resembling that of a tall headless chicken.

They are forced to hide out in his heavily protected farmhouse as well as others (including a foul mouthed cop) who seems to swear unnecessarily, but has some brilliant lines: "I'll f*ckin finish you off faster than a f*ckin birthday cake at a fat chicks f*ckin party!" or "in our day, we respected our parents: we didn't f*ckin eat em!"

In short, Undead is an enjoyable horror comedy with occasional flashes of sly genius to keep everyone happy.

*** out of **** (3 out of 4)

What a piece of crap. It is D- level camp. I felt ripped off. The trailer makes it look like a decent zombie movie like the recent zombie flicks like 28 Days, Dawn of the Dead, and Land of the Dead. Instead you get this campy piece of garbage that is too stupid to even laugh at. If you like ridiculous films, by all means go see, if you don't, stay away at all costs. Bad acting can be handled as can bad writing but when you combine them it is exponentially horrible. This kind of zombie movie will set the genre back instead of moving it forward. Lion's Gate Films should be ashamed of themselves for trying to take advantage of the resurgence of zombie movie popularity by dusting off some three year old straight to video turd they have lying around. I was wondering why it wasn't in wide release, now I know.

Berkley, small town in the backwoods of Australia. One sunny day turns suddenly for worse, when a meteor storm raids over the village, turning everyone in to a brain munching zombies.

But soon it comes evident, that it's the aliens who are behind all this.

Well, the heroes of the film are our regular ragged bunch of men and women, some of them cool, some of them nervous as bleep. Two cops, pregnant woman, woman with problems, a pilot and a village idiot. And only the village idiot seems to know whats going on. Or does he?

Undead is your typical small budget, gore infested zombie flick, with a one difference: it has actually pretty neat special effects and some of the photography is pretty good looking.

But, then it comes to the plot: some jokes work, some don't. Behaviour of people stranded in Berkley doesn't have any sense at all, mostly they are just running around.

But thanks to good directing this movie rises above the most poorest excuses of the genre.

It certainly is watchable.

I've seen quite a few positive reviews of this movie, which, quite frankly, disgust me. This movie is apparently trying to be a comedy/drama/horror/sci-fi flick at the same time...none of which are executed well. A bad comedian in rainbow suspenders is funnier than this movie. Seriously, this movie is not funny unless you have a very, very simple sense of humor. In fact, the only funny thing about this movie is the reviews on the back cover. "Everything about this film is exceptional" - Harry Knowles. I'd say this movie was exceptional if someone passed me a check, too.

The acting in this movie is so atrocious I'm hesitant to even call it acting at all. They blame it on a low budget; doing one or two takes for most scenes. This doesn't make it commendable, though. The plot is original, but executed very poorly. The visuals were average, the plot was "loose" at best, and the characters were just plain lame and uninteresting.

It truly was a pain to finish this film and I can tolerate a lot of crap in movies. I was so enraged that I paid $7 for this trash; I literally blew it to smithereens with a 20-gauge shotgun the day after I viewed it.

Is this movie funny? No. Is it scary in any way? No. Is it interesting? No. Is it worth watching? Not even in the slightest bit. PLEASE don't torture yourself and rent/buy this movie. Heck, don't even watch it for free.

While leaving Berkeley through a shortcut after a meteor shower, the former 2002 Miss Catch of the Day Queen René Chaplin (Felicity Mason) and her boyfriend are forced to stop their car due to an accident on the road. However he is attacked by a zombie and René is saved by the fisherman Marion (Mungo McKay). They run to his small farm, Marion's World of Weapon, and Marion explains that he had been abducted by the aliens while fishing and the acid rain is part of the big plan of aliens. Sooner a small group of survivors reach the spot and they have to fight against the zombies and try to escape to another town. However, they find that aliens built a wall around the area and are abducting the people.

What a great surprise this "Undead" is! The story begins like George Romero's classic "The Night of the Living Dead", is a splatter movie, like Peter Jackson's "Brainded" or "Bad Taste", or Philip Brophy's "Body Melt" and mixes horror with sci-fi in a very funny way. The weak point is the imbecile character of the police officer, who was supposed to be funny, but it is annoying with his stupid lines and attitude. The smart conclusion, when the outbreak is spread by the pilot Wayne, is a little confused and should be developed more clearly. The special effects are excellent. Therefore, "Undead" is a gory zombie movie that deserves to be discovered by fans of trash-movies and with a great potential of cult-movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Canibais" ("Cannibals")

Note: On 24 June 2010, I saw this movie again.

Who else has grown tired of these zombie movies? The last good one was the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and even that one didn't do too great. This summer, we are being plagued with not one, but two zombie flicks. Why anyone would release two films that are simple mirror images of one another is beyond me. Following George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, Undead (is there an echo in here?)is doomed to failure. Not to say the the previous flick will be any better, but with a lower budget, unknown cast, poor release timing, and horrible effects/gun play, who will want to sit through another 1:30 of what they saw two weeks before? Who cares if it takes place in Australia, such a grand twist though it may be, zombies are zombies! Originality goes out the window when anyone tackles this genre of film and you know what to expect if you ever see one. In short, Undead will most likely cling to the tail feathers of it's more popular predecessor for about two weeks and then become just another mediocre horror rental cluttering video store shelves nationwide.

Another great splatter horror film from the Southern Hemisphere! It is so rare these days to set eyes upon a film that is not subjected to the boring, rehashed, commercially-hungry, modern American sub-genre of horror movies such as Cabin Fever and a host of recent slasher movies that try, beyond hope, to scare or shock the viewer by throwing as much blood and fast camera movement ("Boo, are you scared?") at the screen, with little to no success. Undead finally gets back to the roots of true splatter horror in a way that would make Jackson and Raimi proud and is a superb treat to the mature viewer who has grown up with these classics and is not simply into gratuitous pure shock-value.

Undead is "cheesy" and off-the-cuff. It pays hommage to a number of cult classics out there such as Romero's Trilogy of the Dead (the isolated farmhouse from NotLD, "Let's shop!" from Dawn and the police powerplay from Day), Raimi's Evil Dead ("Join us!"), Jackson's Braindead (the shovel in the bank manager's head) and Bad Taste (the alien contingent and appearance).

Do not expect great acting (though I am sure these actors are more than capable of doing so) or a totally original script (though the ending was actually quite unusual and surprised me), for this is not what this film is about. It is about having a fun 2 hours and, in my opinion, rewarding the fans of cult classic splatter horror (and hopefully introducing a number of younger individuals to this fantastic genre).

Not a great film, but a fun (non-American, something that is so rare these days) film!

Undead is for zombie lovers or at least those zombie lovers on an acid trip. It is one of the craziest flicks I have ever seen. Admittedly, there was a juncture about two-thirds in where I almost turned it off, shaking my head at its absurdity, but I didn't and I am glad for it.

Meteorites shower an Australian town converting the majority of its folks into flesh (and gooey brain) eating zombies. Amidst acid rain, a select few are saved by the local alien-abducted nutcase who has prepared an arsenal in anticipation of the end of the world. Armed and amusingly un-ready, the group tries to escape their situation only to discover all is not what it seems.

Undead makes you sick (try the zombie who trips over his own discarded stomach). Undead makes you laugh. Undead has you shaking your fist in the air (cheering on Marion and his triple-barreled shotgun) yelling "Kick some zombie ass!" Undead pisses you off. Undead leaves you puzzled. Undead does not relent. Peculiar as it may be, I loved it.

What were they thinking when they made this movie? The attempt at artsy with the filter was so misplaced when you look at the context of the movie. Poor sound fx, a poor story, poor characters, they couldn't stick to a genre of film, and just an overall frustrating feel you get from the lack of cohesiveness in the movie make this one of the worst films that I have ever seen. I should have just turned it off when I saw how the zombies were created and then my second clue should have come after I saw the make up of the zombies. My biggest beef with the movie; how they combined all the genres into one mess of a movie. We had aliens, zombie people, zombie fish, some sort of character struggle between two characters that was never explained, and a whole bunch of themes wrapped into one. This movie was almost laughable, if I hadn't wasted my time. When one of the characters shoots guns from his pockets, we are graced with a comic book "boing" noise that is suppose to accompany a serious moment in the movie. I would not recommend this movie to anybody. Save your time and money by seeing another good zombie flick, if that is what you are after. I am a huge fan of the zombie genre and this has let me down.

Something is seriously wrong in the quiet Queensland hamlet of Berkeley: rocks are falling from the sky, carrying a virus that turns local residents into flesh-crazed fiends. And that's just the start of the powerhouse slam-bang debut from Brisbane twin filmmakers Peter and Michael Spierig, an audacious triumph of invention and imagination over budget and genre constraints. Even more remarkable is the fact that two local Brisbane boys have achieved the impossible and created an original Aussie zombie epic that is set to lay waste to the international horror community.

Ever the post-80s horror boom cultural vultures, Spierigs plunder shamelessly from the expected sources - the grey apocalypticism of George A Romero's Dead trilogy, the outrageous gore setpieces of Peter Jackson's blood-soaked Bad Taste and Braindead, the camera histronics of early Sam Raimi and Coen Brothers efforts - while breathing new life into the long-exhausted zombie cycle and making a film that is entirely their own. Undead marries a wholly unpredictable narrative, jawdropping effects (graphic enough for the most jaded of gorehounds) and a frighteningly assured grasp of cinematic language. As expected there's buckets of gallows humour, but the film never trades cheap laughs for its primary purpose: delivering good old-fashioned blood-curdling shocks.

If Aussie horror is a dead duck, Undead blows it out of the water.

This is the biggest disgrace for the Australian film industry. A concept which had potential, but was let down by a very bad script, Very very bad acting, bad production work, bad CGI. In fact everything about this movie was VERY BAD.

Technically this film was inferior, the whole camera movement within the bomb shelter, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!! these people obviously had no idea on how to make a film. The director, director of photography as well as the camera man and editor should all be shot on site.

But i don't blame then, i blame the producers and anyone else who gave them the funding to make such a utter piece of crap. Movies like this are the reason why the Australian film industry is nearly dead. Heaven help us film makers in the future, What will become of us???

I am surprised to see the score for this film is relatively low. Granted, it is not as good as other zombie/comedy films such as 'Dead Alive' or the all time great 'Shaun of the Dead', but it is a lot better than most of the tripe put out the last four or five years since 'The Walking Dead' has become all the rage. Not slamming it or any other more well known zombie films, I am referring more to the thousands of zombie films that have gone direct to DVD or are made by the SyFy channel. Is the film perfect? Absolutely not as there are so many plot holes and inconsistencies it is insane, but at the same time, I do not think a film that has a guy completely naked at one point and pulling guns out of nowhere the next is a film that one should take too seriously either.

The story has a relatively small town being bombarded with meteors that quickly transform most of the population into bloodthirsty zombies. You get to meet some of the town's population at first, but it does go by quickly as soon the town's local beauty queen finds herself besieged by hordes of the undead. A man rescues her and she soon finds herself at this person's house trying to hide out with other survivors. Soon they have to try to make it to the local hospital as one of the survivors is pregnant. As they try to escape they soon come across a huge wall encompassing the entire town and it quickly becomes apparent that there is more going on than a simple zombie outbreak.

I thought the film did do a good job for the most part as it flowed pretty quickly. The one guy did look exactly like Torgo from 'Manos: The Hands of Fate' albeit with better knees, and I have to wonder if that was done purposely or not. The other characters do a fairly good job, but once again this is not as good as Shaun of the Dead as the acting is much better in that particular film. Another problem with the film is that it lags on a bit too much at the end. It proceeds so quickly for the most part then it just kind of takes forever for the film to finish as there is a lot of staring going on. They could have easily trimmed the film 5 or 10 minutes and kept the quicker pace. Still, it was a spot of fun and I loved all the gun stuff with the one character who looked like Torgo. I wish more of the film had been focused on him as he exits the film in confusing fashion at one point as suddenly he is on the ground and it is not apparent how this happened.

So, I enjoyed this film a good deal. Still think there are numerous zombie films with comedy that are better, but I still think this one is better than a lot of the newer stuff released recently. It is fast paced for the most part, but does kind of lag near the end. The gore is pretty decent, never getting as gory as say 'Dead Alive', but with enough to keep things messy. A few twists here and there keep the film interesting too as this is not your typical zombie outbreak. Still, it is so strange how much that guy looked like Torgo, only he was not a servant of the master, but rather a mentor!

UNDEAD (2005) 0 * Arguably one of the worst films I've ever seen – nonsensical hodgepodge about a meteorite shower causing an Australian fishing village to become zombies with it's so-sure-of-itself-smugness incorporating (ok --- Stealing! Robert Rodriguez camera angles, "Matrix" type pacings and Peter Jackson's seminal "DeadAlive" to name three counts of plagiarism) far too many hybrids and quite frankly a real mess overall. I realize low-budget independent movies should be given some slack but the bargain basement bloodiness (while plentiful) is the least of this film's problems. There is no rhyme or reason to the film as it progresses and by the end it doesn't explain anything that has just transpired (or even attempts too!) I'm not even going to include the lame cast and simply say the directors : Michael & Peter Spierig should just give it all up and stop while they're behind. Atrocious!

I so expected to hate this film. I had very low expectations for this film. People here on IMDb seem to hate it with a passion. I hardly see anyone talk about it. So when I decided to rent the movie ..I thought to myself ..Why should I rent this one? then I realized because I like renting all types of horror films ..the good the bad and the ugly. And because I had nothing else to do that Friday night.

The premises of Undead is meteors and what seems to be burning water rains from the sky on a small Austrialian town turning people into vicious zombies. Let me just put it out there.. if you are looking for a scary zombie movie... rent Night of the Living Dead 68'. But if you are looking for a very comical outlook on the zombie genre .. rent Shaun of the Dead ...then rent Undead.

I found myself laughing and found myself very into this movie. The movie is not high and mighty great by any standards and the movie feels like you are on acid sometimes but it's very enjoyable and it's a fun rental. My favorite character out of them all is of course Marion. He is this gun tooting slinging guy that could be Neo's (Matrix) side kick if he was asked to. Take a shot and rent it if you have not yet.

In a nutshell, UNDEAD is a tedious and tiresome film. I am a lover of the zombie genre. Love it to death. Can't get enough of them. I will watch any type of zombie film, from no-budget to big-budget and enjoy them all the same. But UNDEAD, a film that I had eagerly anticipated, tried my patience. I can't stress enough how much I looked forward to this movie, and how much I love the genre. But UNDEAD is simply...UNbearable.

In short: the characters are not funny, but are in fact grating on the nerves. The actors are amateurs and do not sell their roles. The script is horrible and reeks of over compensation. The story is gibberish and, by movie's end, becomes so convoluted that it becomes completely incomprehensible. I dare anyone out there who raves about this movie to tell me the purpose of the alien invasion.

Other things: the action direction was nice, even though it gets repetitive. In fact, the entire movie is repetitive, consisting of basically the same sequence repeated over and over. To wit: Marion saves survivors; survivors insult Marion and take away his gun at gunpoint; Marion saves survivors again; repeat sequence. I guess the filmmakers could only come up with one idea and just decided to repeat it ad nauseum.

Overall, UNDEAD is a poor zombie movie. Worst, it attempts to be "more" than a zombie movie, and only succeeded in being unbelievably tedious, dull, repetitive, and amateurish.

2 out of 10

I usually stay away from the genre of horror / comedy blend, because I enjoy straight horror movies! But Undead was highly recommended so I watched it. It's a real nice ride all the way through! You get a bit of everything in this movie: zombies, aliens, gore. Don't gripe to me about how this movie rips off from other movies. I haven't seen a horror movie for forty years that didn't rip off something from somewhere else. Undead is a small gem of a movie, and a lot better than anything I've seen come out of Italy. I spend a lot of time watching horror movies and this one did not strike me as any kind of copycat.

I'm often amazed at the garbage Hollywood churns out on enormous budgets. Independence Day comes to mind. These small budget movies are very often so much better.

This movie will appeal to a wide range of people. If you enjoyed Army Of Darkness, you will like it. If you enjoyed Night Of The Living Dead, you will enjoy it too. A very nice effort from the Australians. Thanks!

7/10

So, I read on the cover that this was the most original zombie film in a long time. I probably should have checked closer, because it was stated by Harry Knowles, who is prone to such blanket statements of hyperbole. Sometimes I wonder if he even watches the films that he gets all worked up about, or if somebody just passes him an envelope with money and the name of their movie on it. Anyways, this movie would have been original if not for the films of Romero, the Evil Dead series, Brain Dead, Return of the Living Dead, Zombi, every zombie film ever made. This movie repeatedly pilfers from each and every one of them, primarily Evil Dead 2. Now, this will be explained away as "homage", which is a sorry attempt to rationalize unoriginal thinking. Come on, Quentin Tarantino tried it with Kill Bill, and people didn't buy it. In fact, I bet Tarantino LOVES this film. Everything about this film screams rip off. The zombies even yell "Join us" towards the beginning of the film, and there are several camera angles taken from Evil Dead 2, and the zombies even move and look like the Deadites. There's also an anti-hero with an unlimited supply of guns. Hm, sound familiar? OK, I understand this film is not intended to be taken seriously, and it was an attempt at making an Evil Dead type film blending slap-sticky elements with horror,but even a parody should be well made (See Shaun of the Dead, please). This film smacks of cheap production values. The awful CGI(just because it could be done in CGI, doesn't mean it should be), acting, cinematography, directing, screen writing(yes, saying the f word is fun!), and soundtrack (so, is this a light hearted comedy from the mid 50's?) all work together to make a really unimpressive experience. I understand the low budget, but if you're creative enough, you can make it work even within the confines of a limited money supply (again, see Shaun of the Dead, or this films inspiration, Evil Dead 2). This film isn't totally hopeless. The gore effects, a staple of the zombie genre, are done well, and the whole twist at the end is unexpected, but otherwise, you're better off seeing the better films that this one stole from.

I'm Australian, so i know what a bad movie is. this surprisingly enough isn't one. They only thing missing from this movie to keep it from touching the stars (so to speak) is originality. it has everything else, its funny and violent, and even thru bad acting you can see a great vision. but for me this movie was so good that i can hardly believe it was made by a couple of aussies. Aussie horror has not always been met with open arms by the horror fraternity but hopefully this will erase some of the embarrassment of the horrible horror we have produced.

on top of that this movie has aliens comfortable with being naked, i didn't see that in signs.

For a movie made on a budget of under 1 million dollars Australian, this was an amazing film. The final sequence was a piece of brilliance and the visual effects were credible, compared to other films. The acting was raw but I though good, with a great deal of adlibbing. The story borrows a bit from the earlier Zombie trilogy the brothers created in their University days, but polished and more purposeful. I though they used what they had well and this movie is a definite to see for a lighthearted Zombie flick. P.S. I may be biased as it is an Australian film.