I watched a film by the name of UNDEAD today. Normally I don't voluntarily subject myself to this sort of punishment, at least not when there isn't friends and booze to help turn that frown upside down, but I've gotten it into my head to take my ultimate zombie screenplay seriously again and I thought I'd do a little research...
Considering I had never previously heard of it, I should have assumed that all the creator's creative energies went into the title and left it languishing in the seemingly endless Netflix archives where it properly belongs... but I didn't. The film starts out with our hero Rene learning that she's losing the family farm. Now the actress who plays Rene bears a resemblance to what Elijah Wood would look like if he had a botched sex change operation and wore a bad wig. A couple minutes in, we learn that Rene has recently won the local beauty pageant and I quickly rescind one of my obviously not as timeless as I thought movie maxims - that there is no such thing as gratuitous nudity - and pray to whatever deity might be listening that everyone manages to keep their clothes on.
It's amazing what passes for cool in a zombie movie. A meteor shower causes the initial outbreak just as Elijah/Rene leaves town with her new agent, but don't worry, they don't get very far. You remember the Club, don't you? The number one selling mechanical anti-theft device for cars and trucks in the 90s? Well, the plucky heroine uses one to slice a zombie in half. However, you're not given time to consider the mechanics of slicing a human being in half with a blunt object as the newly undead agent is blasted from behind by a man who constantly looks down for the sole purpose (it would seem) of having his hat obscure his face. The assailant drops his shotgun only to pull a bar-welded triple shotgun from his back to split the zombie in half, which begs the question of why he didn't just start with that one in the first place. Our mystery man departs and the heroine runs into the forest in time for the acid rain. Despite the fact that she started smoking immediately, she arrives relatively unscathed under the awning of a wood house which seems to be holding up quite well given the severely inclement weather. Again though, you aren't given time to ponder, as the clouds open to emit beams of light which retrieve giant mutant grasshoppers. The house, as it turns out, belongs to our hat-donning mystery man who, while unpacking his baked beans, ominously intones "Those things you saw out there are only the beginning of the end." The end of what, you, like our beleaguered heroine, question. "The world, the universe, everything," he replies in a tone of voice that makes you believe it's a Douglas Adams novel gone horribly, horribly wrong. Of course, he intones everything ominously, so it might just be a coincidence.
The film quickly loses its novelty from there. However, if one is willing to look past the bad dialogue, annoying one-dimensional characters, tired and relatively unfunny zombie humor, logical inconsistencies, general bad taste and lack of comprehensible story, then UNDEAD is amazingly well shot and has unbelievable special effects for a low-budget film.
Considering I had never previously heard of it, I should have assumed that all the creator's creative energies went into the title and left it languishing in the seemingly endless Netflix archives where it properly belongs... but I didn't. The film starts out with our hero Rene learning that she's losing the family farm. Now the actress who plays Rene bears a resemblance to what Elijah Wood would look like if he had a botched sex change operation and wore a bad wig. A couple minutes in, we learn that Rene has recently won the local beauty pageant and I quickly rescind one of my obviously not as timeless as I thought movie maxims - that there is no such thing as gratuitous nudity - and pray to whatever deity might be listening that everyone manages to keep their clothes on.
It's amazing what passes for cool in a zombie movie. A meteor shower causes the initial outbreak just as Elijah/Rene leaves town with her new agent, but don't worry, they don't get very far. You remember the Club, don't you? The number one selling mechanical anti-theft device for cars and trucks in the 90s? Well, the plucky heroine uses one to slice a zombie in half. However, you're not given time to consider the mechanics of slicing a human being in half with a blunt object as the newly undead agent is blasted from behind by a man who constantly looks down for the sole purpose (it would seem) of having his hat obscure his face. The assailant drops his shotgun only to pull a bar-welded triple shotgun from his back to split the zombie in half, which begs the question of why he didn't just start with that one in the first place. Our mystery man departs and the heroine runs into the forest in time for the acid rain. Despite the fact that she started smoking immediately, she arrives relatively unscathed under the awning of a wood house which seems to be holding up quite well given the severely inclement weather. Again though, you aren't given time to ponder, as the clouds open to emit beams of light which retrieve giant mutant grasshoppers. The house, as it turns out, belongs to our hat-donning mystery man who, while unpacking his baked beans, ominously intones "Those things you saw out there are only the beginning of the end." The end of what, you, like our beleaguered heroine, question. "The world, the universe, everything," he replies in a tone of voice that makes you believe it's a Douglas Adams novel gone horribly, horribly wrong. Of course, he intones everything ominously, so it might just be a coincidence.
The film quickly loses its novelty from there. However, if one is willing to look past the bad dialogue, annoying one-dimensional characters, tired and relatively unfunny zombie humor, logical inconsistencies, general bad taste and lack of comprehensible story, then UNDEAD is amazingly well shot and has unbelievable special effects for a low-budget film.
especially with the zombie fish haha