For my moviegoing public: Undead
Sep. 27th, 2007 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylSometimes as we're channel surfing, I'll spot a movie that I know Tery would only watch with me if she were in a persistent vegetative state (we often joke that I'll eventually get her to see Buffy and all the Harry Potter movies that way). How did I live before I could just push one button to record it and go merrily on my way? However, very few DVD purchases have found their way into my collecton from these spur-of-the-moment gambles.
Undead will be no exception. This is the synopsis that lured me in: "A quaint Australian fishing village is overcome by meteorites that turn its residents into the ravenous undead, leaving a small group of those unharmed to find a way out." Okay, so I watch trash from time to time. Hence the Tivo'ing, because Tery would rather watch stuff like Ken Burns' "The War."
In all fairness, I missed the first three minutes or so, though I doubt it would have helped much to clear up my confusion. Meteorites start falling to earth and transforming Aussies into zombies. A small contingent of survivors makes their way to a farmhouse owned by Torgo's younger, svelter brother. They are: the new local beauty pageant winner (Rene), the fallen beauty pageant winner (pregnant Sallyanne), her boyfriend (this movie's "Game over, man!" man) and two totally inept cops (the female of the pair sporting a country fair straw police hat, quite authoritative).
Torgo Jr. is a total bad-ass, armed to the teeth and executing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-like fight moves (which are at times unnecessarily showy; like, he can't just reach behind and pull out two pistols, he has to whip them up high over his head and then catch them in front). However, it isn't long before the zombies overrun the house, forcing the group down into the basement, and then into the sub-basement, which is actually a bomb shelter -- a bomb shelter without a drop of water or a crumb of food, leading one to wonder what the point of it is.
Everyone is understandably hysterical, faced with the choice of death at the hands of the zombies or through slow starvation and dehydration, but what do the girls scream about? Sallyanne starts accusing Rene of cheating in the pageant, complaining that the title would still be hers had she not gotten knocked up (as if that was Rene's fault, and as if a beauty queen crown is the most pressing issue right at that moment). It doesn't say much about the women of the town that both of these girls are quite homely, and Rene seems incapable of forming any facial expression other than intense, wide-eyed concern, but that's neither here nor there.
Once everyone calms down, they all go to sleep, while Rene looks on with wide-eyed concern. The peace is shattered when Sallyanne starts having contractions, naturally, which is the needed impetus to get out of the shelter (not starvation or dehydration, or suffering both while being trapped with such annoying and unlikeable people). There's another brief skirmish upstairs, the only point of which seems to be to showcase more of Torgo's mad gun skillz and confirm for us that everyone else in the group really are too stupid to shut up and avoid attracting more undead.
There's some nonsense about acid rain, which Torgo blames the zombies on -- we see a flashback of him fishing when his boat is hit with a meteor light, which reanimates his catches, who comically hurl themselves at his face repeatedly before being blown to bits with his gun. Then the acid rain starts. He swears he was abducted by aliens, whom he must have fought off because they returned him without a scratch.
Back in the present they get doused in more rain and are forced to strip before getting to a store and stealing some clothes. The only full nudity we see is Torgo, who blessedly shares the ass and hips but not the hideously deformed legs of his namesake. They're attacked again, by zombies and then by aliens, who wear Ringwraith cloaks and have a blinding light shining out where their faces should be.
They drive and drive, only to come up against a towering wall that looks like a vertical night sky with huge spikes sticking out of it. The male cop decides to climb it, falls from the top and dies. Right about now I stopped paying very close attention, writing the whole movie off as a bad job. Zombies start attacking again and rain starts falling again. An effort is made to take off in a private plane, but there's trouble and everyone but the boyfriend retreats to the van. The lady cop is attacked and changed to a zombie, but then when Torgo goes to retrieve her, we see that she's fine. But then she's sucked up in the ray of alien light that's now sucking up zombies, after they're turned human again.
Rene gets sucked up, which is how we get to see that all the villagers are human and hanging suspended in the air like stars. The boyfriend gets the plane working and starts flying through them, nicking a few on the way unfortunately. Somehow Rene meets the aliens, who are squidlike under their cloaks, and she learns that the rain was sent by them to help against the zombies...I think. She's released, the aliens fly away and everything is restored to normal.
Which I could have handled if there wasn't this epilogue tacked on. Torgo and Rene are in a hospital, where he's lecturing her about how the strongest is always the last surviving, and if he isn't the strongest then she must be. The boyfriend is lurching about and no one notices him change into a zombie (spontaneously?) He attacks Torgo, blah blah blah. By the end Rene is running a shelter for survivors, waiting (for months, she says) for the alien rain to come back while she guards a ranch corral full of zombies, eyeing them with a wide-eyed concern.
The End
What??
It's obviously supposed to be funny. If the Road Runner soundtrack and choreography doesn't tip you off, the over-the-top cartoon gore such as I haven't seen since Pete Jackson's Dead Alive should. People over at the IMDb boards are polarized predictably, but I HATE people who use the argument, "If you didn't like this, you just didn't get it and obviously you're an idiot." No. I got it. It just wasn't that funny. You want funny zombies, now Shaun of the Dead, THAT was funny. This was just nonsensical, pointless and confusing. 1 out of 5, and I want those damn 97 minutes back, Spierig Brothers.
~*~
I've changed my default icon at Tery's request. Apparently she tried to show her mom my London posts and the poor woman found it impossible to tear her eyes away from my writhing Trent. Sorry, Mrs. D.
Undead will be no exception. This is the synopsis that lured me in: "A quaint Australian fishing village is overcome by meteorites that turn its residents into the ravenous undead, leaving a small group of those unharmed to find a way out." Okay, so I watch trash from time to time. Hence the Tivo'ing, because Tery would rather watch stuff like Ken Burns' "The War."
In all fairness, I missed the first three minutes or so, though I doubt it would have helped much to clear up my confusion. Meteorites start falling to earth and transforming Aussies into zombies. A small contingent of survivors makes their way to a farmhouse owned by Torgo's younger, svelter brother. They are: the new local beauty pageant winner (Rene), the fallen beauty pageant winner (pregnant Sallyanne), her boyfriend (this movie's "Game over, man!" man) and two totally inept cops (the female of the pair sporting a country fair straw police hat, quite authoritative).
Torgo Jr. is a total bad-ass, armed to the teeth and executing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-like fight moves (which are at times unnecessarily showy; like, he can't just reach behind and pull out two pistols, he has to whip them up high over his head and then catch them in front). However, it isn't long before the zombies overrun the house, forcing the group down into the basement, and then into the sub-basement, which is actually a bomb shelter -- a bomb shelter without a drop of water or a crumb of food, leading one to wonder what the point of it is.
Everyone is understandably hysterical, faced with the choice of death at the hands of the zombies or through slow starvation and dehydration, but what do the girls scream about? Sallyanne starts accusing Rene of cheating in the pageant, complaining that the title would still be hers had she not gotten knocked up (as if that was Rene's fault, and as if a beauty queen crown is the most pressing issue right at that moment). It doesn't say much about the women of the town that both of these girls are quite homely, and Rene seems incapable of forming any facial expression other than intense, wide-eyed concern, but that's neither here nor there.
Once everyone calms down, they all go to sleep, while Rene looks on with wide-eyed concern. The peace is shattered when Sallyanne starts having contractions, naturally, which is the needed impetus to get out of the shelter (not starvation or dehydration, or suffering both while being trapped with such annoying and unlikeable people). There's another brief skirmish upstairs, the only point of which seems to be to showcase more of Torgo's mad gun skillz and confirm for us that everyone else in the group really are too stupid to shut up and avoid attracting more undead.
There's some nonsense about acid rain, which Torgo blames the zombies on -- we see a flashback of him fishing when his boat is hit with a meteor light, which reanimates his catches, who comically hurl themselves at his face repeatedly before being blown to bits with his gun. Then the acid rain starts. He swears he was abducted by aliens, whom he must have fought off because they returned him without a scratch.
Back in the present they get doused in more rain and are forced to strip before getting to a store and stealing some clothes. The only full nudity we see is Torgo, who blessedly shares the ass and hips but not the hideously deformed legs of his namesake. They're attacked again, by zombies and then by aliens, who wear Ringwraith cloaks and have a blinding light shining out where their faces should be.
They drive and drive, only to come up against a towering wall that looks like a vertical night sky with huge spikes sticking out of it. The male cop decides to climb it, falls from the top and dies. Right about now I stopped paying very close attention, writing the whole movie off as a bad job. Zombies start attacking again and rain starts falling again. An effort is made to take off in a private plane, but there's trouble and everyone but the boyfriend retreats to the van. The lady cop is attacked and changed to a zombie, but then when Torgo goes to retrieve her, we see that she's fine. But then she's sucked up in the ray of alien light that's now sucking up zombies, after they're turned human again.
Rene gets sucked up, which is how we get to see that all the villagers are human and hanging suspended in the air like stars. The boyfriend gets the plane working and starts flying through them, nicking a few on the way unfortunately. Somehow Rene meets the aliens, who are squidlike under their cloaks, and she learns that the rain was sent by them to help against the zombies...I think. She's released, the aliens fly away and everything is restored to normal.
Which I could have handled if there wasn't this epilogue tacked on. Torgo and Rene are in a hospital, where he's lecturing her about how the strongest is always the last surviving, and if he isn't the strongest then she must be. The boyfriend is lurching about and no one notices him change into a zombie (spontaneously?) He attacks Torgo, blah blah blah. By the end Rene is running a shelter for survivors, waiting (for months, she says) for the alien rain to come back while she guards a ranch corral full of zombies, eyeing them with a wide-eyed concern.
The End
What??
It's obviously supposed to be funny. If the Road Runner soundtrack and choreography doesn't tip you off, the over-the-top cartoon gore such as I haven't seen since Pete Jackson's Dead Alive should. People over at the IMDb boards are polarized predictably, but I HATE people who use the argument, "If you didn't like this, you just didn't get it and obviously you're an idiot." No. I got it. It just wasn't that funny. You want funny zombies, now Shaun of the Dead, THAT was funny. This was just nonsensical, pointless and confusing. 1 out of 5, and I want those damn 97 minutes back, Spierig Brothers.
~*~
I've changed my default icon at Tery's request. Apparently she tried to show her mom my London posts and the poor woman found it impossible to tear her eyes away from my writhing Trent. Sorry, Mrs. D.
