Undead (Review)

     After watching "Daybreakers," I was somewhat impressed with the Spierig Brothers.  I wondered if they had done anything else, and they had.  In 2003, they had made a zombie movie called "Undead."  What luck.  I love zombie movies and these two seem like promising new film makers.  "Undead" went right to the top of my Netflix queue.  Turns out that was a bad call.

     "Undead" is a (comedy?) zombie movie about a small Australian town that gets pelted by a meteor shower which quickly turns the residents of the town into zombies.  A small handful of survivors huddle together to fight off the zombie hordes, but that's only part of the story; there's also mysterious acid rain, alien abduction, and a huge spiked wall now surrounding the town and our heroes are slowly getting eaten, infected, abducted, or otherwise picked off. 

     I couldn't really tell if the Spierig Brothers had meant to make a zombie comedy, a spoof of horror movies, or just a B movie, but whatever their intent, they failed.  If "Undead" is meant to be funny, it's not.  Cliches, bad acting, stereotypical plots, and overkill gore are not funny on their own; they're just boring and tedious.  The story was original, but that only makes "Undead" seem more like a genuine attempt at a movie, and if that's the case, B movie would be a compliment.  I understand that this is a low budget film that was written, directed, produced, and edited by two people, but it still falls short by any standard.  (I suppose it could gain a cult following.)

     I look forward to the Spierig Brothers' future projects, but I am now weary of their other past works.   (All one of them.)