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Title:
Undead: Widescreen
Region:
One
Genre:
Horror Sci-Fi Dark Comedy
Stars:
Felicity Mason, Mungo McKay, Rob Jenkins, Lisa Cunningham, Dirk Hunter, and Emma
Randall
Writers:
The Spierg Brothers
Director:
The Spierg Brothers
Feature
length: 97 minutes
Extras:
Crew Commentary, Cast Commentary, “Making Of” Featurette, “Zombie
Internet” Featurette, “Midnight Madness” – Toronto Film Festival
Footage, Camera and Makeup Tests, Homemade Dolly Construction Video, Animatic To
Film Comparison, Deleted Scenes, Extended Scenes, Supernova Convention Footage,
Artwork and Design Sketches, Trailers
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions and French and Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging:
Amaray Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 20
Sound:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Year
of American Theatrical Release: 2005/DVD Release: 2005
American
Theatrical Distributor: Lions Gate Films
Home
Video Distributor: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
“Undead”
was produced before the recent explosion of zombie films that have appeared in
movie theaters for the last four years. The Australian import made its US
theatrical debut this past summer around the same time George A. Romero’s
“Land Of The Dead” was making it’s theatrical rounds in the States. Now
since “Undead” is an independent film produced by novice filmmakers, it
would be unfair to use this as an example of a film that tries to imitate George
Romero’s living dead genre, but I cannot help but think that perhaps the only
reason why it got a theatrical release was in part because of Romero’s return
to the genre he created as well as all of the other zombie flicks that have
opened theatrically to varied success. Personally I think the interest in the
zombie film as mainstream entertainment is no different from the revival of the
slasher film that occurred in the mid 1990s with the success of “Scream.”
Just as that fad ran it’s course, I believe that the height of the rediscovery
of the genre has already passed even though I have no doubt that there will be a
few more films featuring flesh eating ghouls on both the big and small screen
will appear before the popular interest in the zombie film goes back to the
grave for perhaps another generation.
“Undead”
is inventive with a mix of makeup CGI effects that are actually quite impressive
for a foreign independent film. Unfortunately, a key aspect of why I thought the
film had some interesting elements cannot be discussed because of spoilers. Yet
even if I were to try to explain it, the truth is that it really doesn’t make
a whole lot of sense anyway. The reason why the dead are returning to life in
this film seems more of a distraction to lengthen the picture and make it seem
like the viewer is witnessing something new, but the truth is the movie’s most
interesting moment occurs in the last minute of the film before the credits. You
know when “Bad Taste” first got released on home video in the States, I bet
no one ever imagined Peter Jackson was go on to direct “The Lord Of The Rings
Trilogy” and earn an Oscar® too so maybe The Spierg Brothers are destined for
worldwide notoriety or at least huge cult success, but then again, maybe not…
Lions
Gate Home Entertainment has put together a good standard edition DVD with a
pretty sharp anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) aspect ratio presentation, which is
impressive in my opinion because the film matches 16mm and 35mm film pretty
seamlessly on DVD. I honestly
couldn’t see any difference in the quality of the film stock used. The English
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack has a good bass level with nice use of the
surround elements for the action and suspense sequences. An English Dolby
Surround Soundtrack coupled with English Captions and Closed Captions for the
hearing impaired as well Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded onto the DVD as
options too. Please note that the caption and subtitles options cannot be
enabled or disabled while watching the film without first going back to the
interactive menus and activating or deactivating them. The DVD also features a
filmmaker’s commentary where the Directors and Special Make-Up Effects Artist
Steven Boyle discuss the CGI effects and even going into some of the practical
thoughts behind designing the creatures in the film. The fact that it is easier
to sell a horror film overseas is mentioned as well in the companion Q&A
session from the Supernova Convention included on the DVD too (4:35). There is a
cast commentary included on the DVD as well.
Among
the other extra value features are behind-the-scenes materials that include
“The Making Of Undead” (35:48), footage from the Toronto Film Festival
screening (9:06), zombie makeup internet featurette (1:46), a short
demonstrating on how to make dolly for a film when you can’t afford to rent
one (2:04), camera and makeup tests (2:13), five extended and five deleted
scenes that run between less than a minute and under three minutes each as well
as animatic to film comparisons. The film’s internet trailer (: 24),
theatrical teaser (1:35), and Australian trailer (2:31) as well as a teaser
trailer for “Saw 2” (: 48) wrap up the bonus features included on the DVD.
The
interactive menus feature full motion scene selections as well as animated
transitions to standard interactive still frame menus and all are easy to
navigate. See it for yourself when “Undead: Widescreen” debuts on DVD-Video
at retailers on and offline now courtesy of Lions Gate
Home Entertainment.
©
Copyright 2005 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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