User Reviews

The female lead showed very inappropriate amount of "fear," if you can even call it that, at different times. The male lead was decent/good most of the time. the plot was boring and most of the "acting" was bad. However, I also blame the director (or lack of?), it seemed like the actors were reacting poorly to the situation, i think they even acted too soon in at least one scene (water closet / bathroom). I've seen many low budget zombie and/or undead movies, but this was one of the worse. I only sat through it because I'm a fan of the genre.

There were obvious plot holes at times, for example: they get outside the building for the first time but it's a dead end / no way out, they entered an enclosed area that seems to have no street access. But, why is there a bicycle rack and a few bicycles? Also, why are the words "no parking" painted in huge letters on the wall if there is no street access? I suppose people could have driven their cars through the building and illegally park in the enclosed area.

Overall, skip this movie.

As much fun as a zombie film set in Leicester sounds, if you're expecting a modern-day Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue from this low-budget indie film, I'm afraid I've got some disappointing news for you. Yes, despite its amusingly tautological title Zombie Undead is an amateurish and punishingly dull addition to the world of morti viventi cinema.

The movie opens with a terrorist detonating a dirty bomb somewhere in Leicester city centre (which is presumably the cause of the zombie virus in this film), before cutting to our heroine, Sarah (Ruth King), and her badly wounded father being driven to a hospital on the outskirts of the city by Steve (Barry Thomas). Upon arrival it's clear that something is amiss as the hospital's patients exhibit all manner of exotic flesh-wounds and seem to be bringing up blood left, right and centre. When Sarah's father goes into cardiac arrest, she faints at the sight of a surgeon ramming a hypodermic syringe of adrenalin into his chest.

Once she awakes the hospital seems deathly quiet, and she wonders around for a while before being confronted by a long-haired zombie who overpowers her. Luckily for Sarah, a survivor named Jay (James Corden-lookalike Kris Tearse) appears from nowhere, machete in hand, and returns the shuffling cadaver to the land of the dead. From there, the two of them spend a very long time indeed wondering around the hospital looking for fellow survivors and occasionally bumping into the odd zombie or two. Eventually a party of survivors is assembled and the group attempts to battle its way past the hordes of walking corpses on their way out of the building.

There's little more to say about the film's plot, although there's an interminably boring segment tagged on at the end which sees Sarah fleeing the hospital and ending up on a farm owned by the world's chattiest farmer before the movie ends abruptly (and inexplicably) with footage of a group of soldiers being attacked by zombies.

Now, I know what you're thinking: it sounds good, doesn't it? Sounds like it'll be an utter trash-fest, reminiscent of Bruno Mattei's Zombie Creeping Flesh. Well it's not.

There's so little action in this film it makes Oasis of the Zombies seem positively fast-paced, and what little there is suffers from a case of the Andy Milligan 'swirl-camera' technique every time a special effect is deployed. The characters are boring, flat and underdeveloped and spend absolutely ages standing around in rooms or lifts exchanging dialogue like: "We've got to go, now! Do you understand?" "Yes, we need to move." "Let's go, we've got to keep moving" and so on, to the point of absurdity. Every dialogue scene is stretched out as long as it conceivably can be, presumably to pad the running time out to 80 minutes.

The film is shot on what looks like digital video, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but the result looks so cheap and washed out that it doesn't even have the production values of a TV soap opera. And the direction? It's hideous. The first few minutes of the film play like a crummy music video, with frantic coked-up editing and eye-straining fades, wipes and dissolves (Homer Simpson's obsession with 'star wipe' leaps to mind), and as I've said above, any scene which requires anything other than a static shot of the characters is clumsily handled and fumbled through, presumably to disguise the lack of SFX available to the makers. And the acting, while not terrible, is very am-dram. A great many scenes reminded me of theatre workshops I did in GCSE drama lessons.

In fact the whole thing plays very much like a student film, which is perhaps what it began life as (one of its principal shooting locations is De Montford University in Leicester). Sadly what we have here is a pretty crummy film wrapped up in tantalising advertising and boasting a juicy title, much like The Astro Zombies from decades ago. There's nothing to recommend this film, really. It's not funny, not even unintentionally so; it boasts so little gore it's a wonder the thing received an 18 certificate; its plot is threadbare and padded out to the extreme and, ultimately, you'll be pining for your DVDs of classic Italian zombie gut-munchers before even half the running time has elapsed. Though, that said, the disc makes a great coaster

This has to be the worst zombie film I have ever seen and i've seen some horrors in my time; you could even consider me a connoisseur. I actually quite like bad films, they are often amusing but this wasn't even bad funny. It was just plain bad. It follows our supposed 'heroine' and a ragtag bunch of survivors as they attempt to escape a hospital - blatantly a school or uni building, would it have hurt to dress it up a little? Within minutes I was egging the zombies on, wishing they would eat them and get it over with. It was poorly acted, badly shot and had an awful plot/script. It has been said that this is what you should expect from a low budget Indie film; it's not. I find it hard to believe that this film made it into production and found its way into shops. I feel robbed. The only redeeming quality was the clips of recognisable landmarks; I got a kick out of that. I honestly find it hard to believe someone could make a film as awful as this.

The end is nigh for decent zombie flicks.

The story begins as we meet a flustered paramedic Steve (Barry Thomas), level-headed Jay (Kris Tearse) and Sarah (Ruth King), who opens the film as the distraught daughter of a man clearly infected by zombie-type virus.

This is very low-budget, but Director Rhys Davies ensures it tells a story well within its means - although sometimes the blood-streaked heroes are difficult to differentiate from the equally blood-streaked walking dead. The setting is suitably drab and claustrophobic, and this doesn't open into anything wider until the very end, when we are introduced to the extent of the infection.

There are enough twists in the storyline to keeps things moving. In true 'Night of the Living Dead' fashion, even those who do everything right to escape their situations fail to succeed. There are some convincingly gruesome effects.

I really enjoyed this. The main thrust of the project seems to be that there is no hope, no hope at all. Although some scenes are interspersed with the end credits offer a crumb of positivity. But don't get too optimistic.

The movie title appears to be redundant. Clearly the Brits do not understand what to do during a major Zombie outbreak, perhaps due to the poor showing of "Zombie Diaries." A dirty bomb goes off and the film concentrates on the life and survival of Sarah (Ruth King). She passes out then comes to at a country infirmary. Here she encounters live people and zombies. They make numerous mistakes.

First, you need to secure the perimeter and eliminate the zombies inside. This is common sense stuff, but the Brits don't do it. Secondly if you are in a building that has zombies, don't ride the elevator as you don't know what is going to be outside the doors when they open. When you suspect the zombie infestation is caused by a blood borne pathogen, don't leave infected blood on your skin. Immediately wash it off and disinfect with a 10% Clorax solution. Also according to the Homeland Security handbook, the people who will actually be infected first are old people, children, and those with weak immune systems. Not every bite transmits the disease, but you need extra precaution and a holding cell/ isolation room during the incubation period. Being in an infirmary, they were in an ideal location to survive had they followed common sense guide lines.

The characters and humor didn't make it in this film like other Brit films.

Parental Guide: F-bombs, no sex, hospital gown zombie nudity