Undead or Alive (2007)
- Andrew Smith
- Aug 2
- 4 min read
"Death becomes them"
Plot
Army deserter Elmer Winslow and local cowboy Luke Budd find themselves on the run after breaking out of jail and robbing the sheriff. With the sheriff and a posse in hot pursuit, the duo cross paths with the niece of the great Apache warrior Geronimo. She warns them of a curse that he put on the white man which has turned all of the local people into zombies.
Outside of Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, zom-coms don't tend to have the best record. Usually it is because directors and writers don't quite get the balance of horror and comedy right. So when someone comes along and thinks "you know what, let's just thrown a western into the mix as well and see what happens" you kind of worry that the film will spread itself too thin across too many genres. Thankfully, Undead or Alive is proof, albeit not entire successfully, that unlikely genres can make a quality pairing if the material is fresh, original and definitely not something you'll have seen before. Whilst I don't think this will ever spawn a new hybrid genre, it's not for the want of trying.
There isn't a lot you can do with zombies anyway but at least this film gives it a go by giving us the western spin. You've got the hallmarks of a great western - a mysterious stranger, a bad ass sheriff, bank robberies, jailbreaks, shoot-outs and saloons. However, this isn't played straight in the slightest and what you get is a goofy, cornball movie which works as well as it has any right to be. Undead or Alive is a hit and miss affair. The tone between all of the different genres it's straddling never quite fully meshes together, nor does it completely contrast with each other. Perhaps it doesn't help that the first half plays on the comedy more, with lot of the humour failing to hit the target and potentially alienating the audience before any of the horror stuff kicks in. I know I was starting to wonder whether or not I was going to keep investing in this, particularly as Kattan's schtick was getting irritating. But I did and I'm glad I did.
Undead or Alive looks gorgeous it has to be said. Shot in beautiful 16:9 widescreen, it looks like a multi-million dollar western with blistering wastelands, dusty desert plains, rolling mountains, creeks and streams stretching for miles in some of the backdrops and, of course, a very bright and hot sun. But once the film starts rolling and the characters begin doing goofy things, it turns into Blazing Saddles with zombies. The zombie element isn't meant to be scary so you get the zombies talking, thinking and acting like normal people, only with a taste for flesh instead and increasingly rotting make-up. The make-up effects for the zombies are a little cheap and a lot of the gore is CGI and a bit cheesy at times but the splatter and gore aren't the main focus of the film - this isn't meant to be scary in the slightest, it's meant to be fun and that it is.
Chris Kattan is annoying. He plays the same whiny character in all of the films that I've seen him in and it grows old fast. His smart-ass wisecracks just aren't funny and soon begins to grate on your nerves. For some bizarre reason, his comic relief character is the one to get the love interest side plot usually reserved for the main hero. James Denton (from TV's Desperate Housewives) is great as the straight man hero or at least that's the way he appears to start the film. His deadpan performance to everything that happens easily works in his favour as the comments and observations that he makes are genuinely funny.
Navi Rawat kept me watching with her gorgeous looks. The character was a bit throwaway but who cares when you are this smoking hot? The three main characters all work well together and play off each other. There is this ‘odd couple’ chemistry to the pairing where they shouldn't click but they do. And it is to the film's credit that you do want to see them all get out of their predicament alive. That’s a much harder task than you’d think given that Kattan is in it. The main cast, including the zombies, don't take themselves too seriously and they're in on the joke from the beginning so the tone is light-hearted throughout, as if everyone had a great time filming it.
Final Verdict
Undead or Alive is refreshingly original with a decent slant on the rather stagnant zombie genre. It may be a little too silly and goofy for it's own good at times but the western setting really gives it that added kick. I wonder what John Wayne would have thought if he knew that the genre he helped make popular has become overrun with zombies!
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Undead or Alive Director(s): Glasgow Phillips Writer(s): Glasgow Phillips (screenplay), Scott Pourroy (story) Actor(s): Chris Kattan, James Denton, Navi Rawat, Lew Alexander, Matt Besser, Chris Coppola, Leslie Jordan Duration: 91 mins |  |
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