Playing in select theatres beginning June 7th (please check local listings)
I’m not entirely sure if Judgment Day has come in Thea Hvistendahl‘s genuinely creepy film, Handling the Undead. Unlike other zombie films where they’re treated as the villain or just creatures of happenstance, here, they don’t attack the living. Instead, they simply linger. They exist in the last place they knew as peaceful.
John Ajvide Lindqvist‘s 2005 novel may offer some explanation. When considering he wrote Let the Right One In, and I really loved the cinematic adaptation of this work, I had high hopes going in. What’s presented isn’t too different in style, but as for that origin story, we’re left in the dark for why it started. The few people who are asking questions are perplexed and this story doesn’t really dive into it. Shame on me for not reading this book, but after watching this film, I’ll be picking up a copy to get answers to some lingering questions I have.
Ultimately, what I’m seeing is a look at giving three random families getting a second chance at saying goodbye. What drives this film is a look at the lives of individuals who must accept death as final. What’s revealed concerns looking at what is love eternal than anything scary. Here. Mahler (Bjørn Richard Sundquist) wants to help his daughter Anne (Reinsve) deal with the unexpected death of her son, Elias; Tora (Bente Børsum) has to go through the mourning process since her partner Elisabet (Olga Damani) passed, and David (Anders Danielsen Lie) struggles with how to say to his children that their mom, Eva (Bahar Pars), died in a car accident.
Although some deaths are certain, others are not. No matter what the case, to say a last goodbye seems to be at the heart of this film more than anything else. The performances sometimes border on the melancholy and are quite soul shaking at times. But to figure out what to do and still stay centred is tough. All of this happens after a wailing screech hits the entire city and there is no news report about why it happened. If that moment was put in the film, I unfortunately wasn’t paying attention (I was wildly making notes during my viewing process). That noise was loud enough to awaken the dead.
Curiously, the affected simply accept that loss back with open arms and let it be. In Handling the Undead, the horror is very sublime. And even I had a slight chill down my spine because I wondered when the zombie would feast. I should note that the screenplay never uses this word, and nor do any officials say those who awakened are even undead.
While there were no northern lights to accompany that night, I suspect that some nocturnal storm took place. I’m genuinely curious about what voodoo or weird science would cause this to happen. This film doesn’t even offer hints. And this look at this incident has the Lovecraft enthusiast in me asking questions. Solutions don’t have to be clear-cut either. If I’m to guess at what happened, I would say it has something to do with some scientists tucked away in some other corner of Norway conducting their own High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) experiment.
4 Stars out of 5
Handling the Undead Movie Trailer
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