Reviews
‘Handling the Undead’ Sundance Review – A Haunting Meditation on Grief
A loud, high-pitched sound echoes through the streets of Oslo. Car alarms start going off everywhere. A citywide blackout begins. An elderly man, draped over his grandson’s grave, begins to hear the sound of muffled knocks coming from under the ground. “Grandpa is coming,” he says repeatedly. He grabs a shovel and begins to dig. So begins Handling the Undead, Thea Hvistendahl‘s somber feature directorial debut that acts as a haunting meditation on grief, daring to ask us what we would do if someone we loved returned from the dead.
Adapted from John Ajvide Lindqvist’s (Let the Right One In) 2005 novel of the same name (he also co-wrote the screenplay with Hvistendahl), Handling the Undead chronicles the lives of three families as they deal with the sudden return of their recently deceased loved ones. Anna (Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World) is saved from a suicide attempt when her father Mahler (Bjørn Sundquist) brings home her newly resurrected son. David (Anders Danielsen Lie, also from The Worst Person in the World) and his family suffer a terrible tragedy when his wife Eva (Bahar Pars) is killed in a car accident, only for her to return to life mere hours later. And the elderly Tora (Bente Børsum), arrives home from her wife’s (Olga Damani) funeral, only to find her standing in the kitchen later that night.
A deliberately paced film if there ever was one, Handling the Undead is more reminiscent of the 2004 French film Les Revenants and its 2012 television adaptation more than, say, Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Viewers looking for their gory horror fix should look elsewhere, but that’s not to say that horrifying things don’t happen in the film (one scene of animal abuse is particularly upsetting). Handling the Undead is much more interested in the psyches of its living characters than the flesh-eating antics of its undead ones.
In fact, there’s very little flesh-eating going on in the film, just as there is very little dialogue. It’s a remarkably restrained debut for Hvistendahl, as she allows us sit with the characters as they process the spectacular events happening around them. We are able to process these emotions with them, but left to infer their thoughts and feelings through facial expressions and subtle movements. There are no “big” performances, leaving us with a story that feels shockingly authentic, and the film is all the better for it.
Some viewers may find Hvistendahl’s pacing to be sluggish at times, but this is by design. Life doesn’t move at a rapid clip when you’re grieving, a fact that Hvistendahl seems all too aware. Still, there are times where the pacing and lack of dialogue frustrate, as you find yourself yearning to learn more about these characters, yet the film refuses to let you in. It’s what you would call a “vibe” of a movie.
Director of photography Pål Ulvik Rokseth incorporates shots of a desolate Oslo, despite the fact that we are not in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. We are still very much in the world of the living, and life does continue for our characters. And yet, these long shots of the city are miraculously human-free, establishing just how lonely a place the world can be, even before a zombie apocalypse. This visual through line continues all the way to the evocative final shot. It’s a truly beautiful film.
Morten Jacobsen’s special effects makeup is impressive, but an extra commendation must be given to the work done on Anna’s son Elias. He is the undead character who has been dead the longest (meaning: he actually made it into the ground), and the glimpses we get of his partially-decomposed face will be imprinted in my brain for a long time. Like the film itself, it’s lot of subtle work, but that doesn’t make it any less effective.
With Handling the Undead, Hvistendahl establishes herself as a filmmaker with a keen interest in the human condition and a remarkable visual eye. With a surprisingly minimal amount of dialogue and a handful of emotionally charged performances, the film feels especially unique in its execution, Big questions are asked and few answers are given, but such is life (and death).
Handling the Undead premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Neon will release the film. Date TBA.
Death Down the Aisle begins with the tantalizing image of a bride, Malorie (Jess Brown), dressed in a wedding dress splattered with blood.
This is a brief (unnecessary) in media res opening before writer Audrey C. Marie jumps the action back to earlier in the day. It’s the day of the wedding, Malorie is preparing to wed Jon (David Alexander) and there’s a whirlwind introduction of wedding guests, many of whom are either family, work associates from Jon’s legal firm, or both.
Most of these relationships aren’t clear until after Jon’s death (this isn’t a spoiler; his death is heavily telegraphed by director Roxanne Boisvert). Only after the murder does it become clear that Death Down The Aisle is primarily interested in exploring red herrings, gossipy busy bodies, and characters making A LOT of phone calls.
Let’s rewind: Malorie is marrying Jon, an older man with an adult daughter, Bridget (Anna Kopacek), who looks nearly the same age as her. Jon works at Stone Legal Services with his brother Zach (Scott Gibson), as well as Malorie’s mother, Pamela (Jayne Heitmeyer) and Zach’s younger girlfriend, Amy (Gracie Callahan).
Each of these characters hand Jon a drink before the wedding begins – Zach – a Scotch, Amy – a coffee, and Pamela – an energy drink. There’s also a mysterious glass of champagne delivered to Malorie’s room that Jon drinks and Boisvert ensures that the audience keeps track of each of them by zooming in each time. This is why it’s no surprise when Jon keels over mid-ceremony, coughs up blood on Malorie’s dress, and immediately croaks.
Naturally it turns out that nearly everyone had a motive to see him dead. Pamela recently quit the firm because Jon wouldn’t confirm her salary; Zach was pushing for a merger with rival Miles (Colin Price) that Jon was unsure about, and the dead man fretted that Amy was a gold digger, so Jon wouldn’t support her promotion, either.
Adding to the too plentiful number of suspects is Malorie’s ex-husband Ryan (Frank Fiola), a recovering addict. Even Jon’s own daughter ends up on the list when it’s revealed that they were fighting in the weeks leading up to his death.
The only one who doesn’t have a motive to kill Jon is Malorie’s best friend Francesca (JaNae Armogan), who works at the wedding venue and thinks she saw something fishy. Naturally she’s killed off before the end of the first act.
What follows is a lot of conversation between characters about the firm, the merger, Malorie and Jon’s relationship, and how everyone is lying to everyone else. The problem is that 90% of these conversations happen via phone or text and few of them are interesting. Marie’s script fails to develop the characters beyond their motive, which means that the majority of the plot developments aren’t particularly engaging because the characters are so shallow.
With so many people and interweaving relationships involved, it’s hard to zero in and identify with anyone. Malorie is clearly meant to be the protagonist because, like most Lifetime films, she assumes the role of investigator, despite the presence of Detective Levine (Christian Paul) on the periphery.
But even she is kept at a distance from the audience. Because we only see a few moments of her relationship with Jon, secrets that the pair were keeping from friends and family don’t carry any emotional resonance when they come to light later in the film. One in particular seems to come out of left field and seemingly only exists to introduce another red herring in order to prolong the mystery for another 20 minutes.
Alas none of the characters get much to do, so none of the performances pop. Kopacek and Callahan look too similar and are styled identically, which sometimes makes it hard to distinguish one from the other. Further issues with casting is that the age disparity between Malorie & Jon and Zach & Amy is never mentioned (neither is Jon’s paternity of Bridget). This may be an ageist observation, but even the fact that Pamela never comments that her daughter was marrying her (Pamela’s) boss seems unusual, especially when Death Down the Aisle regularly suggests that one or more character is a gold digger.
Arguably the film’s biggest issue is that everything circles around the business dealings of the firm, none of which is engaging or interesting (hilariously it’s never even made clear what kind of law they practice!) Without more distinct characters, there’s very little to hang the narrative on.
Unfortunately after a solid opening, Death Down the Aisle gets stuck spinning its wheels, endlessly recycling its red herrings and interminable phone calls between characters. The suspect list is long, but the film’s energy lags through the saggy middle section and the climax can’t bring Death Down the Aisle back to life.
This one could have easily been called “Business Phone Calls”…and that’s not great.
Death Down the Aisle premiered on Lifetime Thursday, June 13.
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