OPSTANDELSEN

Peter (Mads Althoff) is the black sheep of his family. Reviled by most because of his drug habit, he still manages to attend church for the funeral service of a family member. His very presence incenses his comparatively straight brother, Johannes (Jonas Bjorn-Andersen).

When Peter disappears mid-sermon, Johannes follows his instincts and locates his brother about to satisfy his chemical cravings in one of the church’s corridors. A blow-up ensues, witnessed by disapproving sister Esther (Marie Frohme Vanglund).

As if to add weight to his brother’s accusations of disrespecting the family, Peter flips him the bird and takes his drugs the moment Johannes’ back is turned. Minutes later, Peter returns to the service ...

Unbeknownst to Peter, zombies have risen from their graves in the meantime. He wanders back into the main church just in time to witness the living dead tearing his relatives apart. Slow to react through his drug-fuelled haze, he blacks out.

When he next awakens, Peter finds himself beneath the church with Johannes, Esther and a badly injured little girl. Quickly sussing that they are surrounded by the hungry undead, the survivors reason that they will need to work together if they are to find a way out of their predicament.

But they can only hope of doing this if Johannes and Peter can stop bickering for long enough (well, no-one likes to be called a "pathetic junkie" by their brother, do they?). It is, in an odd way, then, fortunate that the little girl soon becomes zombified and attacks the three adults: at least this forces the brothers to unite in a bid for survival.

The remainder of the film focuses on our protagonists’ plight for escape from the church, running and screaming through tunnels and corridors, fending off hordes of zombies as Lasse Elkjaer’s rousing score lets rip.

It’s an exciting trip through one set-piece to the next, right up until a vaguely disappointing but enjoyable (and inevitable) finale.

The budget for OPSTANDELSEN was apparently somewhere in the region of 50,000 Danish kroner. That’s less than £6,000. Using the single location of Oestofte church and its grounds, while employing shaky handheld camerawork in a bid to lend the action raw immediacy, the micro-budget does reveal itself.

The film is hardly original either, coming across plot-wise as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with a little bit of FESTEN thrown in for good measure.

But what’s impressive about writer-director-editor and co-producer Casper Haugegaard’s 50-minute feature is its sheer energy. It’s as if the young filmmaker (22 years old at the time of shooting) is saying "yeah, I know it’s cheap and derivative ... but I can still grab you by your throat!". And so he does, with an unrelenting pace and enthusiastic cast, who are more than up for coping with the glut of gore provided by Janus Vinther’s sterling old-school FX work.

Sound design is very effective, compositions are well thought-out and inventive, the gore sequences are among the best the zombie genre has enjoyed in the 21st Century so far, and the tone is commendably straight.

Zombie fans who are prepared to overlook the very low budget and thin plot are likely to really enjoy OPSTANDELSEN. There’s not a dull moment in it.

Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, OPSTANDELSEN looks good on Another World Entertainment’s region 2 encoded DVD. Colours are reserved in a natural manner and some early scenes do look slightly milky, but overall this is a clean and sharp presentation which offers a pleasing level of clarity for the stylish zombie attacks.

Danish audio is provided in impressive 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. The latter really accentuates the unfolding chaos of the film, while proffering fine balance of channels and audible dialogue throughout. Optional subtitles are available in Netherlands and English. The English subtitles were well-written and easy to read.

The DVD opens to a static main menu page. From here, there is the option of navigating the disc in Danish, Netherlands or English.

Choosing the appropriate language takes you to a second "main menu" page, with more options in the language of choice. An animated scene-selection menu allows access to OPSTANDELSEN via 6 chapters.

Extra features begin with a commentary track from Haugegaard and cinematographer Michael Panduro. No subtitles for this extra though, disappointingly.

KAELDERMENNESKE is an earlier 27-minute short from Haugegaard, starring Althoff as a man attending a wedding, anticipating that he is about to have a very bad day. He’s not wrong.

Benefitting from optional subtitles, this is a decent downbeat tale with odd flourishes of humorous dialogue proving welcome along the way. Its major flaw is the director’s overly flashy camerawork, which detracts from the action.

Four music videos follow: "Ohrwurm" by Cephalic Carnage, "I Will Return" by CrackMordaZ, "Get Drunk Get Mad Get Even" by Helhorse and "Hollow" by Rotten Sound. These range from soft porn gore fests set to noisy metal, to ... gore fests set to noisy metal, but with less of the soft porn.

A trailer and teaser trailer for OPSTANDELSEN do their thing, and are followed closely by a 10-minute Behind The Scenes featurette that unfortunately lacks subtitles.

Next up is a slideshow of on-location photographs.

Finally, we get trailers for NIGHTMARE CITY, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE BEYOND, ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS and NIGHTS OF TERROR. All are presented in English mono.

Another World Entertainment have provided a great release for this satisfying and surprising curio from the extremely talented Mr Haugegaard.

By Stuart Willis