A grieving mother and grandfather attempt to go about their daily routine after the death of her young son. An elderly woman says goodbye to her recently deceased partner. A husband is devastated after his wife dies in a car accident. These three narratives never quite converge, but all find their trajectories altered when a mysterious event reanimates the dead in Thea Hvistendahl’s debut feature.
Adapted from John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel of the same name (the author behind Let the Right One In and Border), Hvistendahl’s take on the zombie genre deviates from the familiar with its glacial pace. The sparse script and sparing use of the typical violence associated with zombie movies are a refreshing change; we learn precious little about the characters on screen, which adds a growing uneasiness to the storytelling.
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Although it’s hinted that the phenomenon has awoken the dead across the city (and potentially the world) the story remains steadfastly focused on the three separate stories. Anna (Renate Reinsve) and her father (Bjørn Sundquist) attempt to protect her reanimated son from the authorities. Tora (Bente Børsum) lovingly cleans up Elisabet (Olga Damani) in their home. David (Anders Danielsen Lie) attempts to explain to his children Flora (Inesa Dauksta) and Kian (Kian Hansen) that their mother died, but only temporarily.
The three groups all react to the return of their loved ones in similar ways, which does feel a little repetitive – it would have been interesting to see some divergence in their feelings – but the transformation of a zombie film into something slower and stranger than we’re used to is novel. Hvistendahl’s acutely close focus puts us directly in the room with her characters, whose grief has rendered them almost catatonic in turn. The loss of her son has left Anna suicidal and unable to eat. Tora doesn’t know how to live a life without Elisabeth. David only kissed his wife goodbye hours before, briefly discussing their plans to pick up a pet rabbit for their son’s birthday. The return of their loved ones almost brings them back to life too, but also forces them to turn a blind eye to some obvious, worrying complications.
Horror has long proven a rich prism through which filmmakers and screenwriters can explore the thorny nature of grief, and Handling the Undead is a reflection on the difficulty of saying goodbye, as well as how far we might go for a few more stolen moments with a loved one. Its glacial pace and the distance placed between the audience and the characters – the static wide shots position us as voyeurs encroaching on private moments – are unusual for a “zombie” film, creating something haunting and tragic, all the more shocking in its few truly horrifying moments. Instead, there’s a sense of sadness and dread that haunts every frame; the rolling fog that those left behind know all too well.
