Undead or Alive: A Zombedy

Plot synopsis:
Before his capture, Geronimo had cursed white men, causing people to become zombies. Later, at a house in a small town a man named Ben Goodman (Brian Posehn) acts suspiciously and attacks and eats his wife and daughter's brains.
Luke (Chris Kattan), a cowboy living in the town, plans to marry a saloon girl. On arriving at the saloon to propose to her, he encounters Elmer Winslow (James Denton), who has just arrived in town, and discovers that his "princess" is a prostitute. He picks a fight with Elmer until Sheriff Claypool (Matt Besser), who owns the saloon, jails them and steals $500 which Elmer is carrying. In the adjacent cell is Ben, awaiting his hanging the next morning. Elmer and Luke escape and lock Deputy Cletus (Chris Coppola) in the cell, where he is bitten by Ben.
Luke and Elmer find the sheriff and the prostitute having sex. They steal all the sheriff's money and make a getaway. When the sheriff releases Cletus from the cell he is bitten by him. The next morning hang Ben and assemble a posse to pursue the two fugitives.
Luke and Elmer are ambushed in their sleep by Sue (Navi Rawat), Geronimo's niece who was kidnapped and taken to New York to be educated and has now returned to take her revenge on the soldiers who killed her uncle. After a difficult start they become friends, despite Elmer revealing that he is an army deserter. Sheriff Claypool and Cletus, now zombies, attack the other members of the posse, who also become zombies. They are ambushed by Elmer, Luke and Sue, who realise they cannot be killed and flee.
Meanwhile, the townspeople cut Ben down from the gallows, not realising that hanging cannot "kill" him. He attacks the townspeople. The town's minister (Leslie Jordan) manages to escape by locking himself in an upstairs room at the saloon, now besieged by a horde of zombies. The following morning he climbs out of the window to get water, but is pursued by zombies and bitten by the prostitute.
Elmer, Luke and Sue are captured by soldiers, former colleagues of Elmer's (his $500 is revealed to have been won from them while gambling), who take them to their fort on the edge of the Grand Canyon. There they discover that the posse has arrived first and turned all the garrison into zombies, who attack the party and also turn all the other soldiers into zombies. They discover they can kill the zombies by decapitation.
During the night, while hiding in the fort, Sue reveals that the only way to be cured of the zombie curse is to eat the living flesh of the medicine man who created the curse. They shoot several cookware objects out of a homemade blunderbuss at the sheriff and the zombies to no avail. Elmer tries to punch First Sergeant Kermit in the mouth, but gets bitten by him. After destroying most of the zombies by blowing up the magazine, he becomes a zombie and throws Cletus off the cliff, before biting Luke.
Sue kills Sheriff Claypool, but is then attacked by Elmer and Luke. The next scene shows Elmer and Luke looking normal again, after having eaten Sue's flesh. The "eating the living flesh" cure apparently also works for relatives of the person who created the curse. Sue apparently tasted like gingerbread. The duo ride off into the sunset as Cletus stands up and chases them.
An epilogue shows Ben digging up his family, now zombies themselves, from the cemetery and the three of them (with their dog) skipping into town.

Tags: murder

Review:
Geronimo puts a curse on the white man, and when they're bitten by the undead, they too become zombified.The acting is good in this, nobody's phoning it in, and the only thing that was kind of iffy on this thing was the story itself.
Chris Kattan is a funny guy, and has some good lines in this, as well as James Denton, and the female lead.
The plot is quite simple and it's about a small town, in the Old West, which was infected by a zombie plague (originated by a curse of JERONIMO - the Indian legend who died by U.S. army's hands  to the white people).
As it spreads, two outlaw "amigos" try to run away from the evil sheriff and his men, which have become zombies too.The movie is funny and have plenty of traditional jokes related to zombies' parodies, but also a novelty: a new scenario to a zombies' film!
Two men, forced to be partners due to an unusual set of circumstances (involving a sheriff and a prostitute), get captured by the niece of Geronimo, but end up on her side when the sheriff and his men acquire Geronimo's curse (making them a zombie-like creature).
The men are now on the run, hoping to find either an escape or a cure.One cannot comment on this film without comparing it to other zombie comedies.
But, this film served it's purpose: a light-hearted gore-splattered zombie comedy to watch with friends while drinking the cheapest beer known to man (Mountain Creek).
There, enough said about the story.The setting of "Undead or Alive" is actually a good take on the zombie genre.
And Chris Kattan, as the funny sidekick Luke Rudd, brought along a good portion of humor to the movie.
And that took away some of the enjoyment for my part.In overall, "Undead or Alive" is good for an evening worth of zombies and comedy..
What a surprisingly great gem of a movie this is.I expected nothing and what I got was a fabulous little comedy/zombie/film that had me and my husband chuckling no end and me - a giggling girl in our relationship - found, myself, jumping out of my skin.A perfect combination of wit, horror and giggles.
Synopsis: Army deserter Elmer Winslow (James Denton) and loser cowboy Luke Budd (Chris Kattan) flee town after robbing the evil Sheriff Claypool (Matt Besser).
With the Sheriff's posse hot on their trail, Elmer and Luke (oddly) join up with Sue (Navi Rawat), the hot niece of Geronimo with the promise that they'll show her the way to the nearest Army Outpost.
The attempted comedy does get a couple laughs, mostly from Chris Kattan and his usual idiot behaviour and Brian Posehn as the first zombie.
The worst thing about Undead or Alive: A Zombedy is not necessarily the film itself--and it's bad--but all the interviews and marketing plugs I've read or seen with the director, Glasgow Phillips.
He continually plugs the film by saying things like "If you're not sold at 'Zombie Western,' then I don't think you're one of our customers" (from an eFilmCritic interview).
That's basically a cutesy way of saying the film has nothing of value other than the fact that it happens to be an amalgam of two genres of film.The wannabe campy slasher film reminds me more of a drunken high school attempt at slurred comedy and oozing gore than an actual feature film of any substance (and b-movies have some sort of substance!).
The plot's typical of any zombie film--and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Chris Kattan (Saturday Night Live) and James Denton (Desperate Housewives) play washed-out characters who don't take their situation, or each other, seriously.
Kattan's character decides they're partners, much to annoyance of Winslow.Does this movie bend some the rules of zombie classics before it?
One critic had a good comment that the other cowboy by Will Farrell could have made it that much funnier and saved it from straight to DVD fate, but it also could have become too silly and this movie had some good campy horror -- enough to make you jump, but not so much you loose your lunch like those who get a bad case of the Geronimos (I would have liked a few more good fart jokes like Cletus).
Cletus was a hilarious and best captured the spirit of the film - bumbling, bloody and undead -- he manages to scare you then embarrass himself for your laughing pleasure and keeps coming back for more.
Brian Poshen also had the right touch for a goonie goon and Glasgow scored it well in the commentary that Poshen's whimper was a pitch perfect punchline for what this movie was meant to be: good silly fun.
Meanwhile, Denton as Elmer plays the right kind of straight man to get frustrated with Kattan's struggles without being too strong or silent to sympathize or show his struggles with the unusual undead.
The Indian (native American) culture is not belittled and the actress who played the heroine (yes the Indian was a 3D good-guy without a feather or talking like Tarzan) Navi Rawat is an actual Indian, perfectly cast for much more than ethnicity, she had a comic touch with sass, sexiness without selling her skin and sporting enough to pull off most of her own stuntwork fighting off bad guys with swords.
I mean a western with zombies in it, that's a low budget comedy...with Chris Kattan.
There are some actual funny parts, and Chris Kattan doesn't bother me for the whole film.
Entertaining for what it is...Yes, I'll go with that.The movie follows two cowboys and a Native woman, who just happens to Geronimo's niece as they try to escape an evil man in black style killer they stole from.
As villains go the zombie man in black was pretty fun, as he can be shot and basically killed over and over without actually dying, leading to some fun banter later in the film.
I do question what Geronimo would think about using the memory of his life to make of plot of a zombie film made with a low budget though.
So it was obviously based on real movie facts.Anyways, Undead or Alive isn't a great film, or really even a good film.
A humorous and entertaining western zombie comedy.
Undead or Alive (2007) Is a small budget zombie western comedy (or zombedy, as the filmmakers call it).
You'll see some familiar faces: Cristin Machele, a staple of B zombie movies who always has a topless scene, plays a saloon girl who saves the goodies for a priest.
Undead or Alive isn't a particularly good zombie movie and it's a terrible western, but somehow it all comes together nicely and kept me well entertained.
Even worse, you have to turn it into as comedy in order to have any credibility left.Undead Or Alive is entertaining on a no-brainer level, though one wishes that the filmmakers would have watched a ton of straight westerns before making an attempt to spoof the genre.
They are being chased by the posse which is slowly becoming zombified.They join with Geronimo's niece (Navi Rawat - Feast, "Numb3rs") as they fight off the posse.There is a lot of zombie gore, and some nasty decapitations, but it comes in a comedy, so you really don't focus on it.It's kinda hard not to focus on Geronimo's niece as she runs around in a sleeveless top that is really low cut!
The cinematography, story line, makeup, costumes, and gross-out factor were okay for a cowboy/zombie/comedy movie.
Actually, Leslie Jordan was okay and James Denton was not too awful, but Chris Kattan (of Saturday Night Live) and Navi Rawat are really, really poor.
Call me crazy, but I didn't expect this Western/Zombie/Comedy film to be a cinematic masterpiece.
The written material is pretty good, a few good chuckles and a couple of laughs throughout the movie.The special effects are generally low budget but still very watchable, and they never pull you out of the movie.The story is simple and moves along very briskly as a "B" movie like this should.For a "B" Zombie movie this was a good one.
Fun and entertaining, if you like well done lower end movies, you can do a lot worse then this..
Chris Kattan is funny, but sadly, that's the only good thing to be said about this movie.
What kind of a hell do we live in where Chris Kattan is the high point of a film?This movie takes a bad western, injects it with zombies, and attempts to make it all funny.
Kattan is a wannabe cowboy who finds himself jailed with an Army deserter when a zombie outbreak hits town.
It could work in a different movie, but not in a comedy co-starring Chris Kattan.
OK this movie is a mostly a horror comedy with zombies.
I actually liked the characters played by Denton and Kattan, but Rawat seemed a little off.
"Undead or Alive" is a really enjoyable and entertaining zombie-comedy.**SPOILERS**Arriving in town, Elmer, (James Denton) immediately gets into trouble with Luke, (Chris Kattan) which gets them into trouble with Sheriff Claypool, (Matt Besser) who locks them in jail.
As they get closer and closer to their query, they realize that the posse following them are zombies infected with a virus passed down from the Indian generations before them as a final curse for revenge after stealing their land, and when it dawns on them that the creatures have taken over the town-members, they try to get away from the creatures before becoming harmed as well.The Good News: This was a pretty enjoyable and entertaining zombie film.
One of the best is the film's unrepentant comedy, which is much more than expected and actually gets pretty hilarious at times.
Even aside from the great zombie humor, the fact that this one keeps so many relatively great gags, from the absent-minded horses to the Native American constantly showing them up with everything she does and much, much more, this one gets a lot of great comedy that will appeal to some out there.
There's also a lot of good stuff when it comes to action in here, as there's a couple of big zombie attacks that manage to score nicely due to the extra excitement.
Is this the first western zombie movie?
The running joke about Frisky the horse was nice, and some of the scenery shots were very good.The ending was very nicely done, there's nothing like a "not happy" ending in this type of movie.In summary, it was camp, funny, not very sweary or gory, and entertaining.
Army deserter Elmer Winslow and local cowboy Luke Budd are on the run after robbing the evil Sheriff Claypool, stealing his money and fleeing the town, they find themselves with an angry posse on their trail.Joining Elmer and Luke is an Apache warrior, who's out to wreak vengeance on behalf of her decimated people; her plan is to attack the U.S. Army wherever she can find it, and she takes Elmer up on his offer to go with her to the nearest Army outpost he knows.Their plans become complicated when they discover that, as a result of the great Apache Geronimo's curse on the white man, all the people of the surrounding areas have turned into zombies.While watching the opening credits for the film 'A Zombedy' pops up into the title segment, informing viewers that this will be a comedy.As soon as i saw that, i knew this was going to be a stinker.
I just didn't know how much of a stinker it was going to be.The story is dire, the performances are not too bad, but given the material they have been given to use, they look embarrassed, and come the end of the film, it all feels like 'Ghosts of Mars'.They have tried to make it seem original by setting it in the Wild West, but it's all too obvious they are trying to cash in on 'Shaun of the Dead'.More yawn of the dead..
". I knew I should have known better to see a zombie movie with Chris Kattan in it.I can't help it, I watch anything with a zombie in it.I really knew I was in trouble when I saw Brian Posehn as a zombie.
Right there I knew I was in for a mediocre zombie flick..Now James Denton as 'Elmer Winslow' was somewhat good casting.
This time we have a zombie western comedy!
Yep, zombie virus spreads across the Old West when two cowboys, Elmer and Luke(James Denton and Chris Kattan) who get caught up in a minor fight over a floozy, land in jail, break out, and are pursued by the corrupt sheriff and his portly deputy, Claypool and Cletus(both eventually infected by the virus when Cletus is bit by a local who sucked out his wife and daughter's brains, Old Ben, who, in turn, gnaws on Claypool's hand).
They come across a pretty female Indian, Sue, Geronimo's niece no less, and the three form a partnership.I can't help it, I find Chris Kattan funny, so sue me.
After Claypool and Cletus feast on the members of their town, Luke, Elmer, and Sue are soon being hunted by an undead posse.
The finale shows Elmer, Luke, and Sue fending off not only Claypool and Cletus, but the zombie army(turned by C&C and their posse)inside a fort on a cliff overlooking the Grand Canyon.
It keeps inflicting unfunny 'comedians' like Chris Kataan on us, who feel the need to make unfunny movies.The plot, if you want to call it that, is that Geronimo put a curse on the White Man to turn people into zombies.
When you start out your supposed "Comedy" with a woman and child being eaten by a Zombie, you know the whole thing is going to go down hill.The film stars Kataan as a Dude Cowboy who gives his horse and weapons effeminate names, who meets up with an Army deserter, and they both end up escaping from jail being pursued by a zombified posse.
They meet up with Geronimo's niece, who tells them the only way to cure the Zombie curse is to eat the flesh of the medicine man who created it.
A terrible zombie comedy that rides Chris Kattan into an early grave.
Undead or Alive is an alleged comedy about zombies in the Wild West starring the guy who was Mango and Mr.Peepers on Saturday Night Live, with a script that appears to have been written on the back of a stained cocktail napkin and direction that looks like the actual director died on the first day of filming and they gave the job to the guy in charge of cleaning the portable toilets on set.
I know what you're thinking and trust me, it's even worse than that sounds.Elmer Winslow (James Denton) is an ex-army soldier who's thrown together with cowboy Luke Budd (Chris Kattan), a walking non sequitur who names his horse Frisky and his six guns Sunshine and Sparkles.
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" meet "Return of the Living Dead" in former "South Park" scribe Glasgow Phillips' directorial debut "Undead or Alive," (**1/2 out of ****), a creepy, tongue-in-cheek, zombie western.
Everybody looks like they had a good time making this frontier farce about a couple of hard-luck cowboys on the lam from a posse of zombies.
Writer & director Phillips tosses a few surprises into this supernatural saga while the camaraderie between Luke ("SNL" alumnus Chris Kattan) and Elmer (James Denton of "Desperate Housewives") is strong enough to make us laugh at their tribulations right up to the twisted finale.
Although it doesn't rank as the greatest zombie western ever made, "Undead or Alive" qualifies as entertaining enough to sit through a couple of times, with sturdy production values and an amusing dialogue.
When they ride into the fort, our heroes and their army escort get the surprise of their lives.Glasgow Phillips has written a fairly entertaining zombie western.
Elmore (James Denton of ABC's short-lived "Threat Matrix") and Luke (Chris Kattan, whom is usually a huge tell to avoid any movie he's in) band together in the old west when they're both in jail and plot to escape and rob the town's corrupt sheriff in this Western-tinged horror comedy.
Undead or Alive is set in the Old Wild West & starts as US army deserter Elmer Winslow (James Denton) rides into a small town, after getting into a fight with a Cowboy named Luke Rudd (Chris Kattan) the two are thrown in jail by a corrupt Sheriff who also steal all their money.
Meanwhile a local man named Ben (Brian Posehn) has been turned into a brain eating zombie & starts spreading the virus turning the rest of the town into brain eating zombies, now infected the zombie Sheriff, his Deputy & a posse of men head after Elmer & Luke spreading the zombie plague wherever they go...Also known as Undead or Alive: A Zomedy this awful comedy horror Western was written & directed by Glasgow Phillips & is a stark reminder to me that I really should stop watching low budget straight to video horror, or at least choose my films a little better.
Right, the problems with Undead or Alive are numerous but as a horror comedy it falls way short on both counts & as a Western it does nothing other than to set it's story in the Old Wild West.
As I see comments here on the IMDb describing Undead or Alive as funny I would honestly like someone to name one funny sequence in this laugh free film, just one.
Like much of everything else the acting sucks, the two leads in particular are annoying.Undead or Alive is a horror comedy that fails to deliver on either front in a big way, totally unfunny & with surprisingly poor make-up effects I just don't see what this has going for it.