'Handling the Undead' Review: This Emotional Zombie Horror Movie Isn’t as Unique as It Thinks | Sundance 2024

The Big Picture

• Handling the Undead explores the concept of the living being comforted by the return of their deceased loved ones.
• The film takes a slow, quiet approach to the zombie genre, focusing on loss, suffering, and undying love.
• While the film attempts to offer something new, it ultimately falls short of being a groundbreaking addition to the genre.

Zombies get a bad rap. Beyond all the flesh-eating and attempts to turn the living into the undead, the fact of the matter is these shuffling masses were once loved. We often think of zombies in terms of losing loved ones, when on the other side of that coin, it’s an opportunity for a second chance with the ones we love. At least, that’s the concept behind Handling the Undead, directed and co-written by Thea Hvistendahl, alongside co-writer John Ajvide Lindqvist of Let the Right One In fame. Both Hvistendahl and Lindqvist try to boil the zombie film down to its core, but what’s left there are concepts that we’ve seen in countless zombie films before.

Handling the Undead

On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want?

Release Date

February 9, 2024

Director

Thea Hvistendahl

Cast

Renate Reinsve , Anders Danielsen Lie , Bahar Pars , Bjørn Sundquist

Runtime

97 minutes

What Is 'Handling the Undead' About?

Based on Lindqvist’s novel of the same name, Handling the Undead takes place in Oslo, where an unexplained high-pitched sound has been let out across the city, and soon after, the recently deceased have come back to life. For Anna (Renate Reinsve), the recent death of her son has given her little point to live. When her father, Mahler (Bjørn Sundquist), goes to visit his grandson’s grave, he digs the child out and finds him barely moving but breathing. Similarly, after a car accident leaves the wife of David (Anders Danielsen Lie) pronounced dead in the hospital, she is soon discovered to be alive once more, without explanation.

This phenomenon is happening around the city, and yet, instead of fear, these people are glad to find those they’ve recently lost returned—a sorrow averted. As we watch the living comforted by the return of the dead, Handling the Undead asks whether or not it’s better to have a shell of a person we love for our own comfort, or let them rest in peace instead?

Handling the Undead is a slow-moving, quiet take on the zombie film, more about the living dealing with handling the repercussions of this return than about eating brains or killing as many of the walking dead as possible. In many ways, Handling the Undead is fairly similar to the excellent French series Les Revenants, which also followed a small town as the dead came back to life, with hints of a sinister undertone. With a series that lasted for two seasons, the story could delve into this return and how it impacted this town. With Handling the Undead, there isn’t enough time as once the concept makes itself known, it’s time for the film to start wrapping up.

'Handling the Undead' Isn't as Groundbreaking as It Thinks

By pulling back on what we know a “zombie” story to be, tearing this down to its barest essence, Handling the Undead isn’t saying anything particularly revelatory. Once again, it creates a zombie story that is about loss, suffering, and undying love. This is a shame, considering how Lindqvist recontextualized the vampire genre with Let the Right One In—maybe it’s just because we’ve had so many different iterations on the zombie story which keeps Handling the Undead from feeling like an interesting step for the genre. That’s not to say that Hvistendahl and Lindqvist’s screenplay is bad—on the contrary—but it doesn’t seem to realize we’ve seen stories like this in the recent past already.

Hvistendahl directs these returns almost as a series of vignettes for this town, not quite giving any of these segments enough time to be wholly effective. For example, with Reinsve’s Anna, we only get bits and pieces of her story, as we put together that she’s recently lost her son, her father is watching over her, and she’s suicidal because of this loss. There’s potential there, and the narrative about father and daughter coming to terms with this shocking revelation does shift how we expect these family members to act quite nicely. But as a small part of a much larger story, there’s not enough time to explore this family’s dynamics. The same is true of Lie’s David and his family, in which we get glimpses of David’s life and the lives of his children, but there’s just not enough time to do much of any of these characters justice, outside of their recent tragedy.

Image via NEON

Handling the Undead acts as more of a mood piece than a focused narrative, with Hvistendahl directing this concept with the slow, meandering pace of, well, a zombie. The cinematography by Celine Engebrigsten spotlights the dark, cold universe of pain that these humans are brought back into, yet their reappearance doesn’t bring the light or warmth that they once did. This is best shown through the relationship of Eva and David, as we get to spend some time with this couple before the unfortunate passing of Eva. There’s joy, support, and love that radiates between these two, and once Eva returns from the dead, all of that comfort the other gives is gone, a husk of the person that once was within. This story gets into the idea of moving on better than any other narrative here, but again, there’s not enough time here to fully explore this within the stories of the others.

For some, Handling the Undead might seem like a daring take on the zombie story, one that plays this idea in a much more somber tone that is more about emotional resonance than blood and guts. Yet in the context of the genre, Handling the Undead isn’t unfortunately much of anything new. It's a deliberately-paced drama with some decent performances and a gorgeously dark aesthetic, but lacks the time or effort to give these stories what they need. It’s an admirable attempt to try something new in the genre, but it’s already been done before.

Handling the Undead

REVIEW

Handling the Undead attempts to give a new perspective on the zombie film, but this slow-moving drama isn't nearly as groundbreaking as it thinks.

Pros

• A quiet, deliberate zombie film that focuses on the emotional aspect of the living and dead is a nice change of pace.
• The performances by Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie bring this undead story to life.

Cons

• The script isn't as unique of a take on the zombie film as it thinks it is.
• There just isn't enough time to do these various storylines justice.

Handling the Undead had its World Premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.