Undertaker – A Zombie Undertaking

When it comes to the billions of zombie movies of late, the formula of virus turns the living into the living dead and has them eating from your bread basket, is the construct few filmmakers are willing to stray from. This is why those filmmakers and their product suck entrails. But with the release of Undertaker, a new Japanese undead flick, we may just get a break from all the cash-in cookie cutting going on in the zombie movie universe.

What looks to set Undertaker apart from the living dead bandwagoneers is that it focuses on a different aspect of eating people butt meat. Specifically, when some has been turned into a zombie or “returner,” a hired specialist is called in to make dead once again family members or loved ones that would just as soon turn your neck into a sandwich.

So this solemn guy wanders the city that’s been turned into a stinky ghost town by the zombification, hunting down the walking dead, armed only with a customized shovel and a body bag. As the movie’s press release states, “He goes anywhere, taking care of walking dead for clients. And a client could be anyone – the parent, the lover, the best friend – of the returner. Or maybe someone who hated the returner so much while the returner was living.” I do like that last part.

So expect Undertaker (releasing in 2012) to portray a more human side to the inhuman aspect of flesh-eating.

FYI: Undertaker stars Yoshito Kobashigawa, Shinta Souma, Yuina Kumakura, Usagi Ohyama, Tetsuyuki Wakabayashi, Setsuko Kawaguchi, Tomoka Asano and Sakae Yamaura, none of whose names you can accurately pronounce. So, like, don’t even try.