In the peaceful fishing community of Berkeley, Australia, former Miss Catch of the Day Renée is about to leave town and head for the big city with her agent. However, a meteorite shower puts an end to her plans as an infection turns everyone into slavering, cannibalistic and considerably resilient zombies. She eventually manages to find sanctuary with a local, bearded, shotgun-toting nutcase named Marion, in his isolated farmhouse, where they are soon joined by other survivors, including a foul-mouthed cop, his rookie female partner, and a couple expecting a child. Trying to blast their way to safety, they discover that the zombies are not their only problem.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes all I really want from a movie is to see an attack of zombified trout. Undead splendidly quenches all my morbid undead aquatic needs. It’s the first feature from a team of directing brothers, Michael and Peter Spierig, and whatever the faults of their debut may be, you can’t accuse them of being unambitious. This low-budget yarn starts off as a Peter Jackson-esque zombie comedy and ends as a somber sci-fi epic. And the Spierigs prove that in this age of digital technology, a little can go a pretty long way.

But first the bad stuff, of which there’s plenty. You see, Undead is, well, a total mess, really. It starts well enough as the Spierigs waste no time in getting to the juicy stuff. The gore is plentiful and skillfully executed –- particularly amusing gags involve a pair of severed legs searching for their torso and some meaty head-shots –- but the tone is too silly for the movie to be even remotely scary, and the onscreen proceedings eventually descend into pointless on-screen bickering among the protagonists. Some of the one-liners are actually quite funny and iconic, especially the cop's constant abuse talk in order to cope, most of which has actually been improvised by the actor himself. But even though the first half scores extremely high on almost every front as an all-out zombie gangbang, I'm not entirely sure of the overall storyline.

The second half looses out on what little character depth there was, and as the story unfolds further, the whole deal goes haywire as the group tries to escape town. They encounter first a giant metal wall blocking their way out, and then a group of squishy-headed aliens who’re beaming people up into the sky ‘cleansing’ them again of the zombitis they first inflicted. We never get to know what these undead-inducing beams are, how they differ from the alien beams, what the real purpose of the aliens on Earth is and how the aliens and zombies are connected. In other words, whoever watches this is going to have a hard time figuring out what the damn story is all about. The switch from offbeat Shaun Of The Dead-ish gore comedy to epic sci-fi of the Close Encounters kind can be really jarring. The effects-laden climax just plods on and on, ending mildly satisfactory however on what looks like a sequel set-up.

With my gripes out of the way, I can however still honestly say that the movie is a lot of fun with its combination of impressively gory set pieces, some smartly written characters and some hilarious dialogue lines. Felicity Mason makes an attractive lead as the model Renée and the film cunningly uses the plot device of acid rain in order to get both her and the rest of the cast to strip down to skimpy tops. Dirk Hunter’s dorky cop character gets the best lines, but Mungo McKay makes an extremely unconventional lead out of Marion, performing some unlikely stunts with his bulky form and proving a dab-hand with his triple shotgun action. And, of course, there is the pièce de la résistance, the Zombie Fish Attack Flashback, which qualifies as one of the funniest movie scenes I’ve seen in many years.

Clearly, the Spierig brothers are huge genre fans, and the time and effort they put into Undead deserve respect. Most of the effects were realized on home computers and look impressive; the brothers had to sell a lot of their personal possessions to fulfill their big screen zombie dream. Undead is undeniably silly but also extremely enjoyable and won’t be the last thing we hear from them.

Worth seeing, but check your brain at the counter.