Handling the Undead review: More bite than your standard zombie flick

The world could always use more zombie movies, especially moody foreign language efforts, and Handling the Undead delivers exactly that.

International releases tend to go missing among the masses sometimes, but while mainstream horror movies usually rely on cheap jumpscares and gratuitous gore, this Norwegian film stands out from the crowd by leaning into moral conundrums and melancholia.

Handling the Undead is the fiction feature debut from writer-director, Thea Hvistendahl, and the new movie is based on the novel from acclaimed author, John Ajvide Lindqvist. Knowing this story comes from the same mind that spawned Let the Right One In should suitably prepare you for the bleak tale to come in this Neon horror.

Taking place in Oslo, the recently-deceased return to the land of the living after an electrical surge, leaving three families with big decisions to make: do they embrace their lost loved ones, or fear the walking dead?

Slow and steady wins the race

From the opening scene of Handling the Undead, it’s clear things will be a little different. Haunting choir music provides the backdrop for a cold relationship between a father and daughter, while an elderly woman lays her wife to rest, and a man watches his partner’s life slip away in a hospital bed. There’s no real sense of dread, but plenty of pain.

The camerawork of cinematographer, Pål Ulvik Rokseth, is invasive yet delicate, lingering just close enough to capture the malaise in the room without ever disrupting the grieving process. Even as the dead rise, there are no frantic movements of the frame to suggest chaos is coming — though there are a few Night of the Living Dead homages to satisfy hardened zombie aficionados.

It’s in the technical elements that Handling the Undead really succeeds. The score drifts from holy to hedonistic, with pulsating techno injecting life into the revelatory moments of the resurrection, while brooding strings underpin the devastating realization that a pulse does not equate to a happy reunion.

All the while, every shot is carefully composed, with genuinely touching moments of compassion captured beautifully — in spite of all the gray, rotting skin.

Handling the Undead is, admittedly, a slow movie. It takes 30 minutes for the core concept — the dead coming back to life — to actually happen, and even after that, there’s no real crescendo to the story. If you’re here for flesh-eating and tense chase scenes, you’re in the wrong place. 

Still, there’s enough meat on the bones thanks to the gripping performances from the cast. Renate Reinsve shines in the most prominent role of them all, while her co-star from The Worst Person in the World, Anders Danielsen Lie, also stands out.

The pair don’t share any screen time, but they both play parents who can’t quite work out how to handle this unique situation, displaying desperation and somber acceptance with unnerving authenticity.

Thinking over thrills

Handling the Undead won’t entertain, excite, or scare anyone. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Instead, viewers are invited to ponder the morality of the situation at hand: would we actually want this second chance to connect with our loved ones? 

It’s one thing to wish you had more time with someone, but digging them out of their grave and pretending they are still the same person is not quite the fantasy we imagine. Decades of zombie movies have taught us that the undead may look like the people we love, but they are irreversibly altered. Interestingly, there are moments in this film where it seems the zombies themselves don’t even want to be back, a concept very rarely considered in cinema.

These three families we encounter are all suffering, but grief is a very normal and important process. When that process is halted in such unnatural and morose fashion, it stirs up fascinating friction within the dynamic of the story and gives audiences food for thought.

While the movie is not scary, it is unsettling, which is sometimes just as satisfying. Visceral imagery ranging from the bloated corpse of a man pawing at a window, to watching the life being squeezed out of a poor, defenseless creature as it squeals in pain, Handling the Undead may not make you jump but it will leave a lasting impression.

Handling the Undead review score: 4/5

Clearly, this is not your typical zombie movie. There are no wild and vicious attacks, no mass hordes of infected hunters, no panic on the streets. No, Handling the Undead flourishes with a more meditative, melancholy, and macabre tone.

We’ve seen enough of Hollywood’s archetypal depictions of zombies by now, so it’s refreshing to see something far more bleak yet genuinely thought-provoking and, ultimately, emotional coming out of Scandinavia. 

Handling the Undead does what any great horror movie should do: it worms its way into our souls and picks at our deepest, darkest fears. First and foremost, Handling the Undead is an achingly poignant study of grief. The fact it’s packaged as a zombie movie is simply a bonus.

For more zombie action, check out our guide to watching The Walking Dead in order, or see what’s to come in The Last of Us Season 2. We’ve also got a list of the most anticipated horror movies of 2024, like Longlegs.