‘Handling the Undead’ Sundance Review – A Haunting Meditation on Grief

A loud, high-pitched sound echoes through the streets of Oslo. Car alarms start going off everywhere. A citywide blackout begins. An elderly man, draped over his grandson’s grave, begins to hear the sound of muffled knocks coming from under the ground. “Grandpa is coming,” he says repeatedly. He grabs a shovel and begins to dig. So begins Handling the Undead, Thea Hvistendahl‘s somber feature directorial debut that acts as a haunting meditation on grief, daring to ask us what we would do if someone we loved returned from the dead.

Adapted from John Ajvide Lindqvist’s (Let the Right One In) 2005 novel of the same name (he also co-wrote the screenplay with Hvistendahl), Handling the Undead chronicles the lives of three families as they deal with the sudden return of their recently deceased loved ones. Anna (Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World) is saved from a suicide attempt when her father Mahler (Bjørn Sundquist) brings home her newly resurrected son. David (Anders Danielsen Lie, also from The Worst Person in the World) and his family suffer a terrible tragedy when his wife Eva (Bahar Pars) is killed in a car accident, only for her to return to life mere hours later. And the elderly Tora (Bente Børsum), arrives home from her wife’s (Olga Damani) funeral, only to find her standing in the kitchen later that night.

A deliberately paced film if there ever was one, Handling the Undead is more reminiscent of the 2004 French film Les Revenants and its 2012 television adaptation more than, say, Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Viewers looking for their gory horror fix should look elsewhere, but that’s not to say that horrifying things don’t happen in the film (one scene of animal abuse is particularly upsetting). Handling the Undead is much more interested in the psyches of its living characters than the flesh-eating antics of its undead ones.

In fact, there’s very little flesh-eating going on in the film, just as there is very little dialogue. It’s a remarkably restrained debut for Hvistendahl, as she allows us sit with the characters as they process the spectacular events happening around them. We are able to process these emotions with them, but left to infer their thoughts and feelings through facial expressions and subtle movements. There are no “big” performances, leaving us with a story that feels shockingly authentic, and the film is all the better for it.

Some viewers may find Hvistendahl’s pacing to be sluggish at times, but this is by design. Life doesn’t move at a rapid clip when you’re grieving, a fact that Hvistendahl seems all too aware. Still, there are times where the pacing and lack of dialogue frustrate, as you find yourself yearning to learn more about these characters, yet the film refuses to let you in. It’s what you would call a “vibe” of a movie.

Director of photography Pål Ulvik Rokseth incorporates shots of a desolate Oslo, despite the fact that we are not in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. We are still very much in the world of the living, and life does continue for our characters. And yet, these long shots of the city are miraculously human-free, establishing just how lonely a place the world can be, even before a zombie apocalypse. This visual through line continues all the way to the evocative final shot. It’s a truly beautiful film.

Morten Jacobsen’s special effects makeup is impressive, but an extra commendation must be given to the work done on Anna’s son Elias. He is the undead character who has been dead the longest (meaning: he actually made it into the ground), and the glimpses we get of his partially-decomposed face will be imprinted in my brain for a long time. Like the film itself, it’s lot of subtle work, but that doesn’t make it any less effective.

With Handling the Undead, Hvistendahl establishes herself as a filmmaker with a keen interest in the human condition and a remarkable visual eye. With a surprisingly minimal amount of dialogue and a handful of emotionally charged performances, the film feels especially unique in its execution, Big questions are asked and few answers are given, but such is life (and death).

Handling the Undead premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Neon will release the film. Date TBA.

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