By Cheryl Eddy

IN THE LATE 1990s, the loudest noise in horror emanated from Scream's bloody, bloody throat. Wes Craven's loving homage to slasher cinema spawned sequels and imitators dribbling with self-referential dialogue and photogenic stars (most of whom were plucked from the small screen for the privilege of being sliced 'n' diced on the big one). That trend petered out right around the time someone decided I Still Know What You Did Last Summer had a catchier ring than I Know What You Did Two Summers Ago, logic be damned.

But horror itself is evergreen (emphasis on the "green," as in "greenbacks"). Scary movies in the tense and occasionally terrible 21st century tend to fall into one of two categories: remakes of either older movies (The Amityville Horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) or recent Asian hits (The Ring, The Grudge, and this week's Dark Water); and zombie flicks. A solid shot to the head will send most walking deadniks back to their empty graves – but it'd be nearly impossible to kill off zombie movies. The genre's recent resurgence has dovetailed nicely with the world's current climate, charged as it is by certain fears: gruesome epidemics (28 Days Later, Dead Meat), evil corporations (Resident Evil), consumerism (Dawn of the Dead), and the dreaded curse of slacker malaise (Shaun of the Dead).

As these and earlier zombie films have shown, a plague of undead can be played for screams (Night of the Living Dead), or laughs (Return of the Living Dead), or as an excuse for gut-wrenching revulsion (bless you, Lucio Fulci). A few weeks ago, George A. Romero finally released Land of the Dead – in some circles, this occasion was tantamount to George Lucas finally releasing a new Star Wars movie in 1999.

Land of the Dead picks up the thread of Romero's three previous Dead movies, clustering America's few remaining human souls in a heavily guarded city. And the situation's not all that inconceivable, really – while the zombies provide plenty of external horror (of the biting and snacking variety), inside the city, the asshole money-grubbers oppress the lower classes with zero conscience. (There's no middle class, unless that's what the zombies represent). Dennis Hopper plays a overlord-tycoon type who's a little bit Cheney, a little bit Trump; pissed-off underling John Leguizamo threatens to start a "jihad" (instead of, say, to "open a can of whup-ass") when making threats against the powers that be. Of course, these kinds of post-9/11 jabs are arguably lost on Land of the Dead's target audience, who're more likely to remember that scene involving the choppers of a hungry "stench" and the belly-button ring of a squealing rich chick than any of Romero's political undertones.

Into this bubbling pot of rotting limbs slides Undead, an Australian flick made back in 2001 by twin brothers Michael and Peter Spierig. Unfortunately, Undead's early ticket on the zombie train is moot, since it's only now getting a US theatrical release. (If it sounds familiar, you probably caught it at 2004's Another Hole in the Head Festival). On a day like any other, asteroids suddenly begin crashing into a bucolic Aussie village. "Buggah me!", a (soon to be decapitated) townsperson exclaims when he sees a fizzling chunk punch through a woman's stomach.

'Course, all the destruction doesn't end there; in the grand tradition of Night of the Living Dead, the alien rocks also have the power to reanimate every corpse in sight. This tongue-in-cheek tale's heroine is a blue-eyed beauty queen named Rene (Felicity Mason), who sees her recent crowning as Miss Catch of the Day as a way out of smalltownsville – until all the marauding zombies cross her path. Amid the hysterical locals, Rene finds an ally in Marion (Mungo McKay), a well-armed Dirty Harry sort who gets to whisper-mutter all the movie's best lines: "Those things out there are the beginning of the end of the world ... the universe ... everything."

Undead gets points for incorporating ambitious special effects into its (low) budget, as well as taking a turn into serious sci-fi territory not usually incorporated into zombie movies (the "let's all shop in the deserted store" scene is, however, present and accounted for). Undead is not without its shrill moments – some of the supporting characters are so annoying, you can't wait for them to get gobbled up. Marion's handful of priceless moments aside ("Are you fighter, fish queen – or are you zombie food?"), Undead is not nearly as memorable as Shaun of the Dead, which worked the "zom-com" angle with far more satisfying results. Nor does Undead feature much in the way of Romero-eque agenda-pushing (its gore factor is understandably less lavish as well).

As the current zombie wave begins to break – what could possibly be better than that Holy Grail of horror: a new Romero film? – Undead may have trouble finding an audience that hasn't see it all before, and quite recently at that. Perhaps Australia will get its due when Wolf Creek – a based-on-true-events backwoods screamer, with no apparent zombie involvement – brings some variety to the horror smorgasbord this fall.

'Undead' opens Fri/8, Lumiere Theatre, 1572 California, SF. (415) 267-4893; and Act I and II, 2128 Center, Berk. (510) 464-5980. See Movie Clock for show times.