The Undead Symphony

Darren Smith, Michael Avery and Guests
  • 2.3 (3)
  • Arts
  • Updated Semiweekly

An undead podcast discussing all things zombie. Movie reviews and TV shows, franchises and chats with fans and the ghouls and boils who bring us this much loved genre.

  1. 4d ago

    Episode 397: Not All Movies Are The Same: Dual

    I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share. Advertised Plot: After losing everything to a personal mistake, a suicidal man discovers a portal to a parallel world where a family is trapped by zombies. He must communicate across dimensions to save a dying girl and fight for his own redemption.  Reality: 16 moon shots! 16!!! That nearly doubles the record of dumbass moon shots in a zombie movie we have seen. Conceptually fine, the two dimensions thing with a guy going from one to the other. But it is just done so badly. Awful acting. Awful music choices including Jaws and Psycho rip-offs. Awful shouty kids and mom, who just shout their names the whole movie. The strobe light was terrible and off-putting. And we didn't get enough of what we are tuning in for, namely zombies being killed in a multiverse kinda ting. No, we have 15 mins of the main guy crying in a barn and a 3 minute dance routine. A bit of a shambles at the best of times, our 5th and least favourite Indian movie, not even our favourite Telugu movie. 3/10

  2. Sep 27

    Episode 396: Resident Evil (2026) chat

    I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share. It is one of those rare occasions, recently only seen when the 28 Years Later and Colony came out that Michael and I are right up to date with a new movie in the genre, so we have to record a chat. TBH when it was announced that Zac Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) was taking on Res Evil I was skeptical, and even when the trailers and teasers started to appear, I was skeptical. So what did I think? And would Michael regret taking his eldest son to go and see it? Is it as bad or good as Super Mario Brothers, Max Payne, or Doom? You will have to find out.

  3. Sep 25

    Episode 395: The Undead aka Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood!

    I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share. Where to start? There is probably a reason why this C Thomas Howell effort was renamed, and as reason he isn't on the cover, or mentioned in the description. I wonder what it is? The title? Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood! Not great is it? No wonder it was repackaged as The Undead, one of the tamest and most obvious titles going. I needed 4 sittings to watch this atrocity. There have been UN War Crime trials at the Hague for less than this. Basically bad acting, bad writing, bad zombies, bad makeup, awful music, terrible gun effects including an M16 firing over 100 bullets from a single 20 bullet magazine, and nothing that really stood out other than C Thomas Howell lowering himself to be in a movie called Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood!  3/10

  4. Sep 23

    Episode 394: Zombie Family and Resident Evil (2026)

    I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share. I have been waiting for something decent for such a long time that I went to the movie theater to see Zac Cregger's attempt at Resident Evil. I can see what he was trying to do, there are definitely computer game-like setups, the woods, the road tunnel, the hospital parking garage and elevator shaft, not to mention the barn puzzle to lock the dog inside. I can also see why people hated it. Personally if Paul Hauser's infinitely annoying and wholly unnecessary comedic character hadn't said he worked for Umbrella, and if the nurse hadn't said the green bag of something needed to go to Raccoon City General Hospital you would have been hard pressed to think it was Resident anything. And everything that happened in the lab just infuriated me. As a stand alone movie there was enough to like for me to give it a 7/10 with possible recalibration when Micheal watches it at the weekend. Zombie Family felt like an elongated and poorly received SNL skit, even with genre legends Doug Jones and Tony Todd in it, but the real news is the second Apocalypse Z movie coming out at the end of October. The first movie I also scored 7/10 and would edge it over Cregger's effort if I had to pick one over the other.

  5. Sep 21

    Episode 393: SARS Wars: Bangkok Zombie Crisis

    I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share. Sometimes, rarely, more rarely than you would think, I unintentionally end up watching similar movies back to back. And while the stories of Helldriver and SARS Wars: Bangkok Zombie Crisis are very different, the movies themselves have the same feel. The same this is f*****g awful, cheap nasty crap feel.  Whilst Helldriver was not strictly a comedy, SARS Wars is, and it is over the top. The gore in the Japanese and Thai movies are similar, the heroes, the villains, the zombies, the weak stupidity of the writing, the FX, everything. What sets this apart from the others? And Helldriver? Looney Tunes sound effects. Seriously we have boings and bongos in this zombie movie that do not add to it. In fact, nothing could really add to it, other than someone involved taking it seriously. The plot had potential, a millionaire's daughter is kidnapped for ransom and held in a high rise. The same high rise becomes ground zero for a zombie outbreak. Our heroes need to go in and save the girl, fighting gangsters and zombies along the way. Simple? Right? Just watch them f**k it all up. Although if you made The Raid a zombie movie, how good would that be? As far as this goes, it is a 3.5/10 for me. The best bit of the movie was when the DVD broke and I couldn't watch the last 4 chapters. The worst bit of the movie was when I fixed it.

  6. Sep 19

    Episode 392: Helldriver (2010)

    I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share. Let me put it this way... "In a scene that really epitomises this movie the starfish shaped alien attached to the zombie queen's head since the alien asteroid blew a whole through her chest, forcing her to rip out Kika's heart and stick it in her missing chest cavity, grows batons out of two of its arms and starts conducting an orchestra of zombies, making a Voltron style giant zombie made up of hundreds of regular zombies catch the next two missiles that had been fired by the Hitler moustached huma General from his bunker in the city, and uses them to fly into the sky making a zombie jet plane aimed towards the city, as Kika, the robot hearted chain-sword wielding schoolgirl climbs on board to do battle with the zombie version of the thugs that ate her birthday pudding and then her disabled dad." Yeah, it was that level of Japanese nonsense. In short, if you liked Robo Geisha and Tokyo Gore Police this is for you. If not, the you will do as I did, spend a lot of the time confused, before scoring it 3.5/10 at best.

  7. Sep 17

    Episode 391: Dreidel of the Dead

    I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share. In this special episode of the Undead Symphony Michael returns to discuss my 30 minute animated short Dreidel of the Dead, a stop motion zombie movie in the sub-genre of apartment survival horror and love letter to the genre and all we have seen over the past 4 years of the podcast.

  8. Sep 13

    Episode 390: Together Till The End

    I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share. This is a piñata full of shit, and I just hit it and it is spilling everywhere. A 2026 Mexican effort that sucks as bad as the other Mexican zombie movies we have seen Los Infectados (3/10) and Some Be (3.5/10) maybe even worse. In this "every single f*****g thing happens off camera" hotchpotch of nonsense we have weak woman Elena and moustachioed slacker Joachim surviving in what we guess is the zombie apocalypse, although it has to be a guess as WE DON'T SEE ANYTHING! Every kill is off camera, all the zombies are off camera. Everything that happens on the street, it's off camera, and both the times they head into the building? Guess what? It all happens off camera. What is on camera? Bad acting and poor camerawork start to finish. This snoozefest was the worst of it's kind, a dull, apartment survival horror movie where they don't even barricade the door, they don't try to get supplies from other apartments in the building, they don't even try. It is pathetic and painful to watch. Avoid it. Watch the Ed Speleers Zoe Tapper Death Do Us Part aka Zoo instead. 3/10 and I feel aggrieved scoring it that highly

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Ratings & Reviews

2.3
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

An undead podcast discussing all things zombie. Movie reviews and TV shows, franchises and chats with fans and the ghouls and boils who bring us this much loved genre.

Information

  • Creator
    Darren Smith, Michael Avery and Guests
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    397
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Undead Symphony
  • Show Website
    The Undead Symphony