We were zero years old (don’t you just love that phrase) when we discovered that John Ajvide Lindqvist, the Swedish author of the best-selling vampire neo-classic Let the Right One In (made into a Swedish version and remade as an American version, with mixed results) also wrote a contemporary take on zombies: Handling the Undead. Yes, it may have happened back in 2005, but we can’t read everything, can we?
Now Handling the Undead has been made into a Swedish film, and a trailer has just been released. The look is, not surprisingly for a Swedish film, both fresh and chilling – a visual take on various zombie tropes that seems to reinvest them with some real, eerie discomfort. The story itself? Who knows? The description is short and typically vague: “On a hot summer day in Oslo, the newly dead awaken. Three families faced with loss try to figure out what this resurrection means and if their loved ones really are back.” Judging by the trailer alone, this could be the basis for something very cold and unaffecting or something truly fascinating.
We’ll see. No release date has been set, in Europe or the US, but we’ll keep an eye out. Regardless, this promises to be one of the major entrants in the ‘elevated horror’ sweepstakes for 2024.