The Quick and the Undead

(Omniversal Studios, 1999)

This relatively low budget ($24 million dollars) movie was the unexpected smash hit of 1999. Basically, it was a zombie apocalypse set just after the abrupt end of the Civil War in July, 1863, due to the dead rising up to eat the brains of the living. A group of gunfighters, snipers, gamblers, and frontiersmen are given the choice of finding and destroying Zombie One (the first zombie to rise and creator/king of all who followed) or be hanged. Not being partial to hanging, they set off into the South to carry out the mission, accompanied by agents of both the Union and the Confederacy.

The film earned $295 million at the domestic box office and $348 million in foreign distribution. Two less successful sequels were made.

Nobody in the cast was famous, but many went on to varying degrees of fame, most notably Greg Konicki, who starred in the Star Voyage reboot series for 7 years. Director Amos Lafferty next directed the hugely successful first entry in the Mary Potter series and later directed the James Bond movie "Sin And Sin Again".

The Quick & the Undead is available on DVD, Blu-ray and FlikChip from Mississippi.com