When you watch “Handling the Undead” you have to deconstruct your way of viewing the film. The film involves dead people and it touches on tropes of zombie films, but it’s not necessarily about the “zombies,” it’s about the loved ones and their relationship with these beings. It’s about the left behind, and how we love and let go. There is a lot of uneasiness in the film, but that’s what makes it fascinating.

I so enjoyed my conversation with the director of the film, Thea Hvistendahl, who adapted the film from a book of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I was so pleased to see the two stars of “The Worst Person in the World,” Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, in this film. The film tells three different stories of people who are at different stages of grief, and what happens to them when their loved ones exist as “undead.”

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year on January 20th in Park City. The film is now available to watch online on the festival platform. Learn more.

Our Sundance and Slamdance 2024 coverage is sponsored by the Gene Siskel Film Center. One of the last arthouse theaters in Chicago, they present a curated collection of international, independent, and classic cinema reflective of Chicago’s diverse community. Learn more.

I love that you love “Mulholland Drive.” Can you talk about how this film was a particular influence on your film, “Handling the Undead”?

In general, I feel that “Mulholland Drive” did not have any concrete influence on this film, but it has some of the same elements that attract me to filmmaking. It’s this mystery. It’s dark, but it’s really about the characters and the psychology of them. I think “Mulholland Drive” is a very bold film. 

And this is a very bold film! I’ve never seen a film like this one before.  I love that in your director’s statement, you asked, What is our role in death and how do we handle it? Role changing is extremely hard, but when your closest dies, it happens automatically. The person that is gone leaves a vacuum, and the ones left behind need to enter a new role and seek a new balance within themselves and their relations. And in this unrest, we tend to hurt each other. 

What brought me to this project is that I read a lot of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s work, and I found out that the rights of this book were available. I asked if I could do it, we had a meeting, he saw my shorts, and then I was allowed to move forward with the project. I was just really drawn to the characters, but also how he uses the undead as a visual image of the grieving process. The film is really about the living characters. 

And just to expand on the quote, it’s so hard to show love to the ones we love during hard times. I think it’s even worse when people are left behind, and how it is hard to accept and move on. I think what I said was about the pain between the living that are left in this state of a vacuum. That was really moving to me how they can connect through the undead some how. 

I love “The Worst Person in the World” and I love how you worked with Renate and Anders. How did you get them on board with this film and how was it working with them?

Anders was cast already in 2019. I asked him to play the role, he didn’t have to audition. I knew he would be perfect for the role, he was really interested, and he was great. Renate she did an amazing audition for the film about a year prior to shooting. She just gave so much to the role, so it was easy for me to write it again. She just said “yes,” and I knew that was just before “The Worst Person in the World” was going to go to Cannes. So I knew they had to play in this film together. I wasn’t sure if it was a bad choice.

But it was a good choice. 

Yes, it was a good choice. They’re just lovely people, both of them. They were very supportive, and they are great drama actors that can carry the emotions of these situations, and the absurdity without being too much or funny. They are also able to be held back, but still convey everything that is needed.

I didn’t want to label this film as a zombie film, but I couldn’t help thinking about that subgenre and its tropes. Was that in your head when you were making the film?

Yes, absolutely. I’m not a big zombie film fan myself, so I was trying to make a film for people who don’t like zombie films. But of course, it’s very fun to play with the genre and the tropes, and work with people that know those tropes. There are different expectations, and different tension through a lot of the scenes. Like are they going to become what they probably will become, and how does that happen? So that was absolutely in my mind, but it was more about how can I play with that genre as well, rather than trying to fit into it? I think maybe the biggest difference is that a lot of zombie films are about fear, but this is about love, and also connecting with the undead. But it’s really about the grieving process. 

I really appreciated how you looked at all of these different stages of grief. There were all of these different layers. What do you hope people see in your film?

I hope they see love. I also wanted the film to be quite open or have the space for the audience to enter themselves, like relate the film to themselves in different ways, so it’s also mediative while you are watching it, even though it’s tense. But I hope that they see the care and love, and how the world goes on, which is hard but also very beautiful. 

The cinematography is beautiful. Can you talk about your collaboration with your cinematographer, Pål Ulvik Rokseth, FNF?

So my cinematographer and I have done a lot of films together, and we’d been working on this project for a long time. We were going to go into production earlier, but we were able to take the time to develop the visual language and it was really important for me to shoot it on film. And over the year before we started shooting the film, we did the camera test with a 60mm and a 35mm camera. So it was a gradual way into it, I guess. And he is also my boyfriend, so we know each other, and we’ve worked with each other on so many projects. So it makes some of it easier. We did a full style guide, and a lot of development to get where we got. 

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