The Dead Lands, on Shudder

It wasn’t a virus that created these zombies. It was spiritual and cosmic, like a manifestation of Pre-Columbian malaise. Something is blocking the dead’s passage from the earthly Maori world (pre-Western contact), to the realm of the hereafter. That forces all the angry new spirits back into their decaying bodies. The notorious warrior Waka Nuku Rau also came back from the dead, but he is a special case. His ancestors won’t take him until he atones for his barbaric sins. It will take something big, but if he can reopen the passage between worlds of the living and the dead, bringing balance back to the universe, he could possibly restore his lost honor in The Dead Lands the series, which premieres today on Shudder.

The series incarnation of Dead Lands is more or less set in the same Maori universe as the 2014 film of the same name and their share similar themes and creator/screenwriter Glenn Standring, but the narratives discretely stand alone. Te Kohe Tuhaka also stars in both, first playing the menacing villain Wirepa and the film and now portraying Waka, the anti-hero—with an emphasis on “anti.”

Having killed, maimed, and pillaged with reckless abandon, Waka is a little short on good karma when his enemies finally get the drop on him. Essentially, the guardians of the afterlife send him right back where he came from, but being heroic does not come naturally to him. It takes a while for Waka to realize he was probably meant to help Mehe rescue her father, the chief of her tribe, from a subterranean horde of zombies (technically, they don’t call them zombies, because the Maori do not yet have Walking Dead comics or Living Dead movies, but it is the same difference).

Waka and Mehe bicker like cats and dogs, but when push comes to shove, he has her back—or at least he does throughout the first three episodes made available to the media. You have to give him credit for that, because the spirit of his not-so-dearly departed mother is constantly pushing him to sacrifice Mehe to the spirits. She is quite a piece of work, like Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate crossed with Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom. It is easy to understand how he grew up to be so angry.

Dead or not, Waka still sure can fight. Good thing too, because he will have plenty of opportunities. Rather reluctantly, Waka will find himself embroiled in a power struggle within Mehe’s tribe and a mission to rescue a young man who knows who broke the world from a trio of witches, but he is always comfortable hacking away at zombies with his paddle-shaped patus.

The Dead Lands film deliberately set out to showcase the Maori martial arts of Mau Rakau. The series does not skimp on action either, but it also balances it with supernatural elements. Fans of the Joseon zombie movie Rampant should definitely dig this series too.

The Dead Lands: The Deadly Maori Art of Mau Rakau

You may not be familiar with the Maori martial arts discipline of Mau Rakau, but there is a reason it translates as “to bear a weapon.” Viewers will see just how lethal paddle-shaped Patus and assorted traditional spears can be when a teenage Maori follows his father’s killer through a shunned stretch forest in Toa Fraser’s The Dead Lands (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

This is New Zealand before contact with Europeans, but it is not necessarily unspoiled. Something so horrific happened in the so-called Dead Lands, the various Maori tribes avoid it at all costs. The exact details remain hazy, but everyone believes the old, ferocious figure known simply as “the Warrior” was intimately involved in the atrocity. Just about everyone will travel days out of their way to avoid his territory, not Wirepa, who just barges through.

The arrogant young son of tribal chief has just manufactured a grievance against their rival tribe. His subsequent sneak attack nearly wiped out all of Hongi’s people and killed his father, the peace-loving chief. Nobody ever thought the clumsy Hongi would ever amount to much of a warrior, but he will have to develop his skills quickly to avenge his people. With the encouragement of his grandmother’s aggrieved spirit, Hongi forges an alliance with the fearsome Warrior (with a capital “W”), who does not appreciate the entitled Wirepa traipsing through his territory. Despite his profoundly antisocial nature, The Warrior will take Hongi under his wing, teaching him the deadly art of Mau Rakau.

Dead Lands is bound to offend some viewers because its vision of pre-contact Maori is all about fighting. Yet that is not such a bad strategy, since it allows the film to sidestep the awkward melodrama of a Rapa Nui. It certainly makes viewers reluctant to hassle anyone carrying a patu with authority, which is something the film can hang its hat on.

Indeed, the Mau Rakau fight scenes choreographed by cast trainer and co-star Jamus Webster are spectacularly cinematic. The imposing Lawrence Makoare (a veteran of The Lord of the Rings franchise and Marco Polo) is an especially effective action figure, who seems ripe for a cult following after all the glowering and hacking-and-slashing he does as “The Warrior.” James Rolleston and Te Kohe Tuhaka also go at it with admirable vigor as Hongi and Wirepa, respectively. Frustratingly, Raukura Turei displays impressive Mau Rakau chops and real screen presence as Mehe, a lady warrior and potential love interest, but she is forced to make a rough entrance all too quickly after the film introduces her.

There is probably plenty of ethnographic hand-wringing to do over Dead Lands, but the action scenes are cool and it provided a lot of work for Maori actors and craftsmen. In its way, it should inspire widespread fanboy appreciation for the time honored practice of Mau Rakau. Fraser gives it all a strong sense of place and nicely instills a mood of mystery and foreboding. Recommended for fans of Seediq Bale, The Dead Lands opens this Friday (4/17) in New York, at the Village East.