Dead Alive

Dead Alive had been recommended to me by several people.  People that knew I liked zombie movies said I would love it.  People that knew I liked gore films said I would love it.  There were two factors that kept me from watching it sooner.  This was an early Peter Jackson film and I had been severely disappointed in both Bad Taste and Meet The Feebles.  I was afraid this might be another let down.  The second reason was that there were so many different versions of the film and two different titles.  I wanted to make sure I saw the best version of the film.  The DVD that I purchased was the unrated 97 minute version from Tri-Mark.  I found it at Wills one time and couldn’t pass it up.  There is also a 104 minute version available on foreign cuts of the disc under the Braindead title.

The thing that struck me while watching the film was the fact that it is also a very funny film.  It reminded me of Sam Raimi in many ways although I actually think Dead Alive is funnier than Raimi’s Evil Dead movies.  It actually may not be that it is funnier, but it goes so dark and over the top with the gore that you have to laugh.  The luncheon scene where Mother eats her ear after it falls into her custard is perfectly sick, twisted and hilarious.  It is also one of many such scenes.

The plot of Dead Alive involves a young man with a controlling mother.  When he sneaks out on a date, she follows and is accidentally bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey.  The rat monkey’s bite apparently causes the person that gets bitten to die and yet remain alive.  Of course they become as evil as the rat monkey and feel the need to bite and chew on other people as well.  Mother starts by killing her nurse and converting her.  Later a gang of young thugs become zombie fodder as does a priest with karate skills that would make Bruce Lee smile in appreciation.  In order to take care of his mother, Lionel, the young man, takes them all home and feeds them food laced with tranquilizer.  Of course as the number of undead keeps growing, Lionel’s job gets harder and harder.  Eventually all hell breaks loose and Lionel, his girlfriend and a few others are forced to do battle with a house full of zombies.  When the humans get outnumbered, that’s when Lionel straps on the lawn mower.

Dead Alive is one of the bloodiest films of all time.  People are bitten, chopped up, cut in half, ripped apart, pureed in blenders, impaled on various items, and ran through a ringer washer, and the blood keeps flowing.  One character is cut in half and as his top half fights with Lionel in a bathtub, its guts pour out onto the floor.  When the head and shoulders get trapped in the toilet, the intestines start snaking around and grabbing at Lionel as well.

I loved this film.  In Jackson’s earlier films I found little bits and pieces that I liked, but I was never satisfied with how they came together.  In this film, the pieces came together and created a bloody fun ride.  It still amazes me that with only these 3 films as well as The Frighteners and Heavenly Creatures under his belt, that New Line chose to offer the Lord of the Rings films to Peter Jackson.  It is also amazing the leap that Jackson made as a director in these films.  I enjoy Raimi’s films, but even his big studio films have the feel of his early independents.  Jackson’s later films seem completely removed from his earlier gonzo horror humor in style and look. 

The Tri-Mark disc offers only the theatrical trailer and an Easter egg of the trailer for Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers as bonus features.  The trailer shows several bits of the final zombie rampage, but not the final rooftop confrontation.  I give it a 7 on the Quarantine scale.

As for the movie itself, I give it 3 1/2 bloody gory stars.  If you watch the movie, keep your eyes peeled for a cameo by Forrest J Ackerman in the zoo scene.

Tags: Bad Taste, blood, Braindead, cameos, cult film, Dead Alive, DVD, Forrest J. Ackerman, Forry, gore, horror, karate, Meet The Feebles, Peter Jackson, priest, rat monkey, Sam Raimi, zombies