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.

The Sci-Fi Boys

Saturday morning I got up having battled a stomach virus for a couple of days and had to decide whether to try to catch up my writing on this blog, or whether to go watch my Saturday DVD before going to work in the afternoon.  I decided to go for the movie.  I was very fortunate that I made that decision because within 15 minutes of finishing my viewing of The Sci-Fi Boys, the power went out due to winter storm related issues. 

The Sci-Fi Boys is a documentary that is very close to my heart.  It tells the tales of some of my idols, Forrest J. Ackerman and Ray Harryhausen, and the young boys they helped inspire that went on to become famous in the world of fantasy and horror cinema.  The film features interviews with many of today’s top talent such as Peter Jackson and Rick Baker as well as Forry, Ray and others that helped found the modern age of horror and fantasy films.  It was great listening to the legends talk about the early days as well as hearing the younger filmmakers talk about their first exposure to Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.

My first exposure to FM, as the fans called it, was when I spotted issue 94 on the rack at Spring Hill Newsstand.  This was the issue with a painting of Frankenstein’s monster on a tannish/greyish background.  I got my mom to buy it for me and I was hooked.  A few months later I stumbled across The Monster Times, Castle of Frankenstein, and a dozen other monster magazines.  Like most of my friends, I was also building the re-released Aurora monster models (and the Addar Planet of the Apes models and the Aurora Prehistoric Scenes models and Monster Scenes models).  I would glue them together, paint them up (not very well I should add) and display them on my dresser.  My friend, Keith Harris, had his Prehistoric Scenes displayed on a really cool plywood shelf system like a lot of people have model trains set up on.  I thought he was the luckiest kid on the planet.  Where my friends and I concentrated our efforts on making these plastic model kits, the guys in this film started building their own monsters, making their own make up, and making their own movies.

I didn’t have a movie camera, or I would have most likely tried as well.  One summer my nephews and one of their friends did take an old regular camera and some black and white film and shot some pictures of recreated scenes from old horror movies.  Of course you really had to use your imagination because we had no make up, no costumes, no effects, nothing except pure imagination.  The guys in The Sci-Fi Boys were a lot more skilled.  They used very rudimentary make up and effects, but they captured a spark of magic.  The best part of the DVD is getting to see these early films made by 9 year old and 12 year old movie fans.  Consider when these were made and how young they were and the films are simply amazing.  I never did get a motion picture camera, but I did start producing my own comic books with one of my friends, so I found some release for my creativity.  Unfortunately WV is not exactly a movie making or comic publishing hot spot, so I ended up fulfilling my dream by writing film reviews for the school paper and a local magazine before finally going to work at the local theater as a doorman.

The Sci-Fi Boys brings back what it was like to be young and have dreams as big as the stars.  The DVD has lots of deleted material to watch that is easily as good as everything that director Paul Davids chose to put in the film.  Anyone that grew up in the late 60s and early 70s with a love for horror, sci-fi and fantasy, needs to see this film.  I also recommend showing it to your kids and let them see that dreams can come true if you try hard enough.

For the average viewer, The Sci-Fi Boys is probably only a 2 to 2 1/2 star movie.  It could have used a tighter narrative focus.  The catch is that there are segments in the films, like the films made by these future stars of the genre, that are pure gold, and there are loving tributes to Ray Harryhausen and the late George Pal, plus the interviews with Forrest J. Ackerman who sadly departed this world in late 2008 that deserve a rating much higher than that.  If you are of the era of the Sci-Fi Boys or if you have a love for these films, The Sci-Fi Boys is a 4 star nostalgia trip.  Adjust your personal rating accordingly.