 "Tidal wave of blood, guts & wild carnage" | 2009-10-26 |
| - Reviewed By User: ADIZ3BB6ZT0CW |
| This movie is completely hilarious and has more blood, guts & wild carnage than any horror/zombie movie in the history of cinema. At times I wondered if there was somebody off-camera with a garden hose spraying fake blood all over the actors. The kung-fu priest vs. the zombies bit had me laughing for days. Completely over the top and not for the squeamish. |
| |
| "Your Mum Ate My Dog" | 2009-10-21 |
| - Reviewed By User: AW3I97UR8NP7T |
The recent release of ZOMBIELAND has fans of the unique subgenre known as the "zomedy" falling all over themselves either to praise that flick or to condemn it. In either case they usually for better or worse compare it to SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the popular British flick starring Simon Pegg, and I can see that, really I can. But the comparisons have been so consistent and so exclusive of almost all other zomedies that I feel it incumbent upon myself to say, doesn't ANYBODY remember Peter Jackson's 1992 flick DEAD-ALIVE? Am I really the only person on the face of the earth (or Lunch at least) who looks back fondly on that 97 minutes of mildly loopy humor that culminates in what I am almost certain is still the most outrageously gory deneouement ever to grace any zombie flick comedy or otherwise?
The film opens on Skull island (located south of Sumatra) where an explorer has suceeded in capturing a rare Sumatran Rat Monkey and is headed for a jeep that will help take him and his rare prize back to New Zealand and the Wellington Zoo. Local natives try to stop him, warning him that the animal is not only dangerous but also sacred to them and that there is no way that monkey is leaving their island. Well, long story short, monkey leaves explorer doesn't. In the ensuing chase the guy is bitten and scratched by the beastie. His local guides cut off his arms and then his head. Roll opening credits. (You get a double dismemberment AND a decapitation before the credits? Well, the decapitation is implied.) The guides grab the caged animal and take off. Eventually it's shoved on a plane for new Zealand where we meet out hapless hero Lionel (Timothy Balme) when he drops into a grocery store to leave off the weekly order. His timing is impecable because our heroine Pacquita (Diana Penalier) has just had her future told by her grandmother, to wit: she will very soon meet the one man she will love for the rest of her life and there will be a sign. Lionel knocks over some pens. Presto, there's the sign.
Love ain't going to be easy for Lionel and Pacquita though because he's got the Queen of all bitchy, domineering mothers, and he's a spinless dweeb in the bargain. Nonetheless Pacquita tricks him into asking her out on a date to the zoo. Zoo? Uh oh. Double uh oh because Mum overhears and follows to spy on them. Here's where we get our first look at the Sumatran Rat Monkey which is rendered via good old fashioned stop motion animation. He's adorably nasty and he promptly takes a chunk out of Mum when she gets too close to his cage but he obviously didn't know who he was dealing with because she smushes him into sumatran jelly. Date over. Lionel has to take Mum home and tend to her injuries.
From here things go down hill pretty rapidly although not quite as rapidly as you might expect and definitely not as fast as most fans would hope, as I said Lionel's a bit of a milquetoast. After Mum becomes an official member of the undead, Lionel just can't bring himself to dispatch her (or the nurse practioner she chowed down on) so he decideds to keep them both in the cellar and hope no one will noice they're not around. He sedates them with tranquillizers procured from a local veterinarian who's personal history is hilariously suspect (look for the swastica under his lab coat) and tries to keep his horrible secret. Mum escapes though and gets hit by a streetcar making a funeral necessary, but Lionel's frantic about how to keep her quiet while she's supposedly "dead". It doesn't go smoothly, but Mum does get planted. She doesn't stay down long though causing Lionel's undead problems to increase, leading to more sedated undead bodies in the cellar, and an uncle who tries to blackmail him thinking he's a murderer, and then there's that Big Finale I alluded to earlier.
DEAD-ALIVE (called BRAINDEAD in New Zealand) can be found in many versions. Before I go further I must warn against the R-rated 90 American minute version. It has been heavily edited, contains little of the real gore, and makes very little sense as a result of the editing. The unrated 97 minute American version is more watchable but I'm told still suffers greatly when compared to the original 107 minute version that the rest of the world enjoys under it's original title. There are also versions out at 100 and 103 minutes. Peter Jackson himself has been quoted as saying that he prefers the 97 minute version because it gave him more time to polish the film.
Jackson had a 3 million dollar budget here and it was his biggest to that date. Most of it was spent on special effects of course and if there is a single moment here of CGI I certainly can't spot it. Everything seems to be done old school using puppetry, make up, prosthetics, and stop motion animation and fans of old school effects should be euphoric. I know I was. There are undead deaths by all sorts of amusing means--one zombie has her head smashed into a light bulb and for the next 5 minutes or so she just hangs there impaled on the wall with light shooting out of her entire body like some kind of grotesque nightlight. The zombies themselves may take a licking but they keep on ticking! These guys are really hard to discourage; cut 'em off at the waist and both halves keep coming after you., cut off their arms and body and arms alike have one goal in mind (?), eviscerate them and it's RE-ANIMATOR time! I defy any gore hound to see this flick and not come away totally satisfied by the sheer amount of carnage Jackson inflicts upon his audience. And we're not even talking about the imaginative, creative, and downright silly methods that are employed. I love it when film makers show me something I haven't see before or carry it to an extreme that I would never have thought possible and Jackson won my heart with this flick. Whether or not the more subtle humor stacks up to SHAUN or not is a matter of personal preference I suppose, but for me it's close to a tie. Some of the characters in Kiwi flix can be priceless and a lot of the humor is character drawn. Yes Father McGruder I'm talking about you. I loved him in the graveyard but afterward he gets all hinky and kinky. Believe me folks, this movie will NEVER show on TV.
If you call yourself a horror fan and have not seen this flick then you are depriving yourself of a unique experience--this is a must see. Oh a few last things. Watch for the late Forry Ackerman as a camera toting tourist snapping a photo of Mum getting bitten by the rat monkey at the zoo. And the next time you watch Jackson's KING KONG look for the cage labled SUMATRAN RAT MONKEY in the hold of the ship. You see it the first time Adrian Brody goes down there. Jackson paying homage to himself.
|
| |
| "open your mind to the real gore zone." | 2009-09-28 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3J6DHMXFXEL51 |
| I took my time reading the 1 star reviews just to know what leads people to think that this movie is not worthy of a 5 stars rate.If one of those people are reading this review (and I respect different opinions)let me expose my point of view widely,you need to be open-mind to understand that first was a different time for Peter Jackson from Lord of the Rings or King Kong era and second you must be a real horror fan to figure out that it goes beyond than simply gore and entertainment,(which is actually like that)is the Peter Jackson's creative and imagination(screenplay).And by the way it's still the goriest horror movie ever. |
| |
| "Brilliant, a true comedy masterpiece" | 2009-08-13 |
| - Reviewed By shaneeca |
Not liking horrormovies, (and I mean... NOT AT ALL).. this one truly did it for me.
Awesome in it's ridicule. I couldn't stop laughing.
Absolutley Worthwhile.
|
| |
| "The Director of Lord of the Rings Made This? Oh Yeah!" | 2009-06-27 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3FJHMF9FPIG55 |
Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, and Braindead(or Dead-Alive in US) are Peter Jackson's splatstick comedies that gave him a cult status before Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson directed movies with comedy and extreme gore at first then later fantasy including Lord of the Rings. Peter is known for both his gory past and award-winning present times. People who only know Peter for Lord of the Rings and King Kong would be shocked seeing his earlier splat films.
Braindead(UK) is Dead-Alive in the US due to conflicts with another film called Braindead(US). Some segments were also removed, even unrated Dead-Alive is not fully uncut.
Dead-Alive is about a guy caring for his cruel mother that he still loves. At a zoo, the mother gets bitten by a cursed monkey while trying to scold her caring son for dating a woman because the guy's mother is misogynistic. The guy's mother deteriates over time and dies. The mother zombifies and starts the zombie chain reaction.
Dead-Alive is full of unforgettable gore, characters, laughs, and quotes.
The gore is excessive in a comical fashion. Dead-Alive is known as the goriest movie by bloodcount by the gallon. The gore left me laughing in a exhausted manner. The characters are like if they came from a comic book. The main character is similar to Bruce Campbell's Ash character and there's also martial artist priest. Dead-Alive does have it's funny moments like a evil zombie baby that laughs deviously. The quotes are comic book like. The priest sees zombies creating havoc and says "I kick arse for the Lord!" The priest then beats up the zombies.
Peter's Dead-Alive is certainly a cool movie. The acting is cheesy but it's for comic reasons. The scenery looks like the scenery from Peter's later horror comedy The Frighteners. The story is very creative and even has a twist. The cheesiness of Dead-Alive doesn't interfere, it's all for the fun. It's for people who are into horror and comics. I like Peter old and new, he is a genius.
I ordered a copy from Amazon.com and it's unrated from Lion's Gate Entertainment. The special features barely exist but still a great buy. |
| |
| "Zombies + 10,000 KFC buckets of fake blood + Peter Jackson = GREAT!" | 2009-06-19 |
| - Reviewed By stellar-eruption-bill-278 |
"Dead Alive" is one of the most well-known comedy-horror crossover movies and was directed by Peter Jackson, the same guy that directed the "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy. Wow. WOW! Hard to believe a director can go from grinding up zombies with a lawnmower to six-foot elves trampling along the massive valleys near Amon Amarth (the mountain in LOTR, not the band, although the band is awesome, too!)
But indeed, Peter Jackson DID direct this movie. Although it's not really horror by any means, considering all the one-liners, the slapstick humor and the gross-out gags, it's really a comedy. However, it's a comedy that probably only horror lovers would watch! The first hour or essentially plays off as a comedy without all that much gore. There are some funny moments, such as the wealthy people eating their pudding as their ears and such fall off into it! ("Rich and creamy! Just how I like it!"). We ALSO get a crazy monkey and Lionel beating the death out of a zombie baby in the middle of a park!
So the first hour or so is entertaining enough, BUT make sure you have the patience to make it to the last 30 minutes, because it WILL be worth the wait! I mean, I've seen gore before, but by the time I saw the last half-hour of "Dead Alive", including the famous lawnmower massacre scene and a room full of zombies later ending up a room full of zombie blood...this movie is definitely one of the goriest movies in history. And it's funny at the same time! Peter Jackson is able to make scenes that you THINK would be gross, actually very amusing!
While this movie isn't THE UTMOST goriest movie ever made, that award possibly going to Japanese action film "The Machine Girl", this movie is at the very least one of the Top 5 Goriest Movies Ever Made. If you ever wondered what slapstick humor, one-liners, 10,000 Extra Large KFC Buckets full of fake blood and a sweet romance between two young people would result in...check out "Dead Alive" for some entertainment! Thanks for the time, and peace. |
| |
Expedited Available
