Dead Alive (1992) Trimark/Comedy-Horror RT: 97 minutes No MPAA rating (an abundance of outrageous gore) Director: Peter Jackson Screenplay: Stephen Sinclair, Frances Walsh and Peter Jackson Music: Peter Dasent Cinematography: Murray Milne Release date: August 13, 1992 (NZ)/February 12, 1993 (US) Cast: Timothy Balme, Diana Penalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin, Brenda Kendall, Stuart Devenie, Jed Brophy, Stephen Papps, Murray Keane, Glenis Levestam, Lewis Rowe, Elizabeth Mulfaxe, Harry Sinclair, Davina Whitehouse, Silvio Famularo, Bill Ralston. Box Office: $242,623 (US)
Rating: ****
Peter Jackson’s gonzo zombie comedy Dead Alive (known as Braindead in New Zealand and other countries) is a gorehound’s wildest dreams come true. It’s not just a bloodbath, it’s a whole ocean! I had the privilege of seeing it on the big screen opening weekend at Philadelphia’s Roxy Theater. I knew I couldn’t miss it. In lieu of an MPAA rating, it was released unrated with a “No One Under 17 Admitted” policy, something I hadn’t seen since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in ’90 (also at the Roxy). Given my experience with such horror flicks in the past, I thought I knew what to expect. NOPE! Jackson goes all-out and balls-up in Dead Alive. It’s easily the goriest movie I’ve ever seen* and one of the zaniest.
Our story begins on Skull Island (sound familiar?) circa 1957 with a shady adventurer (Ralston) attempting to smuggle a Sumatran rat-monkey off the island over the objections of a group of natives. It’s a hybrid creature, the biological result of tree monkeys raped by plague-carrying rats. It’s an ugly little mother f***** too. Mean and vicious, one bite or one scratch from it means a fate worse than death for the recipient. Maybe that’s why the adventurer’s guys hack him to pieces when they see bite marks on his person.
The rat-monkey ends up in New Zealand at the Wellington Zoo where it will soon change the life of the protagonist Lionel (Balme, TV’s Mercy Peak) in a most unexpected way. He’s lived his entire life under the thumb of his domineering mother Vera (Moody, Heavenly Creatures) who blames him for the drowning death of his father as a young boy. He finds romance with Paquita (Penalver), a Spanish-Romani store clerk who believes they’re destined to be together forever. Mom can’t have that, can she? She follows them on their first date to the zoo where she’s promptly bitten by the rat-monkey. She quickly becomes gravely ill and dies soon thereafter. Unfortunately, death isn’t the end; it’s only the beginning of a nightmare. Remember the “fate worse than death” I mentioned earlier? Mom comes back as a zombie and proceeds to wreak bloody havoc.
Here’s the main thing you need to know about Dead Alive. It’s played entirely for laughs. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. Hell, it’s far too OTT to be taken any other way. That doesn’t make it any less gruesome however. It has blood, brains and body parts flying everywhere especially in the infamous lawnmower finale. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s talk about what precedes it first. The pre-finale gory highlights include a priest literally taking a zombie apart (“I kick ass for the Lord!”) before being impaled on a statue and transforming himself and a guy getting his balls ripped off by Mom for pissing on her grave. The insanity isn’t limited to the movie’s gory aspects. Jackson throws in a zombie baby, the love child of a zombie priest and zombie nurse, for good measure. In one riotous slapstick sequence, Lionel takes the baby to the park where it goes crazy all over the place.
NOW we get to the movie’s true centerpiece, the lawnmower massacre. OH YEAH! It’s a total gore de force! Lionel’s greedy, scheming uncle (Watkin, Sleeping Dogs) throws a party at the house; the reanimated stiffs escape from the basement (where Lionel hides them from prying eyes) and turn the guests into zombies. Lionel, in an act of crazed heroism, takes a twirling lawnmower to his unwanted guests. Blood and limbs EVERYWHERE! A woman’s face is torn off, a man’s rib cage is torn out, a man’s legs are stripped to the bone, the uncle goes all Benihana on the zombies with a pair of meat cleavers and Paquita purees body parts in a blender. There’s also an intestine monster. I’m not easily impressed but this finale still impresses the f*** out of me.
With a budget higher than both of Jackson’s previous movies (Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles) combined- i.e. $3 million, Dead Alive scores an A+ in the effects department. No CGI here. The rat-monkey is stop-motion. The zombies’ rotting, pus-oozing appearances are achieved with makeup. The rest is latex, prosthetics and gallons upon gallons of fake blood. I believe Dead Alive holds some kind of record for most fake blood used in a single movie but don’t quote me on it. The important thing is that all of it looks real and really gross. If any movie should come with free barf bags, it’s definitely Dead Alive. That, by the way, is a compliment.
With all the gory bedlam in Dead Alive, is there any point in commenting on the acting or any such element of the movie? Probably not but I’ll make a few remarks just the same. The actors camp it up very nicely, playing comical caricatures rather than characters. Lionel can be seen as a Kiwi version of Norman Bates what with the whole mother thing. His complicated romance with Paquita is sweet in a nutty kind of way. The screenplay, co-written by Jackson’s partner and longtime collaborator Fran Walsh, is smart and funny. You’ll laugh and retch at the same time. Jackson keeps things moving at a nice clip. Bottom line, it’s well made.
The only version of Dead Alive I’ve seen to date is the 97-minute version (the “unrated version”) released in the US. I’d like to see the longer 104-minute cut as I understand it has a few more scenes of gore. What can I say? A true gorehound’s thirst for blood is never fully quenched. HOWEVER, this version of Dead Alive satisfies and then some.
* = I saw Dead Alive before any of the Terrifier movies so…..
