{"id":2304,"date":"2024-08-15T15:26:48","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T15:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2304"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:20:32","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:20:32","slug":"dead-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/15\/dead-heat\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead Heat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dead Heat <\/strong>(1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Comedy-Action-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 84 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, gruesome images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Mark Goldblatt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Terry Black\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ernest Troost\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert D. Yeoman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 6, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo, Lindsay Frost, Darren McGavin, Vincent Price, Clare Kirkconnell, Keye Luke, Robert Picardo, Mel Stewart, Professor Toru Tanaka, Martha Quinn.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $3.5M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Here\u2019s a fun fact! In 1988, three cop movies with the word \u201cheat\u201d in the title were scheduled to hit theaters within months of each other. In June, it was Red Heat starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi. In August, it was supposed to be Outer Heat, but it was retitled Alien Nation and bumped to October. The first one out of the gate, however, was Dead Heat<\/strong>, a goofy comedy-action-horror hybrid from New World Pictures. It didn\u2019t go over well with critics or audiences, but this Movie Guy thought it was a blast.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I saw Dead Heat <\/strong>by myself (what else is new?) at a Wednesday matinee at one of my regular twin cinema haunts, the long-shuttered Lawrence Park Theater. A few things attracted me to it like a moth to a flame. First and foremost for me, it bore the New World Pictures logo. I always made a special effort to see their movies during their brief runs, usually one week but sometimes two. Second, I like both horror and action. This has both plus comedy. Third, it had an interesting cast. Treat Williams, at one time, seemed destined for greatness with lauded performances in movies like Hair, Prince of the City, Once Upon a Time in America and Smooth Talk. Now he\u2019s starring in a zombie cop flick alongside a seriously buff Joe Piscopo (Johnny Dangerously).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The real star of note in Dead Heat<\/strong> is Vincent Price, a true horror thespian whose long list of credits includes House of Wax, The Fly, House on Haunted Hill and several of Roger Corman\u2019s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations (e.g. House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Raven). Here, he plays Arthur P. Loudermilk, a wealthy industrialist who serves as the mad scientist character of the piece. He\u2019s built a machine that can raise the recently deceased. He has an evil plan, but first he has to test it out. It still has a few bugs in it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0To give you an idea of the level of humor in Dead Heat<\/strong>, Williams\u2019 character is named Roger Mortis. Take a moment to let that sink in. Roger Mortis, rigor mortis! Get it? LOL! I told you this movie is goofy. Detective Mortis and his partner Doug Bigelow (Piscopo), a reckless but effective pair with a penchant for pissing off their captain (Stewart, better known as George Jefferson\u2019s brother Henry on the first three seasons of All in the Family), stumble onto something quite ghoulish while investigating a series of violent daytime robberies. The coroner Rebecca (Kirkconnell, TV\u2019s The Paper Chase), Roger\u2019s slightly bitter ex-girlfriend, calls them in to show them something rather peculiar. It seems that the two robbers they just shot and killed already had autopsies sometime before <\/em>they committed the robbery. What gives? Her boss Dr. McNab (McGavin, Kolchak: The Night Stalker) dismisses it as a paperwork error on her part. Of course, that\u2019s not what it is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Rebecca\u2019s findings lead the guys to Dante Pharmaceuticals where the attractive public relations rep Randi (Frost, The Ring) assures them all is normal and above board. That\u2019s right before Doug has a run-in with a biker zombie. In the ensuing chaos, Roger gets locked in a decompression chamber where he\u2019s asphyxiated by an unseen person. Rebecca and Doug aren\u2019t the kind of people that allow a small detail like death get in the way of solving crime. They take Roger, put him on the resurrection table and successfully bring him back to life. Or maybe I should say semi-successfully. Like I said, the process hasn\u2019t been perfected yet. Roger has about 12 hours to solve his own murder before the re-animation process fails and he dies again. As explained by Rebecca, his tissue will progressively decay until he dissolves into \u201ca kind of organic stew\u201d. Mmm, mmm, yummy! Does it come with garlic bread?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The director of Dead Heat<\/strong> is one Mark Goldblatt, the editor of such films as Humanoids from the Deep, The Howling, Halloween II, The Terminator, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Commando (to name but a few), making his debut as the caller of the shots. He does a decent job overall. He strikes the right balance of yuk-yuks and yucks. One of the movie\u2019s biggest laughs is the movie playing on TV in one scene. It\u2019s the 1949 film noir D.O.A., the one about the guy who tries to find out who fatally poisoned him before he dies. Coincidentally, the remake with Dennis Quaid came out about seven weeks earlier. I even saw it at the same theater. Is that nuts or what?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Goldblatt also knows how to stage a good action scene. The opening shoot-out between the living cops and zombie robbers is well done. Same goes for the finale when Roger shoots his way to the main bad guys trying to sell their unique services to rich potential clients. There\u2019s plenty of violence and gross makeup effects courtesy of FX artist Steve Johnson who\u2019s probably best known for his work on Ghostbusters (he created Slimer). There\u2019s a neat scene where all the dead animals come to life in a butcher shop run by a shady Asian guy (Luke, Gremlins) who might have helpful information. Even cooler is the big, hulking guy cutting up chicken parts. It\u2019s the mighty and awesome Professor Toru Tanaka, aka Subzero from The Running Man, another one I saw at the same theater. The practical effects might look cheesy, especially by today\u2019s standards, but they look great for a movie with a $5M budget.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While they\u2019re no Gibson and Glover, Williams and Piscopo have pretty good chemistry. Roger is the more straight-laced of the two while Doug provides the comic relief. He\u2019s described at one point as a Neanderthal due to the crude way he puts things. In an encounter with an indifferent security guard, Doug snatches the porno mag he\u2019s reading and says, \u201cSorry to interrupt your erection.\u201d Even better is this exchange between Roger and Randi:<\/p>\n

Randi: \u201cHey, you\u2019re hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roger: \u201cLady, I\u2019m f***ing dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Randi: \u201cWell, it doesn\u2019t give you the right to be rude.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frost is little more than eye candy. She\u2019s cute, but that\u2019s about it. There\u2019s no evidence of actual talent. McGavin is always a welcome presence even if it is hard to see him as anyone other than Ralphie\u2019s old man in A Christmas Story. As for Price, it\u2019s always great to see him. He lends a note of class to the mostly classless proceedings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Goldblatt, who really isn\u2019t that bad a filmmaker, would direct only one other movie (The Punisher with Dolph Lundgren) before returning to his old job. Williams would rebound in the mid-90s with The Phantom, The Devil\u2019s Own and Deep Rising. Sadly, he died earlier this year of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. Former SNL funny man Piscopo would go on to play the cartoonish evil sensei in 1993\u2019s Sidekicks starring Chuck Norris and the late Jonathan Brandis.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dead Heat <\/strong>is a great deal of fun. It got a bum rap at the time of its release. It didn\u2019t deserve it. Sure, not all of the jokes land and it\u2019s surprisingly (NOT!) easy to pick out the mystery bad guy who killed Roger. Such is the imperfect nature of B-movies. Movie fans like me know this. We still love watching them. I\u2019ll take Dead Heat<\/strong> over the latest Marvel mess any day.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dead Heat (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Comedy-Action-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 84 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, gruesome images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Mark Goldblatt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Terry Black\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ernest Troost\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert D. Yeoman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 6, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo, Lindsay Frost, Darren McGavin, Vincent Price, Clare Kirkconnell, Keye Luke, Robert Picardo, Mel Stewart, Professor Toru Tanaka, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Dead-Heat-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2304"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3296,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions\/3296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}