{"id":5894,"date":"2024-10-14T23:35:16","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T03:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=5894"},"modified":"2024-10-14T23:35:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T03:35:16","slug":"dead-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/14\/dead-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dead Alive<\/strong> (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Trimark\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (an abundance of outrageous gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Stephen Sinclair, Frances Walsh and Peter Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Peter Dasent\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Murray Milne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 13, 1992 (NZ)\/February 12, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $242,623 (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0Peter Jackson\u2019s gonzo zombie comedy Dead Alive<\/strong> (known as Braindead in New Zealand and other countries) is a gorehound\u2019s wildest dreams come true. It\u2019s not just a bloodbath, it\u2019s a whole ocean! I had the privilege of seeing it on the big screen opening weekend at Philadelphia\u2019s Roxy Theater. I knew I couldn\u2019t miss it. In lieu of an MPAA rating, it was released unrated with a \u201cNo One Under 17 Admitted\u201d policy, something I hadn\u2019t seen since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in \u201990 (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<\/strong>. It\u2019s easily the goriest movie I\u2019ve ever seen* and one of the zaniest.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Our 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\u2019s a hybrid creature, the biological result of tree monkeys raped by plague-carrying rats. It\u2019s 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\u2019s why the adventurer\u2019s guys hack him to pieces when they see bite marks on his person.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The rat-monkey ends up in New Zealand at the Wellington Zoo where it will soon change the life of the protagonist Lionel (Balme, TV\u2019s Mercy Peak) in a most unexpected way. He\u2019s 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\u2019re destined to be together forever. Mom can\u2019t have that, can she? She follows them on their first date to the zoo where she\u2019s promptly bitten by the rat-monkey. She quickly becomes gravely ill and dies soon thereafter. Unfortunately, death isn\u2019t the end; it\u2019s only the beginning of a nightmare. Remember the \u201cfate worse than death\u201d I mentioned earlier? Mom comes back as a zombie and proceeds to wreak bloody havoc.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Here\u2019s the main thing you need to know about Dead Alive<\/strong>. It\u2019s played entirely for laughs. It\u2019s not meant to be taken seriously. Hell, it\u2019s far too OTT to be taken any other way. That doesn\u2019t make it any less gruesome however. It has blood, brains and body parts flying everywhere especially in the infamous lawnmower finale. We\u2019ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let\u2019s talk about what precedes it first. The pre-finale gory highlights include a priest literally taking a zombie apart (\u201cI kick ass for the Lord!\u201d) 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\u2019t limited to the movie\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0NOW we get to the movie\u2019s true centerpiece, the lawnmower massacre. OH YEAH! It\u2019s a total gore de force! Lionel\u2019s 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\u2019s face is torn off, a man\u2019s rib cage is torn out, a man\u2019s 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\u2019s also an intestine monster. I\u2019m not easily impressed but this finale still impresses the f*** out of me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0With a budget higher than both of Jackson\u2019s previous movies (Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles) combined- i.e. $3 million, Dead Alive<\/strong> scores an A+ in the effects department. No CGI here. The rat-monkey is stop-motion. The zombies\u2019 rotting, pus-oozing appearances are achieved with makeup. The rest is latex, prosthetics and gallons upon gallons of fake blood. I believe Dead Alive<\/strong> holds some kind of record for most fake blood used in a single movie but don\u2019t 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\u2019s definitely Dead Alive<\/strong>. That, by the way, is a compliment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0With all the gory bedlam in Dead Alive<\/strong>, is there any point in commenting on the acting or any such element of the movie? Probably not but I\u2019ll 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\u2019s partner and longtime collaborator Fran Walsh, is smart and funny. You\u2019ll laugh and retch at the same time. Jackson keeps things moving at a nice clip. Bottom line, it\u2019s well made.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only version of Dead Alive<\/strong> I\u2019ve seen to date is the 97-minute version (the \u201cunrated version\u201d) released in the US. I\u2019d 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\u2019s thirst for blood is never fully quenched. HOWEVER, this version of Dead Alive<\/strong> satisfies and then some.<\/p>\n

* = I saw Dead Alive<\/strong> before any of the Terrifier movies so…..\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dead Alive (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Trimark\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (an abundance of outrageous gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Stephen Sinclair, Frances Walsh and Peter Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Peter Dasent\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Murray Milne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 13, 1992 (NZ)\/February 12, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Timothy Balme, Diana Penalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin, Brenda Kendall, Stuart Devenie, Jed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Dead-Alive-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\/5894","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=5894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6115,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5894\/revisions\/6115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}