Dead Alive
by Peter Jackson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Jed Brophy, Murray Keane, Silvio Fumularo, Stuart Devenie, Timothy BalmeDirector: Peter Jackson
Brand: Lions Gate
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-09-09
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Lions Gate
Movie Reviews of Dead Alive
Movie Review: Your Mum Ate My Dog
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Summary of Dead Alive
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