In 1990, a horror film called Brain Dead was released starring Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton. I’ve seen it, it’s not great, and it's not what we're talking about today. Because of that movie, a much better and much more famous Kiwi horror movie had to be released in the US under the name “Dead Alive”. It’s Braindead everywhere else, but Dead Alive to me.
These days if you think about director Peter Jackson, your mind probably sees Hobbits and Wizards. But before he revolutionized cinema with The
Lord of the Rings and then failed to repeat that accomplishment with The
Hobbit, he was a horror guy. Specifically, Jackson loved gore. His first movie was Bad Taste, a zany
no-budget SciFi action comedy where Peter Jackson had to play three roles to
fill out the cast. At one point Jackson, as the hero Derick, fills his own broken skull with freshly-killed
alien brains. Bad Taste is a gross and wonderful fun time. But, it
has nothing on Dead Alive.
It is entirely possibly that Dead Alive is the goriest movie ever made. That's a hard superlative to prove, I'm not sure how you'll measure that. However, Dead Alive at least is up there with the goopiest and most extreme of Japanese or Italian horror movies. It is a zombie movie, but as viscerally intense as any zombie movie ever before. Imagine the most disgusting moments of Dawn or Day of the Dead sustained at that level for an entire third of a movie.
You might expect to gag. No, you won't. You're going to laugh.
The movie is set in 1957 Wellington, New Zealand, where a dweeby but well-meaning man,
Lionel (Timothy Balme) catches the attention of Paquita (Diana Peñalver). This leads to a conflict with his domineering possessive Agnes Skinner-like mother, Vera (Elizabeth
Moody). The potential romantic comedy is interrupted suddenly by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey
at the zoo, carrying some kind of undead disease, which bites Vera. Vera
quickly degenerates – eating her own fallen ear out of a pudding while polite
company is over – and soon, much of the town is zombified. Can Lionel keep the
undead quiet while stopping the zombification from spreading?
Also, there’s a zombie baby. Two zombies fuck and they have
a zombie. You’re either down for this or Dead Alive is not for you.
This is all leading to a grand finale where Lionel’s house is
full of party-goers just in time for the zombies to get loose and chow down. Peter
Jackson and his crew then fill the screen with practically every single gore
gag they could imagine. If you've ever imagined a way to destroy a human body, it’s probably in this movie
somewhere. A zombie can’t eat because he stabbed a spoon through his head. Intestines
come alive and chase Lionel through the house. There’s a glorious sequence
involving a lawnmower where a lot of flesh is reduced to spilled soup. And
finally, we have a super kaiju Vera making the Freudian drama of the film very
literal. Take notes, Hideaki Anno.
Despite being a horror guy, and a guy who is going to pick a lot of gross movies for this series, I’m actually very squeamish. I can't look at bodily injuries. I've almost passed out when I've cut myself in the past. But with Dead Alive, there’s nothing to squirm at. British censors in 1993, still in the Video Nasty era, considering giving Dead Alive their equivalent of the PG-13 rating because despite all the gore.
The thing about Dead Alive is that it's actually innocent. There’s no malice or perversion watching bodies get disintegrated here. Nope, it’s fun on the simplest and most Kindergarten levels of humor. Instead of laughing at a fart, you're laughing at an exposed intestinal tract - which then farts. There are limits. I felt dizzy after the fifth straight minutes of the lawnmower scene. There’s just so much blood. So much pooling, pooling blood.
I need to also say that the opening scene involving Maori actors playing "savages" is just bad. It's actually set on Skull Island, a direct King Kong reference, which in turn has a troublesome strain of White explorer fantasies. It's all a cartoon, so it isn't heinous, but I shouldn't let it go unmentioned.
Though I also can't not mention the kung-fu priest. "I kick arse for the lord!" Greatest line of the movie.
Despite a few issues, I would not hesitate to call Dead Alive a classic. We have had plenty of zombie comedies since, and sure, Shaun of the Dead got close, but nobody has topped Dead Alive for gore or laughs. For movie nerds, there’s plenty to love in the practical effects. There’s an adorable miniature tram car set, I love it. Classic stop-motion effects on the Sumatran Rat-Monkey too. Despite all the death and destruction, or maybe because of it, Dead Alive is still a great time.
Next time we travel to 1993, the year of the first World Trade Center bombing, Jurassic Park ruling the box office, and our third movie, Cronos.
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