Braindead (1992) Alt Title: Dead Alive

 

Genre: Horror/ Comedy

Time: 1h 40mins

Director: Peter Jackson

Quick Summary: A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors.

This is definitely going to give me nightmares but it was worth it to see a zombie baby get absolutely kicked the shit out of it

I never expected the director of Lord of The Rings to make such an amazing horror film. I actually adore this. It's brilliant. Demented a lot of the time but so much fun. This makes the trope of "going over the top" a baby, as this goes to the overly extreme by jumping off cliffs screaming and goes nuts. The acting constantly flicks between awful and so bad it's good, which works so well for this film because everything is so extremely over the top. So why shouldn't the characters be?

The sheer amount of blood, guts, and gore is insane. It's disgusting at times but from a practical special effects stand point, it's incredibly well done. There's a fine line of the effects in this where it's cartoony and comedic, like a zombie being stuck on a light through the back of it's head and the whole head lights up or when a zombie gets ripped in half and both of the halfs move at their own will; to then actually too realistically looking. One of my favourite moments in this context would have been when a baby zombie rips it's way through a woman's head from the inside. 

Timothy Balme is excellent as the timid mama's boy who ends up taking on the whole undead world by himself. I wasn't sure on him at first as he was a complete wet lettuce and I thought he was going to fail as soon as it got tough. But the more and more intense and chaotic things got, he revelled in it and absolutely blossomed in the guts and gore. His ability to work brilliantly with the slapstick this film was so good, I loved the scene where he's wresting with this zombie baby and he is juts kicking the absolute hell out of it, smacking it against playground things and punching it to get it back in this bag.

This is the bar that Horror/ Comedies need to be at. It's the sweet spot that combines absolutely everything perfectly, even a little bit of romance. It starts out with a very quick pace and doesn't really slow down, so there isn't really a dull moment throughout. I'll tell you now I was glued the entire way through. 

I love how silly this is too. Never really serious. We get Zombies trying to have sex with each other, rat-monkey hybrids, a priest who knows kung-fu, a lawnmower shield that causes a splatter fest of a scene, puss filled custard, hands go through back of heads and out of mouths, and a giant rat-lady-zombie the size of king-kong trying to force her son back in the womb. Absolutely entertaining throughout.  

My only single complaint is the ending didn't feel as if it was a conclusion, it just ended. Now I know it would be incredibly difficult to end a film like this, but it feels like it was pretty open and the ties were left untied. 

Aside from that, go watch this as soon as you can (if you can handle it). Brilliant film that is worth attention. 

9/10

"I kick arse for the Lord!"

"Paquita Maria Sanchez: Your mother ate my dog!

Lionel Cosgrove: Not all of it."

"[checking out Lionel's butt]

Paquita Maria Sanchez: Ooh, it's a big house."