Amazon.com Essentials:
If you're not a connoisseur of graphic horror and gruesome gore,
you'd better steer clear of this wicked 1992 horror-comedy from the
demented mind and delirious camera of New Zealand-born writer-director
Peter Jackson. However, if nonstop mayhem and extreme violence are your
idea of great entertainment, you're sure to appreciate Jackson's gleefully
inventive approach to a story that can judiciously be described as sick,
twisted, and totally outrageous. The movie's central character is a poor
schmuck named Lionel who's practically enslaved to his domineering mother.
But when ol' Mum gets bitten by a rare and poisonous rat monkey from Skull
Island and is turned into a flesh-eating zombie, Lionel has the unfortunate
task of keeping Mama happy while fending off all the other zombies that
result from her voracious feeding frenzies. If you've read this far, you'll
either be crying out for censorship or eagerly awaiting your first viewing
(or second, or third...) of this wildly clever and audaciously uninhibited
movie. And while director Jackson would later achieve critical success with
his fact-based drama Heavenly Creatures, his
talent is readily evident in this earlier effort. If you find this kind of
thing even remotely appealing, consider Dead Alive a must-see movie.
--Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com Essentials:
Peter Jackson proves that if gory is funny, then excessive gory is
downright hysterical. As our hapless hero wades through an ankle-deep
puddle of blood and entrails, brandishing a lawnmower like a portable
Cuisinart at the climax of this zombie-fest, you'll either be screaming
with laughter or fleeing in disgust. Timothy Balme stars as the shy mama's boy
Lionel, whose controlling shrew of a mother (Elizabeth Moody) starts rotting
away, literally, with a vague supernatural disease. Mother dies but refuses
to stay down, rising as a flesh-eating zombie infecting everyone she bites.
Lionel tries to hide her in the basement, but the victims keep piling up
and finally break out when Lionel's blackmailing uncle (a grotesque,
leering Ian Watkin) throws a party in the house. It's snack time as the
guests become undead hors d'oeuvres and rise again as hungry soldiers of
the new zombie army marching on Lionel and his girl Pacquita (the lovely
Diana Penalver). New Zealand goremeister Jackson pulls out all stops in
this truly outrageous sanguinary comedy, from gross-out gags of oozing puss
and rotting body parts at a formal dinner to slapstick antics as Lionel
tries to keep his flesh-hungry mother sedated during the funeral to the
final Freudian showdown between a now-monstrous mother and the newly
liberated Lionel. If you like your horror with a sense of humor or your
comedy with gristle, then wade through this taboo-busting bucket of blood.
--Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com Essentials:
The grossest movie ever made, this quintessential
splatter film details the tender story of a henpecked boy, his
overbearing mum, and a nasty little Sumerian rat-monkey that turns
people into voracious zombies. In lesser hands, this ne plus
ultra viscera-fest would be so disturbing as to be
nigh-unwatchable, but the incredible energy and imagination of
director Peter Jackson makes it a first-class guilty pleasure, with
plentiful helpings of gallows humor (the scripture-quoting,
kung-fu-dispensing priest is a highlight) and a taboo subtext that
Sigmund Freud would have loved. Essential viewing for gorehounds and
anyone else with a high tolerance for flying entrails. The director
would later tone down the gore (but not the manic enthusiasm) for the
sublime Heavenly
Creatures and The
Frighteners. --Andrew Wright
