Retro Review: Dead Alive (a.k.a. Braindead)

Father MacGruder kicks ass for the Lord. That's really all I should need to say, but since I should probably fill a little more space, I'll go on.

The early '90s was a heady time for direct-to-VHS horror, with mom-and-pop video store new release racks filled to the brim with disposable frights, packaged in garish cardboard boxes. After a while, it became tough for any one flick to stand out from the rest. That's why I can honestly say I might never have discovered Peter Jackson's Dead Alive back in 1992, had it not been for that striking box cover art, still among the most memorable I've ever seen.

And I wasn't alone, either. Because unbeknownst to me, both my horror-lovin' dad and my then-girlfriend had also rented the movie, both drawn in by that box cover as well. See, folks? If you're a foreign filmmaker frustrated because your movie can't get an American theatrical release, just slap a bone-jarringly surral/gruesome image on the box, and the video rental profits will wipe your tears away.

Of course, once I got the tape home, I quickly discovered that this movie was more than just a flashy cover. As I soaked in the cornucopia of deliciously over-the-top gore and literally laugh-out-loud humor, I found myself asking the question, how have I not heard of this movie?? Because, you see, this was at the time when I was already started to consider myself quite the know-it-all when it came to horror movies, regaling my school friends with my arcane knowledge and oh-so-precious self-made lists of the best horror flicks of all time.

Well right here was one worthy of being up there among my top picks--and unlike almost all the rest of the films I revered at the time, this one was brand new! Because for anyone who remembers this period of horror history, there was kind of a dearth of anything worth describing as good. But Jackson's movie knocked my socks off.

The best way to describe it based on that first impression would be to say that if Monty Python had ever made a horror movie, this would be it. Off the top of my head, I'd have to call it the goriest flick ever made, and yet the gore is so outrageous that the movie somehow successfully remains a comedy right up to the end. The violence, as insanely graphic/imaginative as it is, is also firmly in the realm of the cartoonish. And quite frankly, I was eating up every erupting pustule, flesh-stripped skull and glistening digestive tract with a spoon.

The genius of Dead Alive is in the writing, thanks to a screenplay by Jackson, wife Fran Walsh and Stephen Sinclair. Jackson & Walsh would later collaborate on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was also excellently written, but in a completely different way, needless to say. In fact, it's often hard to reconcile that the same guy who made this flick and others like Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles is actually the mainstream auteur of LOTR and King Kong!

But I digress. Dead Alive, thanks to a brilliant screenplay, is overflowing with more classic horror gags than you can shake a severed arm at. Who can forget the infamous graveyard priest vs. zombie kung fu melee? Or Baby Selwyn on the rampage in the park? And let's not forget, Jackson gave us zombie sex back when the guy who made Dance of the Dead was still begging his mommy to buy him Count Chocula at the supermarket.

Just when you think the movie has gone completely insane, it takes you bravely into a whole new level of madcap insanity. And the whole thing is anchored by a razor-sharp comic performance from Timothy Balme (as the ultimate shlemeil Lionel Cosgrove) that would make Chaplin proud. And Elizabeth Moody, who would later appear briefly in Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (and also as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins in the extended DVD cut of The Fellowship of the Ring) is unceasingly entertaining as Lionel's clutching, petty, decaying, flesh-eating mother.

Cap it all off with what has to be described as the single most bizarre, Freudian climax in movie history, and you have a film that fairly crackles with creative energy, showing the passion of its makers on the screen for all to see. I know I instantly fell in love with it, adding it to my pretentious list, and also making it the official movie I would use to completely freak out any of my friends or my girlfriends' friends who weren't used to horror movies.

To paraphrase Lionel's sleazy Uncle Les, it's a bit of alright.

Tweet

Time to Kick Ass for the Lord!

After months of anticipation, tonight is the night that the beautifully refurbished Avon Theatre (it's all about transposing the "r" and "e", people) here in Connecticut will be unspooling its pristine, brand-new 35mm print of Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. You can call it Braindead if you like, but I've been calling it Dead Alive ever since I first spotted that unforgettable direct-to-VHS box cover in the new release section of my local mom-and-pop video store some 15 years ago, back when such places existed.

I was astonished by the ingenious vision at work in the film then, as much as I was surprised that the movie was then almost completely unknown. In those pre-web days, I felt like I had discovered a great horror secret that wouldn't remain secret for long. Thankfully, the situation was remedied after a couple of years, and the rise of the internet has also helped make this flick into the cult classic it deserves to be. It's no surprise at all to me that Jackson has enjoyed the mainstream success he has since then. This movie is more brilliant than it has any right to be--indeed, I've always said that if Monty Python had ever made a horror movie, this would've been it.

Barring the unforeseen interjection of mature adult responsibility, yours truly will be on-hand personally tonight at 9PM to witness the glory of the Sumatran rat-monkey as it was meant to be witnessed. And best of all, the Avon is located in downton Stamford, right near my old job--meaning that if anyone wanted to drop by to assassinate me, it would be the perfect location, since the carpets are already red!

While I'm at it, I also wanted to mention that I'll be attending the venerable Chiller Theatre (there it is again) convention out in New Jersey this coming Sunday, should there be any Vault Dwellers planning to attend, as well. It's always a major blast. I'll be the guy trying to prevent his two little kids from being crushed to death by the maddening throngs.

Tweet

Kicking Ass for the Lord: 40 Years of the Modern Zombie Movie, Part 3

Ironically, as the 1980s drew near an end and the popularity of horror movies began to wane from what it had been, the zombie subgenre briefly returned to its pre-modern voodoo roots with Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow (1987). The film was inspired by Haiti's vicious Duvalier dictatorship and the real-life investigator who travelled there to look into the long-standing rumors of zombification practices. Although it abandoned the modern, Romero-esque take on the walking dead, the atmospheric chiller became one of Craven's most critically acclaimed efforts.

Nevertheless, The Serpent and the Rainbow proved to be a brief aberration. The first heyday of zombie movies may have been over, but Romero's influence of the genre was here to stay. As proof of that, in 1990 Columbia Pictures got behind a remake of the seminal classic Night of the Living Dead, penned by George Romero and directed by makeup effects wiz Tom Savini. In part an attempt to cash in on the success of the original to an extent that Romero was unjustly prevented from doing the first time around, the new version was a mixed bag.

Romero was lauded for transforming his female lead Barbara from a traumatized wreck into a strong-willed heroine. The remake featured several interesting new interpretations, but many fans felt it was hamstrung by the large studio involvement and the need to fit within R-rating parameters, something none of the previous films had been required to do.

With the dearth of quality horror films in the 1990s came a dearth of memorable zombie flicks as well. Horror was moving more into the mainstream, resulting in safer, less graphically violent pictures--meaing there was less and less of a place for cinematic flesh-eating.

But there were exceptions, and chief among them came from the other side of the world--New Zealand, to be exact. Maverick filmmaker Peter Jackson, who had previously opened eyes with Bad Taste (1987), created in 1992 what is to this day still considered by many to be the most violent motion picture ever made: Braindead (a.k.a. Dead Alive).

One of the reasons Jackson was able to get away with it was the fact that his movie was a comedy, and thus the violence was so completely and cartoonishly over-the-top that it couldn't possibly be taken seriously--reanimated (and flatulent) digestive tracts, zombie copulation, an entire room of ghouls dispatched with a twirling lawnmower, etc. Braindead became an international cult sensation thanks to home video distribution, and gave the sub-genre a much-needed shot in the arm.

Other major entries of the period that distinctly stood out was 1993's Dellamorte Dellamore (a.k.a. Cemetery Man), an Italian effort that harkened back to the "spaghetti zombie" days of a decade earlier; and Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993), which turned out to be a surprisingly effective installment in an otherwise tired series thanks to a bold move away from comedy in favor of a more serious tone.

But aside from some refreshing exceptions, modern zombie films experienced perhaps the lowest point in their popularity during the 1990s. Ultra low-budget and shot-on-video productions dominated the niche as it went decidedly underground. Yet by the end of the decade and turn of the new century, just as down-and-dirty horror was experiencing a resurgence, so would the cinema of the living dead in particular. The second great zombie movie explosion was at hand.

To Be Continued...

Part 1: They're Coming to Get You
Part 2: No More Room in Hell

Tweet

From Post-Mortem to Postmodern: A History of Horror Movies, Part 6

It seemed like the horror genre had nowhere else to go after the blood-drenched, boundary-pushing 1970s and '80s. And in a way, that was true.The 1990s is remembered by many as a lowpoint in the history of scary movies. And while that's a slightly inaccurate generalization, the decade did suffer in some respects as a result of the excesses of the years that preceded it.

On the one hand, you had many of the deathless franchises of the 1980s lurching forward, series like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween churning out sequel after sequel, burning out the moviegoing public in the process. New slasher series like Child's Play, Leprechaun and Candyman, while offering some new ideas, also added more fuel to the fire.

In addition to that, a backlash occured. Beyond the genre, American moviemaking in general became more conservative, reacting to the unbridled violence and sex of the previous generation with more restraint and less gratuitousness. Criticisms of the business had begun to have an effect, and filmmakers had finally gotten over the fact they could do certain things they couldn't before. Now they were being more prudent about when and how often to do them.

Within horror, the gore factor was greatly reduced. Of course there were some exceptions--the most notable of which was a certain 1992 horror comedy by New Zealand director Peter Jackson called Brain Dead (or Dead Alive in America). That offbeat zombie flick ratcheted up the onscreen violence to ridiculously unheard of levels, but played it for laughs all the way. Perhaps that was the only way Jackson got away with it.

Ironically, once the splatter scene became old hat, Hollywood made something of a return to the grand guignol of a bygone era. Gothic horror made a brief comeback, and even the old monsters got taken out of mothballs for movies like Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Wolf (1994) and The Mummy (1999) (though the latter was reimagined as more of an action film.) Vampires in particular benefited from a "goth" movement that buoyed Anne Rice's series of novels to worlwide acclaim and led to a motion picture version of Interview with the Vampire starring mega-stars Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

The genre was lost in a way, heading in several different directions at once, unable to find its bearings. It was playing, after all, to an audience that felt as if it had seen it all. In hindsight, it seems only natural that the only thing to do under the circumstances was to deconstruct. For the first time, horror films became self-aware and self-reflective.

Just as he had been among the pioneers of the previous era, director Wes Craven led the pack again. Toying with the concept with 1994's New Nightmare, something of a coda to his Elm Street saga in which dream killer Freddy Krueger crosses over into the real world, Craven committed fully to self-aware horror with Scream (1996). A slasher flick in which all the characters seem to know about slasher flicks and all their cliches, the movie plays upon our expectations, injecting new life into a tired subject with a healthy dose of postmodern irony. Scream and its sequels, along with pics like I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), led to an unlikely rebirth of the hack-and-slash subgenre.

After years of searching for a new identity, the horror genre benefited from the shot in the arm, and by the end of the decade seemed to be on the road to recovery. Yet it also seemed as if horror filmmakers everywhere had learned over the course of the 1990s that they didn't necessarily need buckets of guts to effectively generate terror.

Witness the types of films that led the renaissance in the late 1990s. In America, it was newcomer M. Night Shyamalan and his atmospheric, Oscar-nominated ghost story The Sixth Sense (1999). There was also the ground-breaking Blair Witch Project of the same year. Although the overdose of internet hype that accompanied the film may have sabotaged it to a certain degree, it was the ingenious decision to inspire fear through the hyper-realism of a so-called "mock-umentary" approach that makes the movie a landmark--and one of the biggest influences on the genre to this day.

Meanwhile, from overseas in Japan, a movement was spreading abroad that would have an even greater impact in America in the years to come. With Hideo Nakata's Ringu (1998) being the most well-known, Japanese horror would further reinvigorate the genre and open up new avenues to explore.

Horror had proven that it had a lot more life left in it. In fact, with the dawn of a new decade, it would soon become unimaginable that it had ever been in trouble in the first place. If the 1990s saw horror go into hiding, then the start of the 21st century saw it make up for lost time, exploding into the mainstream consciousness like never before.

Other major releases:

• Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993)
• In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
• Cube (1997)
• The Haunted Lantern (1997)
• Urban Legend (1998)

Part 1: The Silent Dead

Part 2: Gods & Monsters

Part 3: It Came from Hollywood

Part 4: The Times They Are a-Changin'

Part 5: Blood & Guts

Soon to come: Part 7 - Gore Goes Mainstream (a.k.a. The Final Chapter)

Tweet