User reviews

Seven years after gunning down his parents, Michael Tucker (Michael Hurst) is released from his padded cell and goes looking for revenge on the man responsible for turning him into a killer: deranged scientist Dr. Archer Howell (Gary Day), who now runs an island-bound institution where he operates on the inmates, turning them into crazed zombies.

I remember thinking that New Zealand horror Death Warmed Up was a pretty weird film way back when it was first released on VHS, with its all-over-the-place plot, oddball characters and gaudy, '80s 'plastic and neon' aesthetic; thirty years later, and the film's new-wave punk style and aimless story-line seem even more bizarre. There's a little fun to be had with the gore—an exploding head, some bloody squibs, random brain surgery, an impalement etc.—and we also get some gratuitous nudity and sex, but on the whole, this is way too shambolic to be considered anything but a failure.

Interestingly, Death Warmed Up was made three years before Peter Jackson's classic debut, splatter-fest Bad Taste, making me think that the Lord of the Rings director saw this back in the day and thought to himself, 'I can do better than that!'. And you know what? He could!

3.5/10, generously rounded up to 4 for Ranji Gandhi (Jonathan Hardy), the Indian character who looked and sounded like something out of '70s TV series Mind Your Language.

So says one of the characters in this odd little number from New Zealand. It took me a little while to realise that the leading man was played by the same Michael Hurst, who is better known for playing Iolaus in the long running Hercules TV series.

There seem to be a myriad of other films that this one has either borrowed from of been influenced by. Mad Max, Night (and Dawn)of the living Dead, Island of Dr Moreau or any other mad scientist movie. The actual story structure is somewhat disjointed, as we never really find out why the mad doctor wants to transform ordinary men into 'demented mutated killing machines.' Is there a world wide shortage of demented mutated killing machines? I don't think so if the news is anything to go by.

It does make sense that he does programme our hero to kill his parents who are standing in the way of his experiments but why let him live afterwards to come back for revenge? The whole island laboratory to do his crazed work on is straight out of 'Dr. No.' But with less sense or reason.

Not totally explained why the hero turns up on holiday with his friends after been released from the insane asylum, just happens to be the same island where his nemesis resides.

But enough of sense and logic, the actual film is decent watching and holds the interest till the end and at around 75 minutes on the DVD I saw, it doesn't outstay it's welcome. Plenty of gore scenes for those who like that stuff, maybe the villain just liked doing brain work as his motive for it all.

The ending is rather pointless as my fellow reviewer pointed out and it does seem they just ran out of ideas and decided to go out on a supposed shock ending.

Just two last points to make, there was a Pakistani shopkeeper who was a very bad racial stereotype and there for 'comicial' effect. Not sure if it wasn't a white actor blacked up either, it was that unpleasant.

Also at the beginning when he is supposed to be younger and running around in short trousers, he just looks ridiculous. I know Michael Hurst isn't the tallest bloke around but he just looks like an overgrown schoolboy or the lead singer in AC/DC. And there are gay overtones when he is in the shower afterwards as well but that plot line is just left hanging.

Overall, a strange but otherwise interesting film.

Personally I'm convinced "Death Warmed Up" was completed by a clique of people suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder (the infamous A.D.D. syndrome)… Either that or a bunch of mushroom-addicted guys with a permanent overdose of acid in their blood. How else would you clarify the film's total lack of narrative structure, the exaggeratedly high amount of nonsensical plot-twists, the overzealous editing, the demented characters and the copious number of grotesquely over-the-top grossness? "Death Warmed Up" is a wildly incoherent and thoroughly bizarre horror effort from New Zealand – reputedly the country's first full-blooded genre outing – that more or less describes itself as a demented and very loose interpretation of the legendary "Island of Dr. Moreau" tale. But then again, Dr. Moreau at least had a clear mission he wanted to achieve whereas Dr. Archer Howell, the lunatic scientist in this film, seemingly just surrounds himself with a large collection of genetically altered freaks for his own personal amusement. Throughout the entire film, his motivations for performing medical experiments on random island people remain unexplained. He has freaky half-man and half-monster guinea pigs working for him, creepy guys without eyebrows running loose and an entire army of deformed abnormalities locked away in a basement. The predominant storyline, however, revolves on one of Dr. Howell's very first victims seeking vengeance for the agony he cost. As a teenager, Michael got brainwashed and shotgun-massacred his own parents under the malignant influence of Dr. Howell. He spent the following seven years in a mental institution, but now Michael's back (with a new and Blade Runner type of hairdo) and unstoppably furious. Along with his girl and a befriended couple, Michael ferries to Dr. Howell's island resort, but they'll have to face his creations first before they can get to him. "Death Warmed Up" is, well, shall I say … completely bonkers! The script makes very little sense (or even no sense at all) and leaps from one subject to another all the time. Michael & C° supposedly come for revenge, yet they start their trip by going to the beach and during several situations it's actually Michael's friend Lucas who proves to be the most courageous one of the bunch. There are plenty of odd homosexual undertones in the film, as well as some misplaced attempts at humor (the Indian store clerk) and a bizarre type of ambiance I can't possibly categorize. One thing "Death Warmed Up" does deliver plenty of, however, is gore and bloodshed! The aforementioned shotgun killings are supremely nasty, and they're just at the beginning of the film. Furthermore, there are repugnant brain surgeries, impalements and gooey zombie make-up effects aplenty. The zombie creatures are quite menacing, particularly the bloke without eyebrows (displayed on the cover-image) and the typical New Zealand accents and slang are a joy to listen to. The acting performances are below average and insignificant, still devoted horror fans should keep an eye open for a brief appearance by Ian Watkin (awesome, arse-kicking uncle Les from "Braindead") as Bill the ferryman. "Death Warmed Up" is far too unbalanced to be considered as a worthwhile horror outing, but it's still a fun and gore-soaked excuse to spend 85 minutes of your time.

I was told about this site from a friend. I'm the guy who played SPIDER. As someone commented, no eyebrows. We did it way back when we were all in our twenties. It was a great amount of fun to do. The creative team came from both film and theatre industry. I'd just finished a pirate movie with Tommy Lee Jones, Michael O'Keefe and Jenny Seagrove and a lot of theatre. Michael (Hurst) was also a fellow theatre actor and we went on after this to do a couple of stage plays together. As was also noted, Michael went on to do 'Hercules'. At the time, Fangoria was the genre magazine of choice, and, with David (Blyth) and Murray (Newey - RIP) and the script by Michael Heath, with the 80's sex chic of the nurses, designed by Micahel Glock, we hit Auckland with all the energy that a 4 week shoot can muster. It's amazing to read comments from watchers/viewers some, what? 25 years later! Don't get too analytical....we just went for the jugular and hoped that somewhere along the line it'd all make sense! Along the way we shot stuff in a deserted and rather creepy abattoir, the tunnels on the island off Auckland city, and got right into ridged knives with back splatter.

Ever go to one of those all-you-can-eat buffets that has virtually every kind of food imaginable, and you go in thinking it's going to be an excellent experience, a few of the foods you sample are fairly good, but you're left afterwards with a huge bellyache and the check? That's the way I felt after watching 'Death Warmed Up', from my now-infamous Mill Creek 50-film 'Nightmare Worlds' pack--it has a few interesting ideas, and some decent, though dated, atmosphere, but director Blyth doesn't know how to put it all together. In the right hands, this could have worked, but it definitely doesn't, and that's a shame, because it had potential...'it coulda been a contender!' The two young female leads that play Sandy and Jeannie are beautiful, there's good chemistry between them and the two male leads, particularly in the scene where they're on the ferry going to the island. The completely gratuitous nudity and softcore sex was a great bonus. In an interview that was a DVD extra for 'The Fog', Jamie Lee Curtis explained that she enjoyed starting out in horror and that it was a useful genre for an actor in that it gave one a wide range of possible behaviours to both utilize and show, and, by the end, Michael and Sandy proved to me they were good actors. It's just too bad they were in a nondescript, clunky script that had no idea what it was doing or where it was going. 'Death Warmed Up' is one of those films that doesn't have a climactic finale, or end, per se, it just simply stops or dies, as if the filmmakers simply had no ideas left and simply stopped when they ran out of film.

THIS is the type of film that should be remade, not the wildly successful and great film that has no need to have a different interpretation or chance at life, but the misfires or the should-have-beens--to show the world that these ideas had validity and meaning after all.

This one was made 3 years before Peter Jackson's Bad Taste and was the first horror coming out of kiwi-land New Zealand. So for the real collectors it's a must have and for somehow it wasn't that easy to find a copy of it. There are a lot of bad copies to find and even mine was a bad copy even as it was a DVD release. Is it worth searching, well, there's splatter in it but overall it bored me a lot and I had the skip button ready in my hand. If you see what Peter Jackson did 3 years later that is unforgettable but here the storyline is really stupid, it's all about the gore but again, made in 1984 it could have done much better. There's a bit of nudity in it but don't mentionable. If you are a hunter for splatters than you must have it in your collection or for being the first kiwi-horror. Don't expect some kind of eighties German splatter or Jackson splatter, just watch it and forget it.

"A deranged scientist is on a remote island working on his experimental brain procedures on human test subjects. Unfortunately, many of the patients suffer side effects from the procedure that transforms them into murderous zombies. Arriving on the island is a group of youths that include the son of the scientist's chief rival. Years before, the mad doctor had hypnotized the youth and had him murder his own father, so the young man has come to track down the scientist and make him pay," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis...

If he'd only added some exposition, director David Blyth might have had something with "Death Warmed Over". It has style and promise - like in, for example, the scene where Michael Hurst (as Michael Tucker) and his friends are pursued by a couple of motorcyclists in the underground Australian tunnels. The story is way too distant, though. Villainous doctor Gary Day (as Archer Howell) and the arousable young Hurst seem to have had some past sexual relationship ("You're all sweaty, let's get you cleaned up"). Perhaps, since he strokes his walking stick while watching kids at play, the mad doctor started early with Hurst?

***** Death Warmed Over (11/84) David Blyth ~ Michael Hurst, Margaret Umbers, Gary Day

These revenge, gore-fest movies are all a little the same. It starts with no real motivation for the initial actions. The mad scientist is just mad. Still, he seems to have plenty of money for his sick research. What is his product? A bunch of zombie characters. Do we really need some of these? Anyway, the hero(?) drags his pals into his effort to avenge his father and mother's murders (actually, he committed them under the doctor's influence). Then there's the agony and the pain that goes on and on and on. People are dismembered, stabbed, burned, one after the other. I don't get the attraction. Why do audiences want so much of this? In the end, we're left wondering about a lot of things. There are no real answers. Maybe it's just obsession. Who knows.

I bought this on Amazon.Com, and watched it last night, not knowing at all what to expect. And I must say, I liked it.

Ten years ago, Michael was hypnotized by a very unstable doctor into killing his own parents. Then he is locked up in the mental institution for it. In the present (or the present time of the movie) Michael, his girlfriend Sandy, and their friends Lucas and Jeannie head to an island for a vacation, where the doctor has moved his work to, and has started a new experiment in reprogramming people's minds. And Michael wants revenge for what was done to him, planning to kill the doctor. But they still plan to have a fun vacation, too. (I told you the movie was strange.) Anyway, when they get there, they see how the doctor has taken over the island, and then get themselves involved in some risky business to find the doctor, which leads to chases, attacks, and some all-around good scares.

I wasn't sure I liked this movie, but now I think I did. Some of it was weird, and I didn't understand every aspect, but it was still exciting. The chase scene in the tunnels was great, as was the attack on the pub. The characters were all likable, and the acting was surprisingly good. Of course, there's no denying that this is a B-movie, but it's well done. Towards the end, it gets sort of weird, and actually sort of tense, because you don't know if Michael is crazy or what, because he is pushed to the edge in this movie. But luckily, he isn't the only one in the spotlight. Everyone seems to be a star. Sandy, his girlfriend, is a great character, even though she manages to really set in with the waterworks towards the end of the movie. I think she cries for five minutes straight.

The actual ending is odd, but really good. I didn't understand what the deal was with Michael at that point, but it was still pretty cool, and the slow-motion of Sandy running seemed to have a weird effect. Overally, a pretty good movie. I'd recommend it, but don't try to understand it all.

This New Zealand-made movie focuses on a mad scientist who is performing experiments on mental patients in an effort to defeat death. Unfortunately, his efforts spawn a dangerous collective of Mad Max extras, and even worse, he tends to plaster his island compound with gigantic photos of himself, a la Big Brother from 1984.

The plot gets moving when a young man with a decade old grudge against the scientist shows up on the island to get revenge, for some reason bringing his young adult friends with him. What follows just goes to show that revenge and vacations just don't mix.

This film is bad in so many ways that it is almost impossible to list them here. The dialogue is laughable, with the best line being "I'll get you-I'll get you all," which is repeated at least five times by the head Mad Max escapee. Furthermore, the mad scientist's headquarters looks like an ultra trendy 1980s night club, with punked out nurses to match. The film tries, lamely, to adopt a punk sensibility, with main titles and transitions that look like they were designed by the artist of a Sex Pistols album cover.

On the plus side, the film's gore and overall approach foreshadow the early work that Australian director Peter Jackson would put out several years later. However, it's not really worth wasting your money on when you can just rent the real thing.

I'm gonna keep this short and sweet. You really wonder, what could of gone wrong with this dull, though trying film, like if, you had a perfect recipe, and your meal came out different. I mentioned

trying just then, but this one also tries your patience. I just found this one repugnant or repugnantly dull. Just check out it's covers, the CBS Fox one I had. Though I know repugnantly isn't a word, but cut me a break, which you'll be saying while watching this. Poor sorry soul, Hurst who was brainwashed into killing his parents, by evil controller/scientist, Day (the best thing about this film, besides sexy Umbers- I can still see that white low cut top, with an arm hung around boyfriend, Hurst) and ending up in a looney ward, vows revenge, returning to the scene of the crime to take down Day. This film won't make your day. What, am I being too harsh or picking on this film too much? This just doesn't work. It's just a bland, repellent, boring, and trying view. Don't worry, a couple of other films in the years to follow, had the same effect on me, but I won't movie drop. You do kind of get caught up in Hurst's tortured self, and you do feel empathy for the lad. The acting from the youngsters, is average, nothing to write home about, like the movie. It kinds of reminds you, of something Peter Jackson would do, this one being made a few years before his pics. Though only seeing the trailer, for that movie, The Ugly, also made in Kiwi land, 12 years, later I kind of relate it to The Ugly, much better movie fare of course. Also titled Death Warmed Over. But really, who gives a s..t. A 'Death movie has never been so cruel. This one is just terrible. So that's it, for DWU. Sorry.

This Kiwi sci-fi/horror film mixes the bizarre and the banal in equal measure. It's about a mad scientist who conducts a form of brain surgery to create zombie-like killing machines. The plot-line is not exactly the movie's strong-point, as it's so unfocused and you're never all that sure about character motivations. I wouldn't really say that it's well directed or acted and overall there is an unmistakable feeling of the lackadaisical about everything. This lack of urgency or direction makes Death Warmed Up a somewhat hard movie to really get behind. On top of that, a lot of scenes seem to have near enough been shot in the dark, which doesn't exactly help matters.

On a more positive note it throws in a fair few schlocky gore scenes. And there are a number of moments that can best be described as 'eighties cheese' – like another reviewer said, the mad scientist's hospital resembles an 80's night club. Having said all of that, it does seem to take itself quite seriously, and the only bit of comedy relief I can remember was the Indian shopkeeper – he was a character that would not have looked out of place in an early 70's British sitcom he is so racially stereotypical.

I can't wholeheartedly recommend this film to be perfectly honest, as it just lacked a bit of punch. Having said that at least it isn't too derivative and it does have its moments.

Back in the 1980's and 90's we film fans had clunky VHS and Beta tapes for our home viewing, no slim and shiny discs. The British VHS release of Death Warmed Up came with some very inviting sleeve artwork, in fact I still have this, in addition to a low grade DVD, but it was another case of the movie itself not living up to its wonderful cover. Sadly the UK release is also cut, however it still packs in plenty of gore and violence, plus a bit of sex and nudity. The movie is a melting pot of mad scientist (much in the vein of Dr Moreau, performing hideous experiments on living people), science fiction, horror, splatter, comedy, punk and features mutants who could have wandered off a Mad Max set. Gore highlights include graphic brain surgery. Made in that excellent decade of horror there is a lot of blue and red lighting, combined with the almost obligatory smoke machine and synthesizer score. Its low budget does show at times, an exploding head looks cheap and the microphone boom makes a couple of appearances. Revisiting this Kiwi movie brought back happy memories of the days of VHS and practical special effects, it's no classic but does provide a fair bit of splattery entertainment.

"Death Warmed Up" is one of those movies that could either be utterly inept garbage, or some kind of surrealist masterpiece. I mean, it's clearly the first one, but you can't help but appreciate in on that other level, the one undoubtedly unintended by the producers, who probably just wanted to draw an audience with some gore, and tacked the rest of the movie together on the run.

From what I could gather, the movie is about a kid who is brainwashed into killing his parents by an evil doctor and goes to an insane asylum. When he is released from the asylum, somehow he is able to instantly recruit a few friends and takes them to an island where he intends to kill the doctor, but the friends seem to think they're just going for a holiday.

The mad doctor has some henchmen, who are sort of like zombies, so I guess that's where the title came from. It also has some surprisingly violent scenes, which stick out because you can tell they were the most expensive scenes to film. Footage is replayed a few times of a disgusting brain surgery operation, where the exposed brain pulses like a heart, and in the climax of this sequence, fingers reach into the brain matter and pull out a round, grey thing.

I'm not that surprised it was banned here, as that sequence is like something out of a Fulci or Franco movie.

I enjoyed "Death Warmed Up" despite, or perhaps because of, its ineptitude of creation, the fact that it never finds a cohesive tone and is frequently confusing and not very well shot. It's still entertaining, all over the place like the character whose head explodes.

It was an odd movie, and admittedly - the first two or three times I tried to watch some parts, I was gravely confused at... what was going on. Now that I understand what is going on a little better, I really like the idea... and I like the style the movie had, it just felt cozy.

As for Spider, you were the best character in the whole movie in my sincere opinion.

It takes a certain pallet, but it was really kind of an awesome style, and I admire that in a movie... it added to the overall surreal effect, like the whole world was kind of distorted. The irony is that the world IS distorted in both the movie and reality, lol.

The style isn't for everyone, but I liked it! It was really quite gruesome and visceral at times, which was pretty well blended with the weird, dream-like subject matter. Like you're on the edge of sanity - again, more irony!

It speaks a language that only few can understand, I suppose one could say. All in all though, I really liked it - not exactly your stereotypical b-movie about monsters, which was essentially what I was expecting.

This film is really hard to describe, it's what the summary says it is but it's more bizarre than what the summary reads.

The film is about a guy, Michael Tucker, that is hypnotized by his doctor to kill his parents - that's exactly what Michael did. After the death of his parents Michael ends up in a mental institution for 7 years then released. After his release he tracks down the doctor for revenge. -- But the film is more bizarre than it sounds.

The movie isn't great but it's not downright awful - it's watchable. Yes this one has quite a bit of gore/blood so you are forewarned.

4/10