Death Warmed Up

"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

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.

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.