Braindead (New Zealand 1992), released as Dead Alive in North America, is an extreme zombie horror-comedy directed by Peter Jackson. It is in the same vein as Jackson's earlier works Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles but Braindead is rather more polished, with a budget of around $3 million. Although it starts with the capture of a zombie-creating creature on the eerie Skull Island, the opening half of the film is a relatively low-key period piece. It isn't until the film's second half when it spirals into a blood filled zombie film - which many consider the goriest movie ever made.

Plot

The first scene of the movie sets up the danger of the Sumatran Rat-Monkey, a hybrid resulting from the rape of tree monkeys by plague rats: An explorer returning from the depths of the island with a rat-monkey in a cage is stopped by his native guides. Seeing the mark of the monkey's bite on his right hand, they immediately hold down the infected explorer and amputate the appendage. A bite mark is then seen on his left arm, which swiftly results in the removal of that limb. Finally, they see a set of bloody scratches on the man's forehead and kill him. The title screen follows the man's dying scream, and as the opening credits roll the captured rat-monkey is shipped to Wellington Zoo in New Zealand.

In 1950s Wellington, Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) lives with his domineering mother (Elizabeth Moody) and is at her beck and call. To his mother's dismay, Lionel falls for a local shopkeeper, Paquita (Diana Peñalver), and while following the two on a visit to the zoo, his mother is bitten by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey. Despite it being stomped to death, the animal's bite slowly turns her into a zombie. Lionel is horrified, but, ever the momma's boy, is determined to care for her.

He acts as her "nurse", even as she starts murdering other townspeople and, in turn, creating more zombies. Through it all, Lionel tries to keep his zombie mother placated with doses of veterinary anaesthetic and also tries to maintain his relationship with the completely oblivious Paquita.

His mother escapes, however, and is run over by a tram. As the town assumes she is dead, Lionel tranquilises the still-kicking zombie for her funeral. After she is buried, he recovers his mother from the grave, but not before several more people are zombified, including a priest (Stuart Devenie) who attempts to fight his attackers off using kung fu (and in the process utters the immortal cult film line "I kick arse for the Lord!").

As the number of zombies grow, Lionel tries to keep them under wraps in his home. A nurse zombie (Brenda Kendall) gives birth to a dreadful zombie baby, dubbed Selwyn, whom Lionel takes to the park on a surreal and violent occasion. Eventually, Lionel's uncle Les (Ian Watkin) discovers the "corpses" and blackmails his nephew into giving up his mother's estate.

Lionel acquires some poison and dispatches and buries the zombies as Uncle Les and a crowd of his friends invade his home for a housewarming party. But the "poison" turns out to be an animal stimulant and the zombies burst from the ground to attack and infect the party guests in what many consider to be the goriest finale in film history.

The movie's climax has Lionel fighting hundreds of zombies, animated intestines, severed heads, and disembodied legs. Most memorable amongst gore fans is Lionel's charge into a room full of zombies with a lawn mower strapped to his chest. He then faces down his now-gargantuan mother, who traps him inside her abdomen as they duel on the house's rooftop. In an over-the-top Freudian "rebirth", he cuts his way out of her grotesquely changed form and she falls into the fiery home below. As Selwyn screams from the burning house, firefighters arrive with ladders and Lionel and Paquita walk away arm-in-arm and covered in gore.

Versions

This splatter film was released in a number of different versions. In some nations, such as Australia and Britain, the 104 minute film was shown in full. In countries where the censors balked at the extreme gore, the film was initially banned or left unrated before being heavily cut. In Germany a 94 minute version was seen with minor cuts to some of the film's grislier scenes.

In the U.S., where the film was released as Dead Alive, because of another film with rights to the title Braindead, the R-Rated version is only 85 minutes, while the unrated cut is 97 minutes. This, according to director Peter Jackson, is his preferred cut of the film.

Trivia

• It has been said that a total of 300 liters of fake blood were used in the lawnmower scene, making it the unofficial goriest scene in film history.

Quotes

• Lionel Cosgrove: That's my mother you're pissing on.
• Lionel Cosgrove: They're not dead exactly, they're just... sort of rotting.
• Lionel Cosgrove: Party's over!
• Paquita Maria Sanchez: Your mother ate my dog!
  • Lionel Cosgrove: Not all of it.
• Uncle Les: That's someone doing the business!
• Uncle Les: Ahhh, so you found your father's old stag movies, didn't ya?
• Uncle Les: Is that the one with the donkey and the chambermaid?
• Mr. Matheson: What we need is another war!
• Father McGruder: The Devil's among us!
• Father McGruder: Stand back boy! This calls for some divine intervention!
• Father McGruder: I kick ass for the Lord!
• Intellectual at party (stuggling against an attack by Void) Okay! Okay! I take it back! Nabokov wasn't a pedophile!
• Intellectual: (defending himself against oncoming zombies) Some of my best friends are Pedophiles!
• Undertaker: Vera's eyes pop out and green slime sprays out Cranium blowout!
• Zoo Keeper: Story goes, these great big rats come scuttling off the slave ships and raped all the little tree monkeys.

External links

• Dead Alive movie review with animated screenshots I-Mockery

1992 films | Cult films | Films directed by Peter Jackson | Comedy horror films | Zombie films | New Zealand films

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