Robot Maniac

"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.

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.

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.

"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

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.