Dead Heat

I'll warn you, this is a very cheesy film. It's full of bad jokes and bad acting, but it's a guilty pleasure of mine. It's hailed, primarily by me, as the single greatest zombie-cop, buddy movie ever made. It is hailed by a fair number of those I have subjected to it as the worst movie they've ever seen. I can admit it, it's not Shakespeare, but if you like cheesy 80's horror and watered down pseudo-Lovecraft or even, *shudder* Joe Piscopo, then I encourage you to give it a try.

I saw this movie back in 1988 when it came out, and recently we bought the DVD on a whim. Neither Chandra or I remembered much about it, but we both enjoyed it more than we expected. The FX hold up well, even 16 years later, and it's just an enjoyable film.

There are some gross bits (which makes it better!), but there were some good scenes deleted - make sure you check the DVD for the extra scenes, The "death day dream" really ties in some of the disjointed bits in the movie.

True, some of the film is very dated 80's, but it still makes me grin. Take a chance and you might enjoy it too.

A string of violent robberies are being committed by criminals who won't stay dead. Cops Roger Mortis (Treat Williams) and Doug Bigelow (Joe Piscopo) investigate, their enquiries leading them to the headquarters of Dante Pharmaceuticals, where Roger is killed, but resurrected shortly after by a machine that gives him approximately ten hours to find out who is behind the crimes.

Any film that features the contents of a butcher's shop coming to life is okay by me. As well as reanimated duck's heads, a lively pig carcass, aggressive offal, zombie chickens and a belligerent hunk of beef, this film also delivers a disfigured overweight zombie with an attitude problem, a terrific scene in which someone decays to putrid mush in seconds (kudos to FX man Steve Johnson), lots and lots of shootouts with plenty of juicy bullet squibs, and genre legend Vincent Price in one of his last screen roles. Fans of film-noir will note the similarities with classic D.O.A. (1949), a snippet of which appears in this film on a TV screen; fans of bad 80s fashion will enjoy Joe Piscopo's mullet and leather blouson jacket; and fans of aquariums will be delighted by the film's many fish tanks.

7/10. From the opening bloody shootout, to the mid movie shootout, to the final shootout, Dead Heat is a lot of fun.

Just want to offer another opinion on this movie for fans of zombies, buddy cop movies, schlock & the like. And don't miss Vincent Price.

OK, Dead Heat will never be listed alongside OscarT winners, big deal. There're plenty of award-winning movies that I don't like, but fans of cult movies are missing something here: Funny kitch.

The pitch meeting must've been hilarious: Picture Lethal Weapon meets Return of the Living Dead meets ReAnimator. C'mon, the genre mix alone is worth the look.

It may not be saying much, but this is Piscopo's best movie. I've been waiting for the DVD release to add it to my cult favorites.

I saw the first monster and I thought my TV was out of focus. He had like three noses, and a mouth that stretched all across his face. This ain't your daddy's buddy cop flick.

But nothing prepared me for the butcher shop. That was a riot! And two zombies with machine guns trying to kill each other was a hoot! Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo were great as the buddy cops.

The show even had Vincent Price. Darren McGavin was excellent as the bad guy who was resurrecting zombies to do his bidding.

A funny zombie cop movie that was well worth the time, even though it could have used some gratuitous nudity.