Braindead

I think it's called the sweet spot, that place when everything comes together at the right moment: the build up has been great, the levels on all the gauges are optimised, you have all the ingredients, the recipe for success has been perfected and then you unleash the beast, and what a butcher of a beast you unleash!

If you dig too deep for the secrets or contrast it with today you'll end up burying yourself however, do be mindful and in awe of the immense crafts these artisans had developed in the early 90s and, above all, revel in the way those talents were recombined to produce a true work of ground breaking genius that will keep those fascinated by such majesty capitated, bowled and limbed for as long as is inhumanly possible.

Lionel Cosgrove is a good guy having a tough time with things. Ever since his father died saving him during a swimming accident Lionel has been taking care of his mother. But unfortunately his mother must have come from the same parenting class as Norman Bates' mother since she is as manipulative and smothering. But things seem to be on the up and up for him when he starts a romance with a local shop owner's daughter. But a date to the zoo takes a turn for the worse when Lionel's overprotective mum follows him and manages to get bitten by a "rat monkey", a particularly nasty creature whose bite is killer…literally. The bite turns his mum into a zombie and each one she bites turns as well. Pretty soon poor Lionel is living in the house of the dead and fighting off a lecherous uncle scheming to grab the estate.

Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) once again proves he is more than able to give us the gory goods and make us laugh the entire time. This insanely entertaining flick has buckets and buckets of blood and gore, probably one of the (if not THE) bloodiest around. For a film with a miniscule budget (approximately $3 million) he makes every penny count and turns out a very nice looking film. The comedy is pure slapstick and at times dark as pitch. The actors attack their various roles with a solid energy that gives the film a maniac pace. "Brain Dead" (aka "Dead Alive") is the best splatter comedy money can buy.

Wellington, New Zealand, 1957. Lionel and Paquita are at the zoo on date when Lionel's domineering, oppressive mother, Vera, appears, trying to prevent Lionel from seeing Paquita. Vera is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey and overnight becomes a zombie. Soon she infects others and Lionel is struggling to contain the zombie outbreak.

Written and directed by Peter Jackson who later went on to direct Heavenly Creatures, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Braindead, his third film, is nothing like those movies. If, however, you've seen his first film Bad Taste, Braindead will be no surprise.

Bad Taste relied heavily on a silly plot and gross-out special effects but was quite funny and generally quite fun. Braindead is similar but has a more solid plot, including a set up - Bad Taste just launched straight into the humans-vs-zombies/aliens action. There is still a lot of gross-out visual effects, many of which are silly and gratuitous, but some of them are really clever and funny. Some great laugh-out-loud moments.

On that note, in Bad Taste the silliness pipped the funniness but here the laughs win out. Not by a huge margin but enough to make the movie watchable and fun.

Peter Jackson's gore-fest "Dead Alive" - AKA Braindead- is a very funny, very bloody film. The story is pretty simple, but includes some ingenious plot elements - such as a budding romance between two very likable characters (Balme and Penalver), a psychologically distressing relationship between Balme and his mother and well scripted dialog.

Balme plays Lionel - a troubled, more or less housebound young man who has been forced to spend most of his time taking care of a domineering and psychologically damaging elderly mother. Penalver plays Paquita - his romantic destiny. Paquita is a charming young woman for whom English is (perhaps) a second language. Soon after they meet, Paquita notices some odd quirks in Lionel's behavior, and slowly begins to realize that there is something besides the usual male fear of commitment. Perhaps Lionel's cannibalistic zombie mother is to blame? Soon enough Balme is babysitting a whole family of living dead who he has to constantly inject with animal tranquilizers, and trying to fend off a despicable uncle who is trying to muscle in on his inheritance. Then the fun really starts. It's the Dead Alive Series with extra gore, infused with brilliant slapstick and just a pinch of Monty Python.

Balme is amazing! - an excellent physical actor with great slapstick pacing and manic anxiety. And Penalver is delightfully pretty and sincere yet gives a nice campy performance. Dead Alive is one of the films in which Jackson began to blend detailed ecstatic and fantastic elements into his plots and cinematography - later culminating in the disturbing Heavenly Creatures and the spectacular LOTR trilogy. In Dead Alive, he finds his formula and makes it work without a tremendous budget. The film is well shot and grotesque, but remarkably amusing.

This is by far the best horror film I have ever seen in my life. This movie has everything - a horrifying rat monkey, a baby zombie, zombies having sex, gratuitous violence, extreme gore, a super fighting ninja priest, an evil annoying mom that turns into a zombie, a womanizing relative that is a pathetic loser, an old psychic that predicts the future, and lastly someone who takes care of them all. Oh, I can't forget to mention an inspirational scene with a lawnmower too. Overall I give this cinematic masterpiece the highest review, me throwing up in the bathroom afterwards from absolute disgust.