Braindead

Braindead (1992)
AKA: Dead Alive

Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh & Stephen Sinclair
Starring: Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin, Brenda Kendall, Stuart Devenie, Harry Sinclair

About a young man whose overprotective mother is bitten by a freaky monkey at the zoo (the monkey came from Skull Island. Hey!). The bite turns her into a pus-dripping, flesh-chomping and highly contagious 'zombie'. Her son must then try to keep her and her growing number of spawn under control. Hilarity and nauseating amounts of gore ensue.

This is hailed as being one of the goriest movies of all time. This may or may not be an actual fact, I'm not going to argue over it, but it's got to be on the top five.

I will say it succeeded in making me feel really sick - for the first part of the movie I was kind of going along with it, but by the end I was almost in total shock.

And I mean that as a good thing. I actually kind of like when a film is disgusting enough to make me feel physically nauseous (in a good way - other films make me nauseous in other ways. Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, for example, made me want to barf, but we'll get to that).

This movie also had a lot of fun doing it. Some parts are just stupid or obnoxious, but that all fits with the overall demented, tasteless charm of the film.

It was all gross, but it was silly gross (kind of like Evil Dead only more so). Limbs coming off and bits going in blenders and fists through heads... and the lawnmower...

It's all utterly bizarre. I mean, kung-fu priest? What the hell? But in a weird way it all works. And at the heart of it all, there's an adorable love story. Love conquering all obstacles. All right.

And it still wasn't quite enough to turn me off the genre. Granted, I am a little afraid to watch Bad Taste now but... ah well, it can't possibly scar me. As long as it's all in good fun.

It is a little hard to believe that Jackson went on to direct Lord of the Rings. Yeah, those are all super violent and gory and he did a brilliant job but still... who let him do that? Holy.

END