#69 - Dead/Alive

Braindead (1992)
Extremely Trashy
Directed by: Peter Jackson. Written by: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Stephen Sinclair.

Plot: Dorky guy (Timothy Balme) falls in love with girl (Diana Penalver). This causes problems with his over protective mother (Elizabeth Moody). Even bigger problems arise when she gets bitten by a demonic monkey and turns into a pus-dripping flesh eating undead monster. Hilarity ensues.

Review: My friend cites Dawn of the Dead (the remake) as one of the reasons she stopped eating meat. This movie is the reason I decided to avoid dating for the rest of my life. Actually, Rosemary's Baby and Psycho have a bit to do with it (actually, it's involuntary, I just say that to make myself feel better).

Anyway. This movie is full of enough cartoonish gore to make me not want to eat my spaghetti (I’m pretty sure I was eating spaghetti the night I watched this. I remember it was just Mr. Blue and I, and we ate spaghetti almost every night, so there’s a good chance we ate spaghetti that night too). Spaghetti was definitely a bad move.

Didn’t put me off the stuff, though, really. Um, Christ, I'm having a bit of trouble getting into this one. Um. Okay. This movie isn't really that good, it's sort of hit and miss, being occasionally funny, occasionally offensive and occasionally just irritating, but the whole thing has a demented energy which keeps it going. Even when it’s being extremely obnoxious… well, you have to admire the extreme part. I mean… it just doesn’t let up. It keeps going and gets progressively more intense and more repulsive until you really don’t want to watch it anymore.

I guess that’s how I feel about this movie, generally speaking. It’s totally tasteless and kind of awful, and a lot of it really doesn’t work, but it just bops along. It’s having fun and it doesn’t care what you think. Maybe that’s anthropomorphizing a little bit, but whatever.

So while it's not good, it is great in its own weird way. If you know what I mean. At some point mid-movie it achieves a level of greatness and it is that greatness which makes it great. Oh Jesus. Yeah, I'm really not in the mood to write this right now. I just want to sleep.

Yeah, okay, closing note, it’s a pretty fun movie if you can stomach the gore (which I can’t really, but then, I am but a delicate maiden. Honest to Jesus though, I mean, when I say it doesn't stop, I mean it doesn't fucking stop. It reaches the point where it ceases to be the least bit amusing, it's just horrible, like wading through... I dunno, some kind of awful goo. Slogging through the liquified remains of all of your friends. Yeah. Not so wonderful). You will laugh, you will cringe. It’s all good. I guess. Fuck.

Favourite Part: “I kick ass for the lord” Solid gold, that. Man, I wish that priest was real. I would convert, hands down, no second thoughts. Well maybe. I dunno. But there would be a pretty good chance.

Other versions: None.

Sequels: None.

Click here to read my original review (May 30th, 2008).

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