Braindead.

Review #2303: Braindead.

Cast: 

Timothy Balme (Lionel Cosgrove), Diana Peñalver (Paquita María Sánchez), Elizabeth Moody (Vera Cosgrove; Elizabeth Brimilcombe as Zombie Vera), Ian Watkin (Uncle Les), Brenda Kendall (Nurse McTavish), Stuart Devenie (Father McGruder; Stephen Papps as Zombie McGruder), Jed Brophy (Void), Murray Keane (Scroat), and Glenis Levestam (Nora Matheson) Directed by Peter Jackson (#1486 - Bad Taste, #1507 - Heavenly Creatures, #1540 - King Kong (2005), #2259 - Meet the Feebles)

Review: 

"The film is basically like a theatrical farce in many ways. Lionel ends up with a problem of having all these zombies in his house, without wanting anyone else to find out about it ...every possible thing that could go wrong, does go wrong."

Well, one needs guts or laughs every now and then. Peter Jackson had actually met Fran Walsh and Stephen Sinclair while in the midst of preparing the short-film-turned-feature debut Bad Taste (1987). Eventually, after the release of his next film Meet the Feebles (as co-written by the group for release in 1989), it finally came to pass with the three doing a script together. Jackson stated his goal of making "a splatter film that non splatter fans can go see", one that freely aimed for cheap laughs because of his liking for comedy and a general interest to entertain people. Made for roughly $3 million over the course of eleven weeks, the movie wasn't an initial hit with audiences (New Zealand is not exactly a populous place), but it eventually grew a reputation for its gore while keeping Jackson on the steady path of filmmaking, as evidenced by his next feature being the biodrama Heavenly Creatures just two years later (Walsh co-wrote that film while Sinclair went on to write, uh, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers [2002] and Russian Snark [2010]). The film runs at 104 minutes, although in its original release it had a few cuts away from its native New Zealand (due to its similarity in title to a film called Brain Dead, the States called it "Dead Alive" for release). 

What, a horror movie that is funny even with plenty of gore? You don't say. This is a warmhearted solid movie that happens to involve a "Sumatran" rat monkey and zombie descendants. You've got an embalmer that shows up for one scene for us to find out he wears a swastika underneath his stuff. You've got a reverend that kicks ass for the Lord. You've got a special-effects laden baby of disgusting nature. And most of all, you've got a climax that ends with plenty of blood and a big mother of a final confrontation that just lets the film end right then and there. It basically runs as a soap opera (set in 1957 complete with an old shot of the New Zealand flag right then and there) and plays everything over-the-top to eager worthiness. The effects were crafted by Bob McCarron and Richard Taylor to go with some miniature work by Jackson, and the blood apparently came from maple syrup, red food coloring and some other strange substance. This was the first film appearance for Balme, who still goes around talking about how enjoyable the experience was in filmmaking. He is tasked with making for a goofy dork that we can follow along with even in the madcap hilarity that arises in a silly performance that in some ways would've been right at home with the familiar slapstick times that happens to handle a heavy lawnmower, although most might also say the baby sequence is just as peak in amusement (you just have to see it to get it). Peñalver plays well in goofy warmth that plays to some of the expectations imposed in reactive timing when the situation requires it, whether that involves the meet-cute (after "foreshadowing" in fortune telling) or the eventual reunion that might as well be a scream-union. Moody is delightful in caustic timing that is quite amusing to play off Balme even when it comes to just being a voice (hence Brimilcombe) after a while, with the lunch sequence being particularly gnarly to play out in casual gutty timing. In a sea of movies with attempts at trying to top each other in effects or films they believe are the genre-savvy film for its generation, sometimes you need something to remind you of what real craftsmanship looks like. As a whole, it is the splatter movie for the entertainer at heart, clearly moving on its own terms in manic energy and glee in entrapping its viewer for a movie that straddles itself onto farce with worthwhile commitment and execution in every scene. 

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Closing up the October part of the schedule with Phantom of the Paradise.