Dead Alive (1992)
October 2, 2014 11:49 AM - Subscribe

A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors. AKA Braindead

Peter Jackson's explosively gory horror comedy is the 16th pick in the MeFi Horror Club series.
posted by DirtyOldTown (11 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Pick #17 is a crossover pick that we're sharing with the Spirit of '99 Club, Ravenous.

More info here. Proper post to come.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:52 AM on October 2, 2014


Peter Jackson used to deploy his gratuitous fight scenes with so much more wit and charm.
posted by Iridic at 1:07 PM on October 2, 2014


Oh god....the custard scene...oh god...flashbacks.

And, of course, "I kick arse for the Lord!"

I suppose I could be more serious and note the film's subtle undercurrents of anticolonial critique and its derision of Aussie/New Zealander conservatism, but..it's a movie with a zombie sex scene and a zombie rebirthing scene whose major action sequence involves a lawnmower.
posted by kewb at 4:07 PM on October 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


This film is amazing.

On the big screen, it's as much of a sensory overload as 2001, or Requiem For A Dream. I remember my friends and I walking out of the theater in stunned silence, too tired to speak.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:21 PM on October 2, 2014


This is a remakable film which is almost a series of vignettes rather than a very coherent story. The "baby" in the pram scene, for instance, feels almost disconnected from the rest of the film. I did really enjoy it! Its super gross, and very funny, and often makes very little sense. A lovely little film. Also dead alive is a terrible title.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:18 AM on October 3, 2014


Dead Alive? Brain Dead.

Back when Peter Jackson was still a cult taste.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:58 AM on October 3, 2014


The baby in the pram scene is pretty disconnected because it came about when Jackson discovered that they had over budgeted the film by $45000 and one week (wikipedia). So they cobbled a scene together and spent a couple of days down at the park filming it.
posted by AndrewStephens at 1:12 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


Just as an aside, Weta is 20 years old now, and heres an article about its origins. Typically kiwi, it started with a computer in a room and a bunch of "mad buggers".
posted by arzakh at 4:13 PM on October 4, 2014


This film is so amazing, and so many people have not seen it. I've shown it to a bunch of people through the years, and I've so far not met anyone who doesn't love it.

(Also, the physics of the final impalement in the "I kick arse for the Lord" scene make no sense.)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:45 PM on October 8, 2014


"Your mother ate my dooooog!"
"Not all of it!"
posted by infinitewindow at 9:35 AM on December 28, 2014


Our kid watched this movie and proclaimed it "The funniest thing I have ever seen in my life."

So it turns out I am an okay parent, I guess.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:11 PM on March 2, 2022


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