Film Brain Dead's okay, but it could have been better
So I just watched Brain Dead... and I don't really know what to say.
I expected to get a quick, hilarious and incredibly bloody comedy - after all, I did read on IM Db that it's the BLOODIEST FILM EVAR and it's directed by goddamn Peter Jackson! So it's gotta be awesome, right!
What I got instead was a schizophrenic film that couldn't decide whether it was serious or silly.
Don't get me wrong, there were parts that I laughed mega-hard at: the initial bit with the guy who gets bitten, the Sumatran Rat-Monkey, all the bad Army of Darkness-level Special Effect Failures, the awesomely hilarious final fight with the lawnmower (probably my favourite scene), the fact that Lionel's zombie mum looked like the Bubbles DeVere from Little Britain, the fountains' worth of blood and gore, the silly Slapstick humour. Those were all cool and funny.
Also, the two main characters came across as well-characterised and sympathetic - hell, Paquita's Babelfish-quality dialogue even came across as kinda charming. The others were outlandish caricatures that were hit (Father MacGruder, getting the best line) or miss (Uncle Les).
Problem is, those cool bits were surrounded by boring soap opera and unfunniness. Plus, Peter Jackson doesn't know when to quit. I guess some bits tried to be super-over-the-top hilarious but just came out kinda very wrong and disturbing - the uterus bit was really Mind Screwy in a Freudian Evangelion-ish kinda way before the geyser of blood returned to the realm of Bloody Hilarity, and the attempted rape was just disturbing, period.
Also, Jackson uses a really weird filming style here, with tons of close-ups and really weird camera motions, that made me feel like I was watching the movie in the wrong aspect ratio (I wasn't). The editing was also choppy and kind of rushed at first, adding to the movie's indecisive tone.
So, yeah, I was expecting a fun comedy. What I got was a movie that's got a great beginning and end (especially the end) but sags super-hard in the middle. Needed more editing and more Rapid Fire Comedy - I'm sure I would have loved it the way I do Army of Darkness if Jackson would've just removed all the desperately Unfunny bits and the ones that Cross The Line Twice (Rape As Comedy? Freudian zombie vagina? No Just No).
Film I Kick Ass for the Lord, minus a little
If you ask me, the best kind of zombie movies are the ones with the human element. It's the ones with the human element. The ones which ask: "how would people really react when the end comes along?" Stuff like 28 Days Later and the Walking Dead series.
Dead Alive, aka Braindead everywhere else, is not one of those zombie movies. Not even a little bit. In fact I'm hesitant to say even that, seeing as how that would imply it was even trying to be one of those zombie movies. And when I think about it, it's a bit of a shame because beneath continent sized amount of fridge logic and the balls to the wall third-act, there is actually something of a heartfelt story about the oppressiveness of properness and the reliance one can have on the status quo, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.
Made in 1990 by Peter Jackson, Dead Alive tells the tale of a young New Zealander by the name of Lionel who officially has to win the award for most awesome use of a lawn mower in the history of cinema, ever. The movie, more or less starts with Lionel pretty much being his mom's slave. When Lionel starts the dating the town's stereotypical gypsy/romani-girl. His mother get's suspicious and follows them to the zoo. While there, she gets bitten by a "Rat Monkey," and, it's pretty much around this point that logic decides that it wants to sit this one out. Mommy's bite eventually causes her to expire, but quickly unexpires after that (surprise, surprise).
If you haven't caught it from the description, I think this movie is a boatload of fun. Between the the zombie baby, the zombie sex-scene that spawned the zombie baby, the priest who kick's ass for the lord (hence the title of this entry), and crazy third act, this movie is really fun. And speaking of blood, this movie has it and entrails by the truckload.
What I like so much about this movie is that it pretty much eschuse the whole zombie apocalypse trope entirely. For example, pretty much the whole second act is devoted to keeping the his zombified mother and various other people that she's zombified occupied, feeding them porridge and letting them watch tv, wacky stuff like that.
Bottom line: if you're into this kinda thing, then you'll love this movie. If you like movies, you'll be able to appreciate this movies. Just do yourself a favor and lower your expectations accordingly.