History Film / Braindead

* AndShowItToYou: Happens to [[spoiler:a couple of the poor party guests when the zombies break out of the basement. One guy gets trapped under a door and gets his rib cage ripped out. Another girl gets pinned up against a wall, whereupon a zombie punches into her stomach and pulls out her heart.]]

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: Uncle Les, the thugs that assault Lionel in the cemetery... and then Lionel's mom as we learn that she murdered Lionel's father and his mistress.]]

* BigBad: Vera Cosgrove, Lionel's domineering mother, falls into this even before she's bitten, as she [[EvilMatriarch bullies Lionel relentlessly and sabotages his social life]]. After her zombification, she gets worse. As the first major infectee, she starts off the chain of events that gradually causes other townsfolk to become zombies as well, and Lionel spends most of the film struggling to keep her and the rest of the zombies under control. She truly settles into her Big Bad role at the end, where [[spoiler:she mutates into a horrifying zombie/rat monkey monstrosity and regains some of her sentience, and it's revealed that she drowned Lionel's father and his lover many years ago.]]

* ChasedByAngryNatives: The explorers running away from Skull Island with the captured Rat Monkey are chased by angry tribesmen with spears. Perfectly justified as said natives know exactly what the Rat Monkey's bite does: "Shangaia!"

-->'''Uncle Les''': I don't know what kinky shit you're into, but I want those things BURIED!!!
** Void and his fellower greaser delinquents may be no-good booze-swilling hooligans, but they strongly frown upon grave-robbing and, presumbaly, necrophilia.
* EvilIsHammy: Good ''God'', Uncle Les. He's a greedy, self-absorbed lecher who threatens to expose Lional's secret in exchange for his "fair" share of Gera's estate, being all of Vera's money, plus the house and even attempts to force himself on Paquita, but Ian Watkin's demented performance makes Uncle Les the biggest ham in the movie. At first playing the typical boisterous loudmouth back-slapping uncle with enough scenery-chewing gusto that it's no surprise Les is a heavyset fellow, once the zombies crash the party, Uncle Les barely speaks any dialogue below a bellowing holler and takes great relishing delight when he has to take on zombies, swinging, hacking and chopping with a pair cleavers hard enough that not a single part of his body stays still.

* EyeScream: Lionel's mom being almost-but-not-quite-dead proves to make embalming her rather difficult. An aloof mortician's assistant stepping out of the room resukts in a "cranial blowout" with embalming fluid spewing out of Vera's nose, mouth, ears, and even her eyes, though with such force they're pushed completely out of her head.

* GenreSavvy: Uncle Les knows how to defend his own against the zombies because he's "read the comics".

* GroinAttack: Nearly every character in the movie hits Uncle Les in the groin at some point, once using a severed arm as a club. The lout urinating on a zombie's grave comes off even worse when Vera chooses that moment to awaken, claw out of the ground, and seize the most obvious target.

** During the House Party Massacre scene, one poor bastard tries to slip through a hole into the kitchen from various zombies and two people try to pull him through as Zombies start going for his lower body on the other side. When the two people finally pull him out, all that's left of his lower body is his bloodied leg bones, his pelvis and his feet still intact thanks to his shoes.
** Zombie Void, who while trying to break through the bottom of the bathroom door, has his stomach impaled by Lionel stomping him into the broken wood splinters. Void then crawls enough to rip himself in two so he could get to Lionel.

** Can't reach the starter for the lawnmower? Just grab a severed arm!

** Jackson later gives a ShoutOut to ''Braindead'' in his "King Kong" remake: one of the crates coming back from Skull Island on the expedition ship is labeled "Sumatran Rat Monkey". And below that, the words "BEWARE THE BITE". In the accompanying book of the movie it is said that they live in chasms and ravines of Skull Island (AKA that scene with all the huge worms and bugs), one large picture in the book even has a hard-to-see Rat Monkey in it.

* HopeSpot: Lional arrives home with more tranquilizers, only to find the door leading to the basement is wide open. Fearing the zombies have escaped, Lionel rushes over. Upon seeing the corpses are still sedated and restrained, Lionel leans against the wall, relieved... only for Uncle Les to turn the corner with a smirk, having found the zombies and the jig is up.

* {{Jerkass}}: Both Uncle Les and Vera. The latter is emotionally-abusive to her son and determined to keep him under her thumb, and the former is an unpleasant, womanizing jackass all around who's trying to seize what Lionel rightfully inherited.

* JustEatGilligan: So much could have been solved if Lionel had just killed his mother after she fully turned into a zombie. Or killed the zombies that she created rather than keep them all sedated. Or, when he finally did decide to kill them, to use some more traditional methods (like chopping them up or [[KillItWithFire cremating]] them), instead of using what he and Paquita thought was poison [[spoiler: (which was actually an animal stimulant)]]. But alas, otherwise, there'd be no plot, and nothing to laugh at.

* LudicrousGibs: The last third of the film is much, much bloodier than the earlier scenes. And when Lionel gets a hold of the lawnmower...

* MistakenForMasturbating: Downplayed; when Uncle Les springs by for a surprise visit in the middle of zombie lunchtime, loud moaning, groaning, and gasping sounds start coming from behind the door. Lionel tries to explain it away as the pipes making noise (actually, it's the zombified nurse and priest getting it on) but Les shoots this down, saying it's the sounds of people "doing the business" and assumes Lional's found his dad's old stag films and tries to get a peek. When Lional refuses, Les cheekily asks Lionel, "There's just some things a man prefers to do by himself, eh?"

* RefugeInAudacity: Almost everything. However, zombie nurse making love with zombie priest and then having a zombie baby is wrong on ''so many levels''.

* ShoutOut: In addition to the reference to [[Film/KingKong1933 Skull Island]], there's a Literature/SherlockHolmes story that mentions "[[NoodleIncident the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared]]. Not to mention, the whole MyBelovedSmother subplot, as well as their house, are really not unlike ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' and the zombies not being able to be killed by removing the head or destroying the brain, though nobody actually attempts

* SmallRoleBigImpact: The head explorer, Stewart [=McAlden=], who only appears in the opening scene and is abruptly killed after a few minutes. Nonetheless, it is his act of bringing the Sumatran rat-monkey from Skull Island that kicks off the main crisis of the film.
* SplatterHorror: This is one of the more infamous "splatstick" movies, between the grotesque deterioration of Vera and her victims, attacks involving severed body parts and coils of mobile intestines, and a climax involving a chest-mounted lawn mower and a basement full of zombies.

* SureLetsGoWithThat: When Uncle Les mistakes the groaning, moaning and gasping of two zombies banging for Lionel having found his dad's old stag films, Lionel says that's exactly what happened.

** Downplayed with the zombified Father [=McGruder=]; he and the zombified Nurse [=McTavish=] fall hard for each to the point where she kisses him so hard that Lionel forcibly seperating them results [=McGruder=] getting his lips ripped off.

* TheToothHurts: Once Uncle Les has father MacGruder restrained in the tool shed, he takes the opportunity to use a set of pliers to rip out the zombie's front teeth.
* ThoseWackyNazis: The veterinarian Lionel buys the tranquilizer from is one of those, with a poorly-concealed swastika under his lab coat.

* VillainsWantMercy: After Lionel has the Intestine-creature in his mercy, it smacks its kidneys together in a pleading motion, to no avail.
* VomitIndiscretionShot: When Paquita tries to dispose of Selwyn with a blender, she hesitates. Then it vomits a stream of bright-green puke on her face.

* YouKilledMyFather: Near the end of the film, Lionel finds out that [[spoiler:his mother drowned both his father and a woman that he had an affair with in the bathtub]].

** Father MacGruder vs the blonde zombified greaser; first, MacGruder easily rips one of the arms off before ripping the second off during a flip, then an underkick takes off both the zombie's legs as well and finally a swing kick sends it's head flying... [[spoiler: only for it to land on and bite MacGruder in the neck.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Once Uncle Les blackmails Lionel into giving him the house, he's quick to show that he may be a greedy lecher, but even ''[[ILoveTheDead certain]]'' things are too for him to stomach.

* MistakenForMasturbating: Downplayed; when Uncle Les springs by for a surprise visit in the middle of zombie lunchtime, loud moaning, groaning, and gasping sounds start coming from behind the door. Lionel tries to explain it away as the pupes making noise (actually, it's the zombified nurse and priest getting it on) but Les shoots this down, saying it's the sounds of people "doing the business" and assujes Lional's found his dad's old stag films and tries to get a peek. When Lional refuses, Les cheekily asks Lionel, "There's just some things a man prefers to do by himself, eh?"

* ShoutOut: In addition to the reference to [[Film/KingKong1933 Skull Island]], there's a Literature/SherlockHolmes story that mentions "[[NoodleIncident the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared]]. Not to mention, the whole MyBelovedSmother subplot, as well as their house, are really not unlike ''Film/{{Psycho}}''.

** Downplayed with the zombified Father MacGruder; he and the zombified Nurse McTavish fall hard for each to the point where she kisses him so hard that Lional forcibly seperating them resukts in MacGruder getting his lips ripped off.

* TheToothHurts: Once Uncle Les has father MacGruder restrained in the tool shed,mhe takes the oppurtunity to use a set of pliers to rip out the zombie's front teeth.

* UnusualUninterestingSight: When Paquita finds Lionel's collection of

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: They're a combination of the [[PlagueZombie Plague]] and [[FleshEatingZombie Flesh-Eating]] variants. The zombies cannot be killed by destroying their brains, as their limbs and even ''entrails'' can develop minds of their own. Instead, they must be ''completely'' mulched into bits. Furthermore, the zombies are shown to be capable of eating regular food, seem to retain a [[ItCanThink certain amount of human intelligence]] ([[DownplayedTrope very poor intelligence, but still]]), can ''reproduce'', and [[spoiler:after a while, may even mutate into bloated inhuman monsters.]]

* TearOffYourFace: One of the victims of the zombie outbreak has his face torn completely off. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVEFgX4ZI6Y Well, not just the face...]] It's at a minute and 43 seconds into the video.

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: They're a combination of the [[PlagueZombie Plague]] and [[FleshEatingZombie Flesh-Eating]] variants. Their limbs or even ''entrails'' can develop minds of their own, they can have babies, and [[spoiler:after a while, may even mutate into bloated inhuman monsters.]]

** Ever since her husband died, Vera Cosgrove has bullied her son Lionel into spending all his time with her. When he actually gets a date, she stalks the two and manipulates him into leaving her after getting bitten by an animal. The infection eventually turns Vera into a zombie, who turns several of the neighbors. [[spoiler:As Lionel tries to deal with the zombie attack, he learns that Vera drowned her own husband along with his mistress. Soon after, she mutates into a giant monster and tries to force Lionel into her womb to be with him forever.]]

-->'''Lionel:''' [[NotAfraidOfYouAnymore You don’t scare me, Mum!]] [[spoiler:All my life... you told me nothing but ''lies''! That stuff about Dad? None of that was true! You drowned them both, Mum! Dad and that blonde woman, you caught them together and you ''killed'' them, didn’t you?!]]\\

'''Lionel:''' ''DIDN’T YOU?!''

It is about a young man named Lionel (Timothy Balme) whose life takes a turn to the worse when his overbearing mother Vera (Elizabeth Moody) is bitten by a rat-monkey of Sumatra, infecting her with a strange disease that rapidly turns her into a hungry zombie that starts infecting every unlucky fellow that she comes across. If having a zombie mom wasn't enough of a problem, Lionel also has to deal with his opportunistic uncle Les (Ian Watkins) and hide his deadly secret from his girlfriend Paquita (Diana Peñalver).

* BadassPreacher: Father [=McGruder=], the Kung Fu Priest, with the immortal line "I kick arse for the Lord!" Subverted in that [[spoiler:his badass causes his downfall. He kicks a zombie's head off. The zombie head lands right on his shoulder. He gets bitten.]]

Not to be confused with the 2016 [[Series/BrainDead dramedy series]] of the same name.

* RuleOfSymbolism: [[spoiler:Lionel being dragged back to his mother's womb and fighting his way out]] (Wiki/TheOtherWiki's plot summary even describes this as "an over-the-top Freudian 'rebirth'").

** Even dismemberment doesn't completely stop a zombie, with severed limbs continuing to attack after being severed. Taken UpToEleven with a complete set of ''bowels'' becoming animate and chasing Lionel.

* LudicrousGibs: The last third of the film is much, much bloodier than the earlier scenes. And when Lionel [[UpToEleven gets a hold of the lawnmower...]]

* [[CallingTheOldManOut Calling the Old Woman Out]]: Lionel finally stands up to [[OneWingedAngel his zombified, mutated mother]] and confronts her [[spoiler:about [[YouKilledMyFather what really happened to his father]]]] in the climax.

* RefugeInAudacity: [[Film/BadTaste Almost]] [[Film/MeetTheFeebles everything]]. However, zombie nurse making love with zombie priest and then having a zombie baby is wrong on ''so many levels''.

** [[{{Meganekko}} Rita]] was getting there. [[spoiler:Too bad she got a splitting headache... literally.]]

It is a {{squick}}tastic gore-fest, intentionally hilarious in all its splattery glory. That's all you need to know. Not to be confused with the 2016 [[Series/BrainDead dramedy series]] of the same name.

* LaserGuidedKarma: Vera trying to spoil Lionel and Paquita's date and break up their relationship is what leads to her getting bitten by the Rat Monkey and turning her into a zombie.

** After being meek and submissive for most of the film, both Lionel and Paquita gain several levels in the final thirty minutes.

%%* {{Jerkass}}: Both Uncle Les and Vera.

%%* LaserGuidedKarma: Vera's actions come back to bite her in the ass.

* MommasBoy: Lionel. Even after she is turned into a zombie, he doesn't kill her and instead confines her in the basement. He remains devoted to her mother until [[spoiler: it's revealed that she drowned his father and his mistress in the bathtub]].
%%* MyBelovedSmother: Vera, Lionel's mother.
* OhCrap: The most impressive one is when the (still "living") top half of a zombie head gets stuffed into a blender.
%%* OneWingedAngel: [[spoiler: Vera after she bursts out of the basement at the end.]]

* GroinAttack: Nearly every character in the movie hits Uncle Les in the groin at some point, once using a severed arm as a club. The lout urinating on a zombie's grave comes off even worse.

* BigBad: Vera Cosgrove, Lionel's domineering mother, falls into this even before she's bitten, as she [[EvilMatriarch bullies Lionel relentlessly and sabotages his social life]]. After her zombification, she gets worse. As the first major infectee, she starts off the chain of events that gradually causes other townsfolk to become zombies as well, and Lionel spends most of the film struggling to keep her and the rest of the zombies under control. She truly settles into her Big Bad role at the end, where [[spoiler:she mutates into a horrifying monstrosity and regains some of her sentience, and it's revealed that she drowned Lionel's father and his lover many years ago.]]

->''"Think of the most horrifying, grisly, bloody, sick fuck of a movie you can possibly think of. Then look at ''Braindead''. Now whatever you were just thinking of looks like the WesternAnimation/CareBears."''

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: Lionel and Paquita certainly think so when they look at some monkeys in the zoo...only to change their minds once they see their rather gruesome neighbor, the Sumatran Rat Monkey.

-->-- '''Creator/JamesRolfe''', ''Cinemassacre's Monster Madness''

* [[CallingTheOldManOut Calling the Old Woman Out]]: Lionel finally stands up to [[OneWingedAngel his zombified, mutated mother]] and confronts her about [[spoiler:[[YouKilledMyFather what really happened to his father]]]] in the climax.

It is a {{squick}}tastic gore fest. Intentionally hilarious in all its splattery glory. That's all you need to know. Not to be confused with the 2016 [[Series/BrainDead dramedy series]] of the same name.

->''"Think of the most horrifying, grisly, bloody, sick fuck of a movie you can possibly think of. Then look at ''Braindead''. Now whatever you were just thinking of looks like the ''WesternAnimation/CareBears''."''

->''"Think of the most horrifying, grisly, bloody, sick fuck of a movie you can possible think of. Then look at ''Braindead''. Now whatever you were just thinking of, looks like the ''WesternAnimation/CareBears''."''

* ManiacMonkeys: [[BigBad The Sumatran Rat Monkey]] is an aggressive and hideous abomination and the root cause of the zombie outbreak.