Back in the 1980's and 90's we film fans had clunky VHS and Beta tapes for our home viewing, no slim and shiny discs. The British VHS release of Death Warmed Up came with some very inviting sleeve artwork, in fact I still have this, in addition to a low grade DVD, but it was another case of the movie itself not living up to its wonderful cover. Sadly the UK release is also cut, however it still packs in plenty of gore and violence, plus a bit of sex and nudity. The movie is a melting pot of mad scientist (much in the vein of Dr Moreau, performing hideous experiments on living people), science fiction, horror, splatter, comedy, punk and features mutants who could have wandered off a Mad Max set. Gore highlights include graphic brain surgery. Made in that excellent decade of horror there is a lot of blue and red lighting, combined with the almost obligatory smoke machine and synthesizer score. Its low budget does show at times, an exploding head looks cheap and the microphone boom makes a couple of appearances. Revisiting this Kiwi movie brought back happy memories of the days of VHS and practical special effects, it's no classic but does provide a fair bit of splattery entertainment.
Review of Death Warmed Up
