Dead Alive (1992)
**** (out of 4)
Terrific horror/comedy about a mama's boy (Timothy Balme) who finally gets a shot with a beautiful young lady (Diana Penalver) but his mommy ends up getting bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey, which turns her into a blood-thirsty zombie.
I remember first seeing this thing in its cut, R-rated version but catching it again, this time uncut at a theater that specialized in midnight movies. I caught a lot of cult films at this theater but I think this one here went over best with the large crowd and the film ended up playing at least once a month with people lining up each time. Jackson has certainly gone on to do bigger pictures but in my opinion this one here contains more originality, imagination and heart than any of the three LORD OF THE RINGS films.
I think the overwhelming majority of this picture is a bizarre love story mixed in with outrageous gore that leads to some incredibly funny sequences. The over-the-top humor starts early on when, after already being bitten, the mother has some society people over but soon starts to fall apart in her food with the poor man sitting next to her ending up drinking down some of her fluids in his pudding. We even get more crazy stuff in terms of a mutant baby that our lead must take for a walk in the park only to have to end up beating in front of other outraged parents.
The gore level in this film was incredibly high for 1992 standards and it's still pretty out there. I'm not sure how many gallons of blood was used for this film but the red stuff is constantly flowing and pouring all over the place. We've got countless body parts being ripped, torn and shredded but we also have an uncountable amount of ooze constantly going all over the place. Horror fans who love gore will certainly find plenty here as this film contains enough for pretty much the entire genre that was out there during this era. Not only do we get some disgusting goo but we also get some pretty big laughs with the various situations that we find out hero in.
Jackson even throws us a decent little love story between the two leads and how on Earth doesn't want to see Lionel finally destroy his mother and get with the girl? The one negative thing is that the film runs a tad bit too long but there's no denying that this thing is a pure masterpiece in terms of midnight movies and gore flicks. The thing has some nice performances, an insane atmosphere and it's just an all around great little gem from someone who really does love the genre. Not only do we get all of this but there are some nice homages to films like KING KONG and THE WOLF MAN.
