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Braindead aka 'Dead Alive'

post #1 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:02pm
Thread Starter 
1st question is Braindead or Dead Alive the proper title? I know in the US it's Dead Alive and over here its Braindead but I've never been sure what it was originally called.

2nd question is this one of the more overlooked horror films of the early 90s?

To me it represents all that was great about early Peter Jackson films but it doesn't really seem to be that well known or well represented amongst film fans. In the top 500 Directors of all time book I have their is a paragraph devoted to Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles and then it doesn't even mention Braindead at all.

It's odd because I always assumed this was one of those massively popular cult films, but it seems to have slipped off the radar somewhat which is a crying shame because apart from a ropey beginning it's probably one of my favourite movies of the 90s.

It's just so much fun and it's special effects work is still remarkably effective, the dinner scene is a great example of minimal effect work being put to stupendously good work and the last thirty minutes is just pure joy on a visceral level. In fact everything from 'I kick arse for the lord' is just about perfect, imo, and the final method of dealing with the zombies is perhaps one of my favourite cinematic moments ever.
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post #2 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:07pm
It was originally called Braindead. And I think it's much more of a cult film than you give it credit... you'd be hard pressed to find a genre fan that doesn't know and absolutely love it.
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post #3 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex Riviello View Post
It was originally called Braindead. And I think it's much more of a cult film than you give it credit... you'd be hard pressed to find a genre fan that doesn't know and absolutely love it.
This. I know people who don't really like horror films yet really love this movie.

I mean, he kills a roomful of zombies with a lawnmower. If someone can't love that, they're probably incapable of love.
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post #4 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:11pm
Thread Starter 
It might be a British thing, or it might be that I don't travel in the right circles of fandom. I've had conversations with people about the oddest horror films, but Braindead is a film that has consistently drawn a blank with people.
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post #5 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:26pm
Even though Braindead was the original title, Dead Alive is a better one.
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post #6 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:30pm
It's the penultimate horror/comedy movie. God I love this movie. From the zombie baby, to the zombie rectum to the lawnmower scene.

And this man.
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post #7 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spike Marshall View Post
It might be a British thing, or it might be that I don't travel in the right circles of fandom. I've had conversations with people about the oddest horror films, but Braindead is a film that has consistently drawn a blank with people.
Maybe it's because you call it "Braindead".
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post #8 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:41pm
The only thing better than watching this movie, is watching it with Alex and cracking up at the same exact moments.
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post #9 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:44pm
I like to think that alcohol was invented just to drink with this movie.
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post #10 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:48pm
Is there a Braindead drinking game that I'm unaware of, or is it just rampant alcoholism?
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post #11 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spike Marshall View Post
but Braindead is a film that has consistently drawn a blank with people.
It's your moral obligation as a horror fanatic to educate these people with a twofer of Braindead and Bad Taste.
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post #12 of 33
12/8/08 at 2:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Savage View Post
Is there a Braindead drinking game that I'm unaware of, or is it just rampant alcoholism?
Rampant alcoholism.
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post #13 of 33
12/8/08 at 3:01pm
Every time I wear my Dead Alive t-shirt I meet a new person. People fucking love this movie.
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post #14 of 33
12/8/08 at 5:30pm
Like Spike, I've found the film doesn't seem to be at all well-known in this country.
Pity, too. It's not quite one of my favourite horror-comedies, but it's certainly among the best of the genre.
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post #15 of 33
12/8/08 at 5:39pm
I had the wonderful opportunity last month to see this uncut on the big-screen in a packed theatre. It's the very definition of crowd-pleaser. I wish there were some kind of giant special editio for this film, cuz I'm much more interested in how Jackson pulled these effects off than the effects in LOTR or Kong.
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post #16 of 33
12/8/08 at 6:23pm
Yeah, they showed it here in Atlanta a couple of months ago, and that was my first time seeing it. VERY enthusiastic crowd at the Plaza that night, and I had a great time.
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post #17 of 33
12/8/08 at 6:33pm
I think (like EVIL DEAD 2) the imagination, inventiveness, and energy is what elevates it. It's infectious. It's a flick I also went a complete 180 on. I was so disgusted and offended by it when I 1st saw it as a horror newb, that I couldn't help but fall in love with how ballsy, relentless, and funny it is.

Don't know how accurate it is, but some imdb trivia:

- During the lawnmower scene, movie blood was pumped at five gallons per second (300 liters of fake blood was used in the final scene of the film).

- The movie was finished under budget with NZ$45,000 remaining. Peter Jackson used it to spend two days shooting the park scene with Lionel and the baby Selwyn. He has gone on to say that it is his favorite scene.

- CAMEO: Forrest J Ackerman (RIP) as more or less himself; the tourist at the zoo who take a photo of Lionel's mother squishing the rat monkey's head with her shoe.
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post #18 of 33
12/9/08 at 9:14am
This is truly one of the quintessential splatter comedies. A completely over the top extravaganza of liquid excess, that comes across to me as a New Zealand love letter to Raimi's "Evil Dead". It's shameless in it's extremes, yet humorous enough to delude the non-horror devotees into believing they haven't witnessed one of goriest films to hit celluloid.

I'd drop it somewhere on the low end of the 50 required films to watch to claim you're a true horror fan, but in the top 10 films required to claim you're a certified gore-hound.
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post #19 of 33
12/9/08 at 9:44am
I first saw Dead/Alive with a bunch of college kids who had been reading Freud. Recommend this experience.

Beyond the amazingly inventive gore, the thing that really gets me about the movie is how sincere the love story is. You totally want to root for those kids.
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post #20 of 33
12/9/08 at 10:38am
Gotta go with the consensus. Pretty much everyone knows and loves this movie. And as others have mentioned, its best watched with a crowd. My first time seeing it was piled in a college dorm room with a dozen or so people. Fun.
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post #21 of 33
12/9/08 at 1:04pm
Saw it while tripping on acid; one of the best drug experiences and movie experiences of my life.
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post #22 of 33
12/9/08 at 1:45pm
Yes, one of the all time great horror comedies, and to this day probably the goriest ever (there are movies that come close, and movies that are far more brutal and disturbing, but I don't think anything tops this in terms of sheer volume of blood and flesh being thrown about). There are a surprising number of people I've shown this to who aren't big horror fans and don't really care about cult films at all and love it. It's so very well done, maybe surprisingly so, and funny that you can't help but love it. My fondest memory associated with it is my friends and I tricking the chaperones into showing it on the bus during a weekend trip for school, and everyone actually enjoying it.
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post #23 of 33
12/9/08 at 10:27pm
Getting you to laugh and want to throw up at the same time is hard, but PJ did it in this film.
And who can forget "I Kick Ass In The Name Of The Lord!'
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post #24 of 33
12/10/08 at 12:00am
I saw this the summer before I started my freshman year of college. While staying in the dorms it became a litmus test for new people I met. If I showed it to them and they laughed as hard as I did the first time I saw it I knew I could hang with them.

I think I must have rewound the part where the monkey goes for the apple core and then gets socked in the face by the rat monkey about 10 times on my first viewing. Absolutely hysterical.

"Step aside son, it's time for some divine intervention" is great, but I think my favorite line is "that's my mother you're pissing on."
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post #25 of 33
12/10/08 at 1:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nekkerbee View Post
Saw it while tripping on acid; one of the best drug experiences and movie experiences of my life.
My hat's off to you, bro. I don't think I could have handled the meal scene while tripping. That's a recipe for a bad trip for me, no doubt of it. Pun certainly intended.
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post #26 of 33
12/10/08 at 7:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Savage View Post
It's the penultimate horror/comedy movie. God I love this movie.
It's second to last? That sure doesn't sound like you love it.
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post #27 of 33
12/10/08 at 7:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake View Post
This. I know people who don't really like horror films yet really love this movie.

I mean, he kills a roomful of zombies with a lawnmower. If someone can't love that, they're probably incapable of love.
And THIS. Couldn't agree more.

You can call it Braindead, Dead Alive, whatever, it's still an awesome splatter movie. It's a gross funny guaranteed good time from start to finish, I'm a sucker for puss eating jokes.
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post #28 of 33
12/10/08 at 7:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by IggytheBorg View Post
My hat's off to you, bro. I don't think I could have handled the meal scene while tripping. That's a recipe for a bad trip for me, no doubt of it. Pun certainly intended.
What? You don't like Pus & Ear Pudding (sounds like a UK dish, no offense, Spike)?
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post #29 of 33
12/10/08 at 7:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nekkerbee View Post
Saw it while tripping on acid; one of the best drug experiences and movie experiences of my life.
Ha! That is quite bad ass. Horror movies on acid can be really funny and awesome, it's all about the mind set and the people you're with. If you're the type to get paranoid or be swayed into a negative thought loop easily it might not work out as well.

I just watched No Country for Old Men and The Reanimator on acid this Halloween, and that was pretty intensely awesome. The shrieks of a twitching dead cat with a broken back have never sounded so vivid, or looked so orange.
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post #30 of 33
12/10/08 at 8:27pm
I had to turn away before he ate the spoonful of pus-pudding; I couldn't quite handle that. I was fine for everything else.

And the reason I was able to handle all the gore in that state was because it was so goddamn funny. At a later LSD/film night my friend and I watched Fulci's The Beyond, and it put me in a really bad mood (although the kid getting shot was awesome). The Beyond lacked the sheer joy of Dead Alive, and that made all the difference.

Then again, I've watched open heart surgery on TV whilst tripping and was fascinated, so I can't say what would necessarily turn me on or off.

In any event, Dead Alive = Awesomeness.
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post #31 of 33
12/11/08 at 1:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nekkerbee View Post
I had to turn away before he ate the spoonful of pus-pudding; I couldn't quite handle that. I was fine for everything else.

Then again, I've watched open heart surgery on TV whilst tripping and was fascinated, so I can't say what would necessarily turn me on or off.
See? See!? It isn't just me!!

And as for open heart surgery, I don't knkwo why this is, but I can watch all kinds of film violence & gore (as long as there's no pus eating involved) and not be fazed in the least, but watching actual surgeries on TV makes me queasy. Maybe because I know it's not make believe? Or because, unlike a kill in a slasher film, the person undergoing the surgery isn't going to get killed, & has to wake up to the pain from the aftermath? I'm at aloss to definitively explain it.

And I don't think it's the realism; I've seen autopsy photos in connection with some of the criminal and wrongful death cases I've worked on as an attorney (and oddly, these didn't really bother me either; go figure), and I can say that effects people generally get it very, very right. Exposed brains and organs really do look like that. Surgery is still different and hard to take.
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post #32 of 33
12/19/08 at 12:57pm
I prefer Bad Taste to Dead/Alive but love the latter nonetheless. The pacing always seemed a little off to me, but it more than makes up for it with buckets and buckets of blood (etc).

I had the misfortune of seeing the rated version of the movie when it was first released. Wow. Boring.
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post #33 of 33
12/29/08 at 6:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Strangefist View Post
... people I've shown this to who aren't big horror fans and don't really care about cult films at all and love it. It's so very well done, maybe surprisingly so, and funny that you can't help but love it. ...
That's dead right, this (and Bad Taste) used to regularly end up on the VHS at the end of the night of parties when everyone was crashing and most of the people weren't generally impressed by horror but loved these ones. Some of it was that here was our guy PJ not needing a Spielberg sized budget to make movies, but most of it was that they're a shitload of fun
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