Dead Alive

The "Citizen Kane" of Oedipal zombie-cannibal-right to death-comedy-love stories... So gleefully over-the-top that it's decidedly hard not to gag while you're laughing yourself incontinent... Sick. Perverse. Brilliant.

A gonzo splatterfest from New Zealand that manages to stay breezy and good-natured even as you're watching heads get snapped off of spurting torsos.

There is good, broad humor amid the very gross gore effects. And when the Living Impaired stalk our hero's home, it's a family reunion out of your bloodiest nightmares. [8 Feb 1993, p.83]

Technically, this is Jackson's best to date, with state of the art creature and gore effects by Richard Taylor and prosthetics design by Bob McCarron. There's any amount of dismemberment, disembowelling, beheading, and the like, all of it handled with bloody conviction.

An almost unrelenting barrage of gore, Dead Alive is also a constant assault on the funnybone, a film in which the graphic blood-spilling is taken so far over the top that it becomes hilarious instead of disgusting.

Ordinarily I don't care for this kind of thing at all, but something must be said for Jackson's endless reserves of giddy energy; perhaps because this is so clearly meant to be silly, he generally avoids the calculated mean-spiritedness of more prestigious directors like Spielberg and Renny Harlin.

Because all of this looks blatantly unreal, and because the timing of the shock effects is so haphazard, Dead Alive isn't especially scary or repulsive. Nor is it very funny. Long before it's over, the half-hour-plus bloodbath that is the climax of the film has become an interminable bore. [12 Feb 1993, p.C16]

Long before Peter Jackson's King Kong or Lord of the Rings Trilogy there was this movie. Released as "Braindead" internationally but as "Dead Alive" in North America since there was already another movie called "Braindead" here (an annoying to watch but not bad movie BTW), Dead Alive is one of those movies that is so bad its good! This was one of the absolutely cheesiest horror movies I've ever seen, it's also the most gory horror movie I've ever seen. Bad acting, bad directing, intentionally cheesy lines by the characters and over-the-top gore make this movie one of the funniest movies that I have ever seen! It is best viewed with a bunch of your mildly drunk friends, you'll all have a riot watching this! BTW: Interesting fact: This movie along with another movie "Army of Darkness" are credited with inspiring the original gory "Doom" video game!

Dead Alive, or Brain Dead as it's known in New Zealand, is basically a love story crammed with zombies, humor, and stomach-churning gore. It's absolutely hilarious, and not in the typical zombie-comedy way. It ends up coming across as more of a spoof of zombie movies, but in a good way, a funny way. The movie is regarded as the goriest movie of all time, and for good reason. Let me put it this way if your even the least bit squeamish DON'T watch this movie you will be sick. I loved every second of it, and it's now one of my favorite movies of all time. I highly recommend this to zombie-comedy fans, or just comedy fans who can put up with all the gore.

You know, I always thought Peter Jackson was a macho man for the excellent LOTR series but I was TOTTALY wrong. Dead Alive really ticks audiences off, by its spaghetti bone-crushing extreme gore and hilariously devilish story. A story about an infested community might not be everyone's cup of tea but if you are a Shaun Of The Dead fan or even Tucker And Dale, its for you. DA still is one of the goreiest movies I have ever watched as a critic, but nonetheless also the most absurd and with the most weapon wielding usage. DA is also boring on sites, you are so much bored by the violent theme of the overall film that you want more but this movie declines and for a Jackson movie this is not right. It's not the gorefest feeling that makes you sick but also puts a smile on your face. Gladly, I discovered this film on the Internet and ordered it through Amazon for $4.99, Dead Alive should be a good buy for some people, cheap and one classic stupid fun movie that no one should forget- New Zealand especially! In the end- it's not for EVERYONE but one to enjoy. And to barf at.

Gorier than most things you'll ever see. The movie's story is nowhere never as legendary than Friday 13th, Nightmare on elm street + 28 days. People will not remember this movie as one of the best HORROR movies of all time, but as one of the GORIEST movies of all time.

This schlocky, infamous dose of early ‘90s body horror waves its admiration for the Evil Dead films like a flag. More specifically, it sets out to emulate the campy humor, cheeky one-liners and gross-out special effects of Sam Raimi’s slapstick screamers. As story goes, Dead Alive only provides the bare minimum. There’s a plot, some silly gibberish about a Sumatran rat-monkey whose bite induces zombism, but it’s nothing more than a vehicle from one zany, gore-drenched horror-gasm to the next. The monkey gets its claws into an old woman, she spreads the infection, her doting son takes it upon himself to clean up the mess... that’s really all you need to know. At heart, this is a fond, playful farewell for budding director Peter Jackson; his last (and bloodiest) low-budget splatter-fest before moving on to more serious material. And why not shift genres at this point? He’s just left everything on the abattoir floor. Dead Alive is so morbidly droll, so wickedly juvenile, so blissfully profane, it’s impossible to imagine a bridge much further. Any time it seems the hijinx cannot possibly get any more obscene, whoops, here comes something much, much worse. The unregulated mayhem is admirable, absurd hilarity at its best, but even at a breezy ninety-odd minutes, the total reliance on shock value wears thin. I cackled for an hour, but somewhere between the food processor baby and the shoulder-mounted lawnmower, I could feel my smile fade. Diminishing returns, I’m afraid. Make no mistake: Dead Alive is bad cinema. It’s crammed full of weak performances, overbearing camera angles and cut-rate soundtrack riffs (at unnecessary volume levels). And man, it’s ruthlessly stupid. But stupid doesn’t always equate to no fun. This is a ball while it lasts, and there’s no question that Jackson and company are in on the joke. It just doesn’t last forever. Not as long as the film does, anyway. Bad + entertaining is still bad.