Braindead
Tags: comedy, murder, cult, violence, horror, flashback, psychedelic, humor, entertaining, sadist

Plot synopsis:
The first scene sets up the danger of the "Sumatran Rat-Monkey," a hybrid creature that "according to legend" resulted from the rape of tree monkeys on Skull Island by plague-carrying rats. Stewart, an explorer returning from the depths of the island with his guide and team, is carrying a rat-monkey in a cage and is stopped by fierce warrior natives that demand the return of the monkey. Stewart escapes with the cage to the rest of his team and a waiting Jeep, leaving his guide behind and the natives in hot pursuit. As the jeep takes off, Stewart's guide catches up and jumps on board. In the ensuing melee, Stewart gets bitten by the Rat-Monkey. Seeing the mark of the monkey's bite on his right hand, Stewart's men immediately hold down the infected explorer and amputate the appendage. A bite mark is then seen on his left arm, which swiftly results in the removal of that limb. Finally, they see a set of bloody scratches on Stewart's forehead and kill him. The title screen follows the man's dying scream, and as the opening credits roll the captured rat-monkey is shipped to Wellington Zoo in New Zealand.Wellington, 1957, Lionel Cosgrove lives with his domineering mother, Vera. To his mother's dismay, Lionel falls in love with a local shopkeeper's daughter, Paquita, and while snooping on the two during a visit to the zoo, Vera is bitten by the Sumatran Rat-Monkey; she subsequently crushes its head. The animal's bite slowly turns her into a ravenous zombie. Lionel is horrified, but, ever the dedicated son, is determined to care for her. Despite his efforts to keep her placated with periodic doses of veterinary anesthetic, Vera starts murdering other townspeople, turning them into zombies. He tries to keep them locked away in the basement, while simultaneously trying to maintain his relationship with the completely oblivious Paquita. Vera escapes, however, and is hit by a tram.As the townspeople assume she is dead, Lionel tranquilizes the still-kicking zombie for her funeral. After she is buried, he returns to the graveyard to administer more anesthetic, but is accosted by a gang of hoodlums. Vera bursts from her grave, resulting in more deaths and zombies. As their numbers grow, Lionel manages to keep the zombies under relative control with repeated injections, and tries to keep them concealed in his home. However, Lionel's uncle Les, arrives to try to wrangle with Lionel over his mother's estate. Uncle Les discovers the "corpses" and blackmails his nephew into giving up his inheritance in return for his silence.Lionel reluctantly administers poison to the zombies ("killing" them) and buries them, just as Uncle Les and a crowd of his friends arrive for a housewarming party. However, the "poison" turns out to be an animal stimulant, and since the zombies came from the bite of an animal (the Rat-Monkey), it only gives them even more energy. The zombies burst from the ground to attack and infect the party guests in a gory finale.Some of the guests are running, and some are being eaten by the zombies. Lionel goes into a room where he saw Paquita fighting with Uncle Les, and informs them of the zombie outbreak, which horrifies them. Uncles Les manages to get out through the window, while Lionel pulls out a large hanger with clothes, which distracts the zombies and gives Paquita a chance to escape. He later kills the zombified Void by splitting his body in half, but his intestines come to life and try to kill him. He escapes into the attic where he finds a vault containing a corpse. He notices that it is his real father. He stumbles down from the attic upside down while a rope hangs on his feet. Paquita, Rita, and Mandy barricade themselves in a room. A man was being eaten on the window and they try to help him, but when they pull him inside, his body is half eaten. Mandy screams and a zombie knocks her down and crushes his hands on her mouth, killing her. Paquita hides in a cabinet where she finds Rita. They go to the kitchen and barricade themselves there, but the zombified Mandy is there with the baby. The baby bites Rita's neck, and the two see Uncle Les screaming for help. They save him by pulling him inside, but the room was damaged so the zombies were able to get in. As the girls run upstairs, Uncle Les is bullied by the baby zombie as he follows it. He goes into the basement, where he sees Lionel's mother, who has turned into a giant zombie. She pulls him up and separates his spinal cord and head from his body.As Paquita and Rita are chased by the zombies, Lionel appears and holds a running lawn mower, bottom outwards, with which he kills most of the zombies, with a great load of limbs, blood, and body parts flying around. The group are now fighting with dozens of zombies, animated intestines and spinal cords, severed heads, and disembodied legs. As Paquita fights some of the zombies, she notices something is wrong with Rita, and as she talks to her, a baby's hands appears on her ears and splits her head in half; the baby killing Rita. Just as it attacks Paquita, Mandy's head (impaled on a bulb) ignites, and manages to ignite gas flowing from an open gas pipe, setting the house ablaze, killing the zombified Rita in the fire. Lionel manages to kill all of the zombies, until his mother, who (possibly because she was the one originally bitten) has become a hyper-oestroegenized gargantuan monster with a grossly distorted head and spine, and huge, balloon-like breasts, pursues Lionel and Paquita to the rooftop. Paquita almost falls and hangs onto the edge of the roof, while Lionel finally confronts his mother about the truth regarding his father's demise. It is revealed that she drowned Lionel's father and mistress after she found them in the bathtub together. Lionel declares that he is no longer afraid of her, and she opens her womb, engulfing Lionel, closing him inside her body, declaring that he is 'such a good boy' and that 'none will ever you love you as much as (the one who bore you)' as Paquita screams in horror. Lionel's mother then tries to kill Paquita by removing her hands from the pole she's holding, and in an over-the-top Freudian "rebirth", Lionel cuts his way out of his mother's grotesquely changed, gigantified body using the cross he got from Paquita's grandmother, falling out in a river of blood, and then being 'reborn' from a pile of gore (placenta) after his mother falls into the fiery house below. Lionel and Paquita escape the burning building, and walk away arm-in-arm covered in gore, as the local fire department arrives on the scene to put out the flames.

Review: Lionel finds a way out, by hooking up with Paquita (a beautiful Diana Peñalver), but soon Lionel's mother gets bitten by a RAT MONKEY and she gradually starts to decompose (it's hilarious) and turns into a living dead...
until, naturally, all hell breaks loose.Timothy Balme is genius as Lionel, I mean; HE'S SO UNDERRATED, he gives a truly comedic performance that's top notch and really entertaining, so is the rest of the cast.This is my favorite Peter Jackson film, and maybe one of the best horror comedies EVER.
Probably the greatest splatter comedy ever made, because "Braindead/Dead Alive" is a fast-paced, gut-wrenching, disgusting, adrenalin-pushing and ultra-funny cult movie!!!
This movie has everything - a horrifying rat monkey, a baby zombie, zombies having sex, gratuitous violence, extreme gore, a super fighting ninja priest, an evil annoying mom that turns into a zombie, a womanizing relative that is a pathetic loser, an old psychic that predicts the future, and lastly someone who takes care of them all.
DEAD ALIVE (1993) ***1/2 New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson made his mark in horror cinema (and for himself as a talent to be reckoned with) in this incredibly gory, funny and altogether sickfest zombie flick about a young man's shrew mother getting bit by a Sumatran Rat Monkey rabid with a truly nasty disease that turns her (and all that she infects with a bite) into a crazed/ravenous thing that can't be stopped in its rapacious wake of terror.
Pretty soon poor Lionel is living in the house of the dead and fighting off a lecherous uncle scheming to grab the estate.Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) once again proves he is more than able to give us the gory goods and make us laugh the entire time.
Peter Jackson's gore-fest "Dead Alive" - AKA Braindead- is a very funny, very bloody film.
Quite possibly the best horror movie of all time, Dead Alive (the unrated version)is bar none the epitome for zombie violence.
This amazingly bloody and hilariously funny gore comedy from Peter Jackson("Bad Taste","Lord of the Rings:Trilogy")is one of the most amazing films I have ever seen.There's a great bit with Timothy Balme walking a hyperactive zombie baby in the park,a kung fu priest,a grotesque finale involving gallons of blood and gore,death by lawnmower,and pus in the pudding at dinner.The gore effects are really funny and gross,but not disturbing(for disturbing gore check out for example "Maniac"(1980)or "Nightmare"(1981)).If you think that "Braindead" is the goriest film ever made you're wrong.There are some movies that easily top it like Heiko Fipper's "Koma Brutale"(1998),Leif Jonker's "Darkness"(1993)and Olaf Ittenbach's "Premutos-The Fallen Angel"(1997).OK,enough said-this splatter classic is not to be missed..
Since it's no disturbing stuff, the lovers of splatter may revel this twisted tale for years together.The film begins with the scene of Skull Island, where we come across a New Zealand zoo-officer (Bill Ralston) who has dared catch a Sumatran Monkey with the help of local guides and poachers.
But few people realise that Peter Jackson made great films before that ("Bad Taste", "Braindead", "Meet the Feebles", "Heavenly Creatures" and "The Frighteners").
If this movie is any indicator, my doing so would probably give Mr. Jackson a good belly laugh.I really don't know how to describe the film.
I like a zombie film built upon action, horror & then touches of other elements: romance, comedic moments etc., not as a full-on comedy.Braindead a.k.a. Dead Alive is a slapstick comedy with excessive amounts of blood & guts & gore though not the most real-looking of such.
Ultra-wild horror comedy from Peter Jackson is a deliriously fast ride full of gore and cheeky humor.New Zeland man must fight off hordes of blood-thirsty zombies after his mother is bitten by a strange monkey.Braindead, also known as Dead Alive, is surely one of the greatest films to ever combined the horror and comedy genres.
So maybe it's just the audacity that tricks us into thinking it's the goriest movie of all time, because I'm starting to doubt it is.Though none of this makes the film bad.
There were quite a few genuinely funny scenes, and I'm not sure the last time a gore movie (I almost said horror movie, but this really isn't one) had me laughing as hard as Braindead did.
Unfortunately, to review this movie I'm going to employ one of the most overly used review phrases but I can think of no better way to describe Peter Jackson's comedy-horror classic, "Dead Alive", but as a "tour-de-force" in blood, guts, and gore!
On top of that, there are wonderful performances all wrapped in a love-letter look at 1950's New Zealand, all making "Dead Alive" the "Casablanca" of horror.Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) is a bumbling momma's boy who becomes romantically entangled with the enchanting Paquita (Diana Penalver).
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.
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.
Today, films with this much gore ("Machine Girl") rely heavily on CGI, but "Dead Alive" shows the best that can be done in the business is still old-fashioned hard work.If you haven't given this one a chance, see it.
Many cinematic sons have had problems with their mother--just ask poor Norman Bates!--but perhaps none more so than Lionel Cosgrove, in Peter Jackson's third film, "Dead Alive" (1992).
There are no name actors in the film, but it did win a basketful of awards, and it is directed by Peter Jackson (King Kong, Lord of the Rings).Timothy Balme expertly plays Lionel, whose old bat mother (Elizabeth Moody) is turned into a zombie, and who is chased by Diana Peñalver, who believes him to be the man of her dreams.
Lionel is, for some reason, oblivious to her charms whilst he tries to contain his mother's gory actions.There is plenty of comedy, gore, blood, and even martial arts from a priest (Stuart Devenie) who "kicks ass for the Lord." And, did I mention zombie sex?
Peter Jackson was made famous for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but years earlier made Braindead, a gory, horror-comedy film.
The day I saw this movie, I just could not believe that I never saw this movie before, I Said to myself" WHY THE HELL did I not see this movie before".After that day, this movie became my Favorite movie of all time as this is one of the most goriest,bloodiest and scariest zombie movie ever.The script in this movie was awesome, these line crack me up " your mother ate my dog " , "Not all of it "The baby scenes one most funniest thing I have ever, I all most passed because I was laughing so much.From start to end this movie is absolutely hilarious10/10 for this Masterpiece.
Oscar winning director Peter Jackson directs this funny, gory film about what happens when a domineering mother eavesdropping on her son is bitten by the elusive rat monkey of aforementioned Skull Island.
I waited to watch this for a very long time, I'm not disappointed, when people say this is the goriest film ever made, they definitely mean it, this film is so outright vile it's amazing, I miss when Peter Jackson made films like this, they're delightful, if you've ever seen Jackson's Bad Taste or Sam Ramis Evil Dead & Evil Dead 2, or any other gory films, or are just a horror fan in general, you have to see this.
Dead Alive, also known as Braindead, was Peter Jackson's third feature after the splatter fest Bad Taste and crude Muppet parody Meet the Feebles.
Jackson this time delivers a humorous take on the zombie genre, which harkens to the likes of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead in its combination of physical comedy with blood and guts galore.
Sure, a lot of the movies in the 80s were pretty gory, but nothing like Dead Alive.
Braindead is the best zombie film I've ever seen as well as the funniest comedy horror I've ever seen..
This is by far Peter Jacksons best film, LOTR 3 was good, but no zombies take a lawnmower to the face.
before making the incredible trilogy The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson ventured into films like Braindead, a well-trash film, the story is quite bizarre, a monkey-rat of Sumatra that when it bites people turns it into zombies, bizarre, the script is problematic, the cast even not being so well known, at least at the time, they are competent, the makeup is done well, the film has a lot of blood, has very strong scenes, you will see many organ in the film, the film is funny , you can give good film of laughter, the direction of Peter Jackson is good, the soundtrack is good, and the last minutes of the film are good, Braindead sins in the script, more is fun and bloody, most also disgusting.
The film has gained infamy worldwide for the excessive gore factor, and it's deserved— that said, a lot of it is so over-the-top and even cartoonish at times that it's unlikely to actually churn stomachs, and more likely to induce gag laughs.Overall, "Dead Alive" is an early nineties gem that put Peter Jackson on the map for horror fans.
Dead Alive by far the goriest movie ever with Peter Jackson first movie Bad Taste second..
Why can't Jackson make movies like this anymore some of is best work is in Bad Taste and Dead Alive aka Braindead..
Whereas Bad Taste was cheap and had repulsive gore, was slightly funny, where in between this were some long stretches of boredom, and was just plain stupid, here Jackson has made a much smarter film of better quality, where so far, this was his best.
After watching the movie once, I had to go back and watch all the scenes I didn't think I had viewed.Turned out I wasn't hallucinating.Some people complain of adventure films having too much over the top action, well in a sense, this is a parallel to the horror genre.
And if you don't like films that don't have all the things that a good film should have then you'll pleased to know that BrainDead actually has a decent story, maybe a little short and quiet simple but if you watch 'Bad Taste' (another Peter Jackson comedy/gore classic) then you'll understand that it isn't the lengte and complexity of a sorry that makes a film good!
(Gore films with slapstick humor don't get any better than this!)Before he was the "Lord of the Rings," I suppose that New Zealand's Peter Jackson had to start somewhere.
If two words could be used to some up "Dead Alive," it's "gore galore!" In fact, it's impossible to in any way mention "Dead Alive" without also thinking, "Gore, gore, gore!"It has been thoroughly suggested by some (by some names as big as Mexico's Guillermo del Toro) that Jackson's pre-"Lord of the Rings" films - this one, "Heavenly Creatures" (1994), "The Frighteners" (1996), and others - were merely blueprints for the future ideas he would lay out in his epic cinematic trilogy that adapted J.R.R. Tolkien's books to the big screen, or were simply previews of what was to come in just a few short year's time.As a fan of zombie movies (1978's "Dawn of the Dead" is the supreme epic of zombie movies, in my honest opinion!), "Dead Alive" has long been on my "to-watch" list, but I just somehow never got around to it...
I knew of "Dead Alive" through "Fangoria" magazine and held a passing interest in the film over the years, but I finally bought it on Blu-ray DVD a few weeks ago, and I was thoroughly impressed, and thoroughly disgusted, by Peter Jackson's supreme epic of gory zombie-horror mayhem!
"Evil Dead II" (1987) is mere child's play compared to "Dead Alive" (but I still love "Evil Dead II"!); I thought "Evil Dead II" was the ultimately happy-go-lucky "B"-movie splatter-fest, but I was proved wrong by this ultra-gory 1992 cult classic from New Zealand's most prolific filmmaker.Jackson really seems to aim high to outdo himself at every turn; if you think he's got Sam Raimi or Tom Savini beat - Savini's gory make-up effects and Raimi's manic, ADD-charged camera-work - he does.
The movie does not really have a message (it may be about Lionel trying to crawl out from under the thumb of his domineering Mum, culminating in a symbolic "return to the womb" late in the film), but to me "Dead Alive" is really more of a celebration of the art of special effects in the early 1990s, and a consolidation of strengths.Jackson's camera is never once steady.
(Again, don't waste your time trying to take anything you see here seriously.) This is in a nutshell, the ultimate gore film.The following scenes stand out:The opening sequence on Skull Island ("King Kong," anyone?),The dinner scene where Mum is decomposing into her meal before our very eyes and that of her dinner-mates,The kung-fu fighting priest,The "baby in the park" scene, and of course,The mother of all gore sequences, the infamous "lawnmower scene"!Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" is one of the best and greatest horror films I've ever seen.
Before he made the hit Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson was a small budget director from New Zealand who just sat around making the movies he wanted to make, no matter how weird, gross, scary, or silly they were.
Dead Alive is a zombie film about a man named Lionel whose mum is bitten by a Sumerian rat monkey.
Before 'King Kong" before "The Lovely Bones" or "Lord Of The Rings" Peter Jackson was nothing less than the master of gore,he pulled out all the stops and wasn't afraid to be as explicit as he could to shock the audience with buckets or blood and entrails yet at the same time make sure his audience had the best roller-coaster ride of their lives while in the theatre.
.. Braindead or Dead Alive whatever you want to call it is one of Peter Jackson's earliest movies.
It staggers the imagination that Peter Jackson, the man who co-wrote and directed last year's lavish, elegant "Lord of the Rings" is also the brains (and other internal organs) behind "Dead-Alive", one of the grisliest and most over-the-top horror films ever made.
From the ghastly rat monkey that causes all the trouble (a stop-motion tribute to Ray Harryhausen) to the hideous torn-faced zombie army, from a murderous pile of intestinal goo to the floppy-breasted beast Mum Cosgrove transforms into, McCarron and Taylor's creatures are convincing, witty, and impressively realized, some of the most striking work I've seen along these lines in a long time.Now that Jackson is the creative force behind a multiple-Oscar-nominated hit, "Dead-Alive" will likely be looked upon as a youthful transgression, a folly he needed to get out of his system in order to "mature" as an filmmaking artist.
I won't say it's the goriest film of all time, but i will say that it is definately the best executed film balancing gore, comedy, and a touching story of a boy and his mother :) But before you check it out, make sure you don't watch the R-rated version!
However Braindead/Dead-Alive remains the best of Jackson's earlier films...
The man is a genius.Never has a movie been so gloriously sick.He puts together everything imaginably disgusting and throws it right at you.The story is set in New Zealand 1957.A young man who engages in a romance with a women is kept on a leash by his widowed mother.When she is bitten by a "rat monkey" she turns into a putrefying zombie,hungry for human flesh and the young couple"s love becomes sorely tested.As all hell breaks loose,the back-yard special effects come into their own,each topping the last for comic and emetic efect.At first just plain outrageous,the film deteriorates into a numbing freak show,although Jackson"s sick invention stil manages to surprise.That is why this movie is the best of the zombie flicks.Highlights of the movie include a hypodermic needle repeatedly plunged up a nostril,a baby in a blender,a farting,disembodied rectum,a kung-fu priest,two zombies having sex and a lawnmower used as a weapon which has to be seen to be believed.Rent it,buy it.....
"Braindead" is an anti-imperialist, Freudian, social splatter comedy dreamt up by writer Stephen Sinclair and co-writer/director Peter Jackson - a horror film where, for much of the running time, the hero's problem is not so much staying alive as keeping up appearances.
From his first movie "Bad Taste" (which i have also seen) until his last for the moment "Lord of the Rings" Peter Jackson has a certain style of moviemaking, which make his films quite inventive (even with LOTR, which is not so easy because big budgets many times limit the freedom for directors) but also very entertaining.
: here in Belgium (and rest of Europe), the film exists as "Braindead", otherwise "Dead Alive", only thing i can say is, be sure that you see this movie in it's full gory glory, because otherwise you will be very disappointed, this movie in its R-rated version is like seeing "There's something about Mary", but in a version where the funny scenes have been removed.
Excellent Horror masterpiece from the director of " Lord of the Rings" and " Bad Taste" Peter Jackson.
I wont say this is the best gore-splatter-comedy I have ever seen just because these days I got to buy the very first Peter Jackson movie, Bad taste.