31 Days of Halloween Films #9: Braindead aka Dead Alive
The Lowdown: A Kiwi (that’s a New Zealand native, for the uninitiated) tangles with his mother, uncle, and the girl next door, whilst fighting off the infected with hijinks and lawnmowers.
The Breakdown: Truth be told, you could say that Shaun of the Dead is the spiritual remake to Braindead. Both films feature a protagonist who needs to grow up, both feature the main characters (spoilers) close relatives dying, and both deal primarily with a romantic relationship our lead has with a woman. Where Braindead distinguishes itself, however, is in it’s tone. While Shaun I would call a more complete film in the sense that by the end our character goes through a full change, Braindead is like a comic book, chock full of over the top moments and caricatured performances all the way around.
The paper thin plot concerns a man named Lionel and his mother who has taken ill following the bite from a Sumatran Rat Monkey. All this does is set up an opportunity for director Peter Jackson (yes, THAT Peter Jackson) to take the concept and run with it, as he goes so far as to make a giant cabbage patch looking baby battle our lead in a playground. No gag is too gross, no visual punchline too vulgar, and that’s where Braindead really excels. I’ve never seen a film have this kind of tone, where everything seems to be a big joke despite characters faces getting ripped apart and body parts shredded to bits. Lionel, played by Jackson regular Timothy Balme, almost works as a sort of Ash character but even goofier, if you could imagine.
The chief reason anyone would seek this film out, however, is for the gore. While the monsters in this film aren’t technically zombies, they are undead husks, so we’re pretty much dealing with walkers here. We get Kuato-like heads ripping themselves out of bodies, a kung-fu fighting priest that looks like Peterman from Seinfeld, and, of course, the most glorious use of a push-lawnmower ever put on film. While anyone that’s played Dead Rising has experienced this first-hand, there’s nothing more satisfying than watching Lionel rip apart a room of the infected with a most sturdy landscaping tool. I really can’t say enough about this scene. If you’re a gorehound, or even if you want to marvel at the special effects on display, all of which are practical and not digital, this is a classic horror scene that you need to see.
The Comedown: Braindead is a staple of the Halloween season for me because of its’ intensity. The true pioneering way Jackson completely ignored any sort of ratings boards and kept all the plasma in the film red is really ballsy and works wonders for the flick. Movies like Kill Bill have tried to dump this much blood in a film, but even Kill Bill had to switch to black and white to get it past the MPAA. While this is a complete 180 from his superb LOTR trilogy, Braindead might be my favorite standalone Jackson film for its ingenuity, originality and brutality. A Halloween must-see.