Braindead
Directed by:
Peter JacksonCast:
Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin, Stuart Devenie, Brenda Kendall, Jed Brophy, Harry Sinclair, Stephen Papps, Forrest J. Ackerman (more)Plots(1)
Peter Jackson proves that if gory is funny, then excessive gory is downright hysterical. As our hapless hero wades through an ankle-deep puddle of blood and entrails, brandishing a lawnmower like a portable Cuisinart at the climax of this zombie-fest, you'll either be screaming with laughter or fleeing in disgust. Timothy Balme stars as the shy mama's boy Lionel, whose controlling shrew of a mother (Elizabeth Moody) starts rotting away, literally, with a vague supernatural disease. Mother dies but refuses to stay down, rising as a flesh-eating zombie infecting everyone she bites. Lionel tries to hide her in the basement, but the victims keep piling up and finally break out when Lionel's blackmailing uncle (a grotesque, leering Ian Watkin) throws a party in the house. It's snack time as the guests become undead hors d'oeuvres and rise again as hungry soldiers of the new zombie army marching on Lionel and his girl Pacquita (the lovely Diana Penalver). New Zealand goremeister Jackson pulls out all stops in this truly outrageous sanguinary comedy, from gross-out gags of oozing puss and rotting body parts at a formal dinner to slapstick antics as Lionel tries to keep his flesh-hungry mother sedated during the funeral to the final Freudian showdown between a now-monstrous mother and the newly liberated Lionel. If you like your horror with a sense of humor or your comedy with gristle, then wade through this taboo-busting bucket of blood. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (10)
I will forever wonder how is it possible that Peter Jackson at the beginning of the nineties filmed the bloodiest and most disgusting movie of all times, just to excel the following year with the most epic fantasy movie ever. If nothing else, he is truly the genius of our time. However, Braindead is not a movie I would gladly remember again and again. Sure, filmmaking is fun, and it involves a range of incredibly crazy ideas. Just that the interpretation is exactly what I would imagine it to be. I’m glad I’ve seen it and at the same time I’m glad it’s over.
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Do you want to know how to safely cut your way through a horde of zombies with the help of a lawnmower? Peter Jackson will give you detailed instructions, they might be useful some day. And please don't overlook the Master himself in a small role. Yes, the freak in the morgue, the little, goofy, bespectacled freak who gets a dead body exploding on a table :)
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At times really unreal butchery, often even maybe 10 minutes without a break just insane carnage, blood, slime, and other streams of filth of various kinds.)) However, the style is undeniable, as well as some really funny moments (the scene at the table comes to mind right now – mom vs. kids :)) and I especially admire Peter Jackson for being able to film it like that and having the courage to let it out like that. And until recently I thought Raimi was the biggest pervert in this genre :))))
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An old fortune teller's magical talisman carves its way through the protagonist's mother's belly, where she has trapped her son so he won't run off with his immigrant love. Freud takes it on the ass in a big way at the end, and rightly so. For a story that was no doubt originally intended to be just a thread through an incredible compilation of death and mutilation, it really goes the distance. And I suspect Frank Walsh's writing hand behind it, adding a certain mischievous woman's touch to the scripts of this enthusiastic nutcase. Just as it was the first time as a young adolescent, and still is now, the greatest satisfaction for me is not the lawnmower dance, but the very final gasp after the protagonist is free of the reins of a basement full of corpses and the emotional blackmail of his rotting mother. I also kept falling under my seat laughing during the scene at the children's park.
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That’s so gross. I assumed it would be a carnage, but I wasn’t expecting such a level from Peter Jackson, even in my worst dreams. The imaginative cutting up of the human body and the creation of disgustingly bizarre scenes make the film a rarity that makes you wonder how it was ever released. In that respect, this is an unforgettable cinematic event, surely. Otherwise, however, in terms of humour and story, the film offers little more than escalating carnage, and I personally (unfortunately) am not one of those people who could properly enjoy it.
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Photo © WingNut Films
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