- Director: Peter Jackson
- Written by: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Stephen Sinclair
- Starring: Timothy Balme, Diana Penlaver and Elizabeth Moody
But FUCK all of that shit, let's go back to 1992, when Jackson was still a struggling horror movie geek with only 2 other films under his belt. That's right motherfuckers, we're going all the way back to "Braindead"! Or "Dead Alive", if you live in America and hate original movie titles. The plot concerns a young New Zealander named Lionel (Timothy Balme) who has a serious Oedipal complex. His mother (Elizabeth Moody) exerts a dominating control over his life. Despite this, Lionel finds love with a local Mexican woman, Paquita (Diana Peñalver) and one day, while at the zoo with Paquita and his mother, mom gets bitten by a new arrival at the zoo: a Sumatran Rat-Monkey. Mother is taken home, but begins to exhibit some very strange behavior and starts feasting on human flesh, creating another zombie every time she kills someone! So it's up to Lionel to attempt to hide (or kill) the resulting zombie horde. Hilarity ensues.
Seriously, hilarity ensues. This is one of the funniest-ass movies I've ever seen. The film fits into a small subgenre of horror films known as "splatstick", a mix of gory, disgusting violence and humorous slapstick. If that sounds weird and gross to you, well, you probably aren't the target audience. Disgustingly gory and yet gut-bustingly funny things happen in this film. A man gets half of his head cut off with shears, which is then kicked around like a soccer ball and put into a blender. A fat uncle goes ballistic and cuts a bunch of zombies into pieces with two meat cleavers. Lionel destroys a whole room of zombies with a lawn mower.
There are also longer, comedic set pieces that aren't just gore, like when Lionel attempts to hide the zombies, keeping them docile with horse tranquilizers. His bumbling, horrible excuses to keep people away from the zombies are awkward and extremely funny. Then... there is the moment that had me literally laughing out loud: Father MacGruder, a priest, is hearing some commotion happening outside in the cemetery. He sees the zombies, leaps outside, kicks a zombie in the chest, kung-fu style, and proudly proclaims, "I kick arse for the Lord!" He then sets to destroying a group of zombies with high flying kung-fu, sweeping the legs of one of the zombies, literally kicking its legs off. If this doesn't sound funny to you, stop reading this blog and leave now.
I've mentioned that this film is gory, and I mean that. You think Hostel is gnarly? You haven't seen shit until you've feasted your eyes upon this film. Statistically, if you measure it in amounts of blood used, this is the goriest movie ever made. I had heard of this film's pedigree before, but I went into it smugly thinking that there was no way it could live up to it's title. Well, it does. Almost every minute there seems to be something horribly violent happening. Someone is getting their limbs torn off, or their head ripped off, or being run over by a car. It's insane, and the final act of the film has so much blood and gore that even I, a horror movie buff that has seen dozens of violent horror films, felt slightly queasy. The reason that the film works so well and grosses us out so much is that it is incredibly well done and VERY realistic looking. If there ever was a testament to real live practical gore effects, this film would be it.
One of the other things I love about the film is it's colorful characters. Their personalities are all so exaggerated that they seem like cartoon characters. Father MacGruder is a good example, as well as Lionel's uncle, who is a fat, sweaty pervert of a man, only interested in Lionel's mother's fortune. Even the characters that we only see for a brief moment are memorable, such as the embalmer at Mother's funeral (played by Peter Jackson!), who, while Mother's corpse is surging from every orifice with embalming liquid, still takes time to go grab his sandwich and take a bite, despite the fact that it's soaked in the aforementioned liquid.
The film can also be seen as a tribute to the cheesy B-movies that Jackson loves so much. For one thing, the film is set in the 50s and has a kitschy feel throughout. There are also several shoutouts to some of Jackson's favorite films. The island that the zookeeper's retrieve the Rat-Monkey from at the beginning is... hey! Skull Island! Speaking of the Rat-Monkey, it's realized with some intentionally cheesy stop-motion, which can also be seen as a shoutout to the monster films that Jackson loves. It's like a 50s B-movie with modern violence and depravity! Fantastic!
But surprisingly, there is much more to the film than simple gore and silliness. As if you couldn't already tell, black humor runs prevalent through the film. It makes light of these horribly gory deaths and frequently pokes fun at death, and the rituals that we associate with death. Yet somehow, despite the fact that we should be horribly offended by this, it moves at such a lightning speed and has so much fun with itself that we can't help but join in. The mix of black humor and slapstick-y gore, along with the witty dialogue, makes the film feel very Pythonesque. The film is also shot incredibly well, using twisted, bent camera angles and cartoon-like vivid colors. These elements help the film rise above a simple B-movie to a genuinely well-made, hilarious comedy.
I'm happy that Jackson has found a mainstream audience and that he is now accepted among the film elite, but I'm also sad that he doesn't seem to be going back to what got him started anymore. Perhaps he feels that these types of films are juvenile now, but I still wish he would go back to his roots. I've always liked Jackson, but after seeing this film, I have real respect and admiration for him. He was just a sci-fi/horror/B-movie nerd who wanted to make films, and he got his wish. Fuck "Lord of the Rings", "Braindead" is Jackson's masterpiece, all who disagree can consort with Father MacGruder!
(Note: Even the fucking trailer is funny!)
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