 |
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Braindead (Dead Alive)
By John Reppion
In the early nineties Peter Jackson certainly wasn’t the family friendly, household name he is nowadays. Having directed and produced cult classics Bad Taste (in which he also played two of the leading characters, built many of the costumes and props from scratch, and oversaw the special effects) and Meet The Feebles (a kind of grimly realistic Muppet Show on crack) Jackson decided to turn his more than ample talents towards the zombie genre. The result was 1992’s Braindead (released as Dead Alive in the US) which, for my money, is still the ultimate laugh out loud gorefest.
In the 1950’s a New Zealand zoo official captures a rare Sumatran Rat Monkey on Skull Island (yes, that’s right, the place where King Kong lives). Unfortunately, the zoologist is bitten by the vicious simian whilst being pursued by a group of angry natives. Upon discovering the zoologist’s wounds (“You’ve got the bite!”), his guides set about him with a large machete. First they hack off one bitten arm just below the elbow, then the other at the shoulder. Then we see a bite mark on the zoologist’s forehead. Blood sprays against the screen and drips down to spell out the film’s title, leaving the viewer in little doubt that this is going to be a gloriously gory film. As the credits roll we see the captive Simian Raticus being transported by airplane towards its new home in Wellington zoo (interestingly Jackson actually reiterated the Rat Monkey/Skull Island connection in his 2005 King Kong remake; a cage marked "Sumatran Rat Monkey – Beware the bite” can bee seen briefly in the hold of the ship which transports Kong to the US).
Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) is an awkward young man who lives in Wellington with his overbearing mother Vera (Elizabeth Moody). Whilst placing an order at the local shop one day Lionel meets Paquita Maria Sanchez (Diana Peñalver) and fate conspires to draw the pair together. Soon Paquita and Lionel are out on their first date, which just happens to take place at the local zoo. Lionel’s possessive mother cannot resist following the couple but ends up being bitten by the Rat Monkey whilst attempting to spy on them. Lionel rushes to his mother’s assistance and escorts her home leaving poor Paquita jilted and dejected.
Unfortunately for the Cosgroves, and indeed the general population of Wellington, the Rat Monkey’s bite carries a deadly virus which causes the infected to re-animate after death and feast upon the living, thus spreading the disease.
As his Mum claims more and more victims Lionel tries to keep a lid on the situation by dosing the zombies with animal tranquilizer and locking them in his cellar. However, when Uncle Les (Ian Watkin) arrives on the scene, eager to get his hands on Vera’s estate, he discovers the “bodies” (zombies rendered inert by the tranquilizer) and presumes Lionel to be a murderer and a necrophiliac. Uncle Les seizes his opportunity to blackmail his nephew into handing over his inheritance and, believing the house to be good as his, decides to throw a big party. Little does Les realise that his modest soirée is about to provide the backdrop for the lengthy and uproariously funny climax to what is (according to the IMDB) officially the bloodiest film ever made.
Braindead pretty much bypasses the madcap yet eerie surrealism of Evil Dead II (the film which practically invented the splatter comedy) and goes for pure Tex Avary style fast paced slapstick. There is even a scene with Lionel doing the classic “getting nowhere” running on the spot gag which we’re so used to seeing in cartoons. Jackson’s morbid twist on the idea is that, instead of slipping on oil or grease Lionel is sliding around in gallons and gallons of blood. Many of the cartooniest moments come when baby Selwyn (the revolting result of the unholy union of a zombie nurse and undead priest) is onscreen; puking in people’s faces, kicking Les in the balls with a severed leg, being hit with a shovel (which leaves an imprint of his face in the metal, of course), being forced into a food blender and so on.
Watching Braindead you really get the feeling that Peter Jackson is fulfilling a lifelong dream; he’s trying to get everything in there that he’s ever wanted to see in a zombie film and in doing so he exceeds the expectations of much of his audience. The film is undeniably and unashamedly a comedy with barely a serious bone in its shambling, festering body but, that is what makes it so much more successful than most “comedy horrors”. There’s no question of things being unbelievable or unrealistic in the world in which the events of Braindead take place; it’s a cartoony, comic bookish, brightly coloured vision of the past. A place where good and evil are black and white and where true love and a petrol lawnmower hold the power to conquer all.