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zombievictim

Dead Alive

directed by PETER JACKSON

deadalive.jpg

Plot
A disease sack rat-monkey arrives in a New Zealand town, where it bites an old woman. The woman's son, Lionel takes her of her until she dies and eventually comes back as a flesh craving zombie. She manages to infect the entire town. A lawnmower is pulled out.

Review
Since there are about 2194 cuts of this movie, I just want to mention, this review is of the 97 minute "Unrated" tagged cut (the DVD above).
 
Now, this movie is often considered 'the goriest movie of all time', directed by the now famous Peter Jackson (Lord Of The Rings . . . that's right) this movie is popular among horror fans, I doubt there's someone out there who hasn't heard of this movie. Honestly, I was let down.

To be completely honest, it took time for me to warm of to "Dead-Alive", the first time I saw it, I was mildly drunk and I had to turn it off pissed halfway through. Watching it with a couple of friends, I managed to see this movie the way it's 'meant' to be seen, I loved it. This is the most objective review I can come up with. Of course, this movie is ONLY known because of the gore, and to be honest, yeah, it's the movie's highlight. It works as a 'halloween' night movie, works as a 'night with the gang' movie, it doesn't work as a 'movie'.

The story half works in its simplicity. Ugly looking rat-monkey, zombies, shitload of sharp objects and plasma flowing like nobody's business. That's about it. The movie is completely packed with quotable dialogue ("I kick ass for the lord!") and downright hilarious lines ("Fernando! Your mother ate my dog!"). Which brings me to it's tongue-in-cheek humor to which, again, it took time for me to warm up to. However, it's undeniably hilarious (I'd be lying if I said I wasn't in stitches during the entire 'park' scene). The gore is so off the wall that it also works as humurous with creative death scenes with completely exagerated geysers of blood. So yeah, I was laughing at both the insane kills and humor.

The movie's directing is pretty damn cool, Jackson did a good job with the extremely energetic directing, with extreme close-ups, crazy camera angles and a shitload of lights and smoke. He didn't pull any punches and he let the gore flow. The pacing is fine but the movie actually lags during its middle section, only to completely flatline with the awful, and I mean awful ending (I could never swallow that monster thing, they the cheesiness too far). The soundtrack is a 'dramatic in a hilarious fashion' one, the cheesy chantings during the priest scene was hilarious. Cheesy but it somehow works (kinda like the entire movie). The creativity is laid thick and most of it is extremely memorable (the baby, the lawnmower scene, etc . . .).

The characters are awfully one-note, really. Lionel is the better character here, but still. the rest of the character only carry the plot along in my opinion. Paquita is hilarious and really REALLY charming (come on! She was pretty damn charismatic) but her role is basically a cheesy subplot, not much (until the final bits). Uncle Les kicked a fuckload of ass (though he was pretty annoying) and that's pretty much it. Everyone does great in the acting department, there's a lot of chemistry among them all.

Gore
It's the goriest film I have ever, EVER seen. The gore is nonstop and at some point it even became intense. It's mostly played with cheesy and humurous purposes. Some of the highlights include fists through someone's head, beheadings, zombies getting chopped by a lawnmower, dismemberments, people ripped in two, walking digestive system (. . . yep), nasty zombies, skinned stomach, blood geysers and much, much MUCH MUCH more. I'm honestly not covering half the gore in this movie.

Overall
It's a fun movie, period. Cool aesthetics, a fuckload of gore, humurous, creative and memorable situations, a thin story, thin characters, cheesy soundtrack, etc . . . it somehow works. Do NOT watch alone.

7/10

review by Leon Sakau