There is simply nothing like Peter Jackson’s 1992 film, Braindead (or Dead Alive, per its 1993 U.S. release). It doesn’t matter what title you go with; they’re interchangeable and inconsequential because neither alters the final result’s bloody brilliance. Quite literally—bloody, gory, bathed-in-red brilliance.
A nightmare for the censorship boards and justifiably classified as one of the goriest films of all time, Braindead is a modestly budgeted master class in technique, from its innovative practical effects work to an unhinged energy that is truly like nothing that ever came before it or came after. To watch this movie for the first time is a transcendent experience of pure WTF and childlike wonder. Its cartoonish elements and daring desire to take risk after risk creatively pays dividends with each subsequent scene, straight from the get-go where we witness a Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque opener that involves a captured hybrid rat-monkey (what) spawned by plague-stricken rats raping tree monkeys (the) and the wildly unexpected dismemberment of the zoo official who gets bitten by it (fuck).
From there, this smuggled rat-monkey ends up at New Zealand’s Wellington Zoo for some inexplicable reason (and when you actually see the creature, you’ll be saying the same thing). It is here where our protagonist Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) and his newly wooed romance, Paquita María Sánchez (Diana Peñalver) find themselves on their first date (after the latter believes they are destined to be together based on her grandmother’s premonitions). It takes a few bizarre scenes of setup to arrive at this point, including our introduction to Lionel’s domineering mother, Vera (Elizabeth Moody), and the outlandishness truly never lets its foot off the gas from start to finish.
Vera’s bitten by the rat-monkey at the zoo, gets sick, still tries to have lunch with friends despite her ear falling off and bloody pus squirting into her fellow diner’s custard, dies, comes back to life as a zombie, kills the attending nurse and turns her into a zombie, is locked in a basement, struck by a tram and… well, the list of absurd occurrences goes on and on, and that’s what makes Braindead so incredible. The old Forrest Gump chocolate box idiom be damned—with this film, you truly never know what you’re going to get. From a priest who kicks ass for the lord to a conclusive lawnmower massacre scene that reportedly used nearly 80 gallons of fake blood to pull off, this film is one gift after another of sheer juvenile enjoyment executed via exemplary craft.
Nearly a decade away from launching his Lord of the Rings trilogy and subsequent name-brand recognition, Jackson embodies with Braindead the true joy of movie-making and creation in general—the imaginative jettisoning of all inhibitions and insecurities to sculpt something singular that instantly cements its own legacy. It’s an admittedly unsung legacy, because as much support as this film has from a cult standpoint, it should still be getting discussed in the same sentences and talking points of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead and other worthy examples of a young filmmaker firing on all cylinders and producing a film so rich in its originality that it can never be matched.
Braindead is a signature etched in the cement of cinema history, evidenced by its output of absolute passion for the artform and the blatant notion that everyone involved had a blast making it. It’s a work that demands resurrection in the home-media market and an overall restoration, but for now you can find this grungy masterpiece on YouTube. Give it a watch, blinder the better, and prepare to not stop talking about it for the next week. Its exuberant impact is pretty infectious, which I guess is fitting.
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