Braindead, aka Dead Alive (Film Review)

1992 Trimark Pictures/PolyGram Filmed Entertainment/WingNut Films
Directed by: Peter Jackson; Written by:Stephen Sinclair, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh
Starring: Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody, and Ian Watkin
MPAA Rating: Unrated ; Running Time: 104 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 10/10

Lionel Cosgrove is devoted to his mother. Apparently, his father drowned while trying to save him back when he was a child (or at least his mother says). As long as Lionel can remember, he has dedicated himself to his mother's well-being. Unfortunately, Lionel's mother is an awful person, and Lionel is at the age where it's time to start his own family. There's even a girl in his New Zealand town who's interested, the Spanish Romani storekeeper, Paquita María Sánchez. Paquita is convinced, due to her astrologer Grandmother's prognosticating abilities, that she and Lionel are meant to be together. But now there's more than just mother in their way... 

An illegally obtained, rare and evil Sumatran Monkey Rat at the Wellington Zoo has bitten mother...and she's changing. Her flesh is falling off, she's oozing and squirting out putrid fluids from every orifice, and she can only communicate with grunts and moans. Also, mother has a murderous hunger for flesh...as does everyone she bites. Hapless Lionel, instead of using this as an opportunity to escape, decides to try to take care of mother and her new brood, keeping them locked and tranquilized in the cellar. Meanwhile, he's blowing off Paquita to keep the secret. But blood...and bile...and guts...and brains...and bones...and pus...and a demonic zombie toddler birthed from zombie coitus will out. And as for me...

I think I'm in love. Eleven years before Peter Jackson made a film to which Hollywood awarded 11 Oscars, including those for best director and best picture, he made one of the most disgusting films of all time. Braindead, renamed as Dead Alive in the U.S., is so very, very gross, and I can't even imagine how many showers its actors had to take to wash all of the fake blood and puke and intestines from their hair throughout its filming. Braindead is also shockingly sweet-natured, featuring a delightful and pure romance between its two leads, played pitch perfectly by Timothy Balme and Diana Peñalver. Plus, if you can stomach the insanely over the top fountains of bodily fluids,it's one of the funniest movies ever made. I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard. I couldn't help but imagine Jackson laughing behind the camera (with a raincoat on), while making this, as well.
The secret to this film has to be the insane tight-rope balance between Jackson going as all out as possible with each revolting sight gag, while still earnestly portraying his central characters' conflicts, and yet, through the storms of vile fluids spraying everywhere, winking consistently at the audience. I don't care how long that previous sentence is, I felt more investment in Braindead's two main characters fate by the end of this film than I have in any mainstream movie I've watched in recent memory, yelled "No!" at the screen anytime their future was ever seriously in doubt (which is a lot of times), and yet was laughing and cheering as the prop-masters threw bucket after bucket of viscous goo at them. To make a movie that is this extreme, but out of a kind spirit instead of a spirit of meanness is a cinematic miracle. That's just what Braindead is. 

Now, if you don't mind, I'm feeling hungry. I'll take my steak rare, please.