Braindead

Peter Jackson, NZ 1992, 104 mins

Lionel lives in a small town in 1950s New Zealand. He has recently fallen in love with a beautiful young woman in the town and she loves him too. Unfortunately his rather over-bearing mother disapproves of the match. Even more unfortunately, whilst stalking her son on a date she gets bitten by a rat monkey at the zoo and slowly transforms into a flesh-eating zombie. So far, so very Douglas Sirk.

Ahem. So you thought, wow, how ethereal and beautiful all those Lord of the Rings films are. That Peter Jackson. What a pure soul, what vision. Well, the man certainly has vision, and it’s amazing what he could turn his hand to when he didn’t have quite as large a budget as for his Tolkien epics.

This is quite possibly the epitome of comedic gorefest films, with over-the-top special effects (check out the 300 litres of fake blood used during the lawnmower finale) and some cracking dialogue. The budget may not stretch to Gollum quality CGI or even very good acting, but who cares when you’re having this much fun?

Jackson makes his now de rigueur cameo as a particularly enthusiastic undertaker’s assistant during one of many stomach-churning moments in the film. If you are a little squeamish then this is not the film for you, however those of a nervous disposition need not worry as Jackson is definitely playing for laughs.

With numerous laugh out loud moments, zombie-fucking with subsequent conception and a kung-fu priest (“I kick arse for the Lord!”), Braindead is the reason Teviot film nights were created!

Review by Claire Devlin
Taken from EUFS Programme Spring 2004

Lionel, a shy and timid 25-year old virgin, lives with his domineering and tyrannical mother. One day they visit the local zoo, where mum is bitten by a Sumatran rat- monkey. We know this is bad: In the pre-credits sequence an intrepid Indiana Jones-style dude died acquiring the rat-monkey from remote Skull Island when the natives saw the need to amputate his limbs after the monkey bit him. Wonder why? The reason, of course, is that the rat-monkey's bite causes its victims to become zombies. So mum becomes a zombie ... and everyone she bites becomes a zombie ... and everyone they bite becomes a zombie ... Soon Lionel's got a whole cellar full of zombies on his hands.

Peter Jackson's third feature manages to out-gross all its predecessors ­ George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), Sam Raimi's Evil Dead (1982) and Jackson's own Bad Taste (1988) ­ to stand tall as the current ne plus ultra of the splatter genre.

With this parentage you know exactly what to expect: yes, the violence and gore are extremely over the top. Yes, the humour, such as a lascivious zombie priest and nurse humping away or Lionel beating the shit out of an uncontrollable zombie baby, is extremely sick.

So if your idea of a fun movie is, say, an Eric Rohmer talkfest, then stay away. But if splatter is what you want then there are very few better films out there. Jackson knows his audience and gives them what they want. There's nothing wrong with honest exploitation!

Keith H. Brown
EUFS Programme 1998-99