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Dead Alive

Hollyfeld, here. Now imagine you're watching The Fellowship of the Ring. You've quite possibly been waiting your whole life, to see it realized one the big screen. Visual effects have finally become capable of doing justice to the visions of J.R.R. Tolkien. The Ringwraiths are terrifying. Cate Blanchett and Liv Tyler are gorgeous. Then Gandalf shoves their faces into a blender, splattering blood all over his good robe.

Last time on Look Closer... we looked at one of Jackson's more high-concept films - Forgotten Silver, a faux-documentary that demonstrated the fine-tuned subtlety the director is capable of. This week we look at Dead Alive, a splatterhouse film the man behind The Lord of the Rings made in 1992. And quite frankly, the level of gore makes The Evil Dead 2 look like it should be PG-13. Join us as we once again assess whether or not this guy is worthy of directing the greatest fantasy story ever told.

Timothy Balme (bearing an uncanny resemblance to Tim Roth) stars as Lionel Cosgrove, a poor sap who lives in the perpetual shadow of his overbearing Mum (Elizabeth Moody). All the guy wants is to live his own life without angering his mother, but when Paquita Maria Sanchez (Diana Penalver) falls in love with him, his mother feels threatened and follows him to their date at the zoo. There, Mum is bitten by a Rat-Monkey (don't ask) which carries a strange disease that turns people into zombies. Mum quickly begins to putrefy, spreading the disease around town. Poor Lionel, who genuinely loves his Mum, is stuck in a quandary – he knows his mother and her fellow zombies must be stopped, but he can't bring himself to do what has to be done (i.e. dismember them). So, he locks them all up in his basement, injecting them with elephant tranquilizer when they get too unruly. But when Uncle Les (Ian Watkin) throws a wild party at Lionel's house, the zombies, along with all hell, break loose, resulting in arguably the bloodiest finale in film history. What happens when poor, innocent Lionel can't take any more, and how does it involve the best scene ever involving a lawn mower? (There's some sort of gypsy charm element, too, to the story that doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it somehow manages to fit in Dead Alive's overall “logic.”)

While this in itself is a good (if somewhat silly) concept for a horror film, it is Jackson's and his fellow screenwriter's extra touches that allow justified comparison to that ultimate horror-comedy The Evil Dead 2. I'm going to issue a SPOILER WARNING just for the rest of this paragraph – if you need more information in order to sell you on watching this film, read on. If not, let Dead Alive (or, as it is known everywhere else in the world, Braindead – a surprisingly unapt title) surprise you. BEGIN SPOILERS – When Lionel is fighting off his mother and a group of zombie bikers in the graveyard, Father McGruder (Stuart Devenie) comes along and starts kicking all of the zombies' asses, ripping off arms and kicking heads off. The film's best line? “I kick arse for the LORD!” When two zombies have sex with each other and a zombie baby is born, innocent old Lionel actually finds himself walking it in the park, trying to be nice while trying to keep it from killing anyone. Oh, and remember how in The Evil Dead and the Living Dead series, once a zombie was dismembered it is just dead? Not so here – when a zombie is disemboweled, the bowels themselves begin attacking you. And you always thought it would be easy to be the hero in a horror film... END SPOILERS.

Jackson has a distinct visual style in Dead Alive that seems to prevail throughout most of his films. Those familiar with Steven Spielberg's and Frank Darabont's visual flourishes will recognize Jackon's techniques right away. Jackson's greens, blues and red are particularly accented, resulting in a stark contrast between the grassy storybook village in New Zealand where Dead Alive takes place and the blood being consistently pumped all over the place. (In one sequence, fake blood was being pumped at five gallons a second.) The gore itself is also surprisingly artfully done, and those with strong constitutions will probably find themselves saying, “Wow, I never knew a baby ripping through someone's head could look so GOOD!” The puppet/model work in the finale doesn't really come across as well as it probably could have, but the whole ending is so disgusting in principle that that flaw is easily overlooked.


	What do you think of Dead Alive?

	Saw it, loved it! Hate it! Saw it, it's okay. Saw it, it sucked. Want to see it. Wouldn't mind seeing it. Nobody tells me what to watch!
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Performances? Well, the performances are not really the primary draw of the film, but everyone does a really nice job for what they are. Timothy Balme, while not as talented a physical comedian as Bruce Campbell, succeeds in creating a hero we love to pity, while Diana Penalver is also very sympathetic as his increasingly troubled love. Mum is as despicable a movie villain as they come (due to the talents of both Moody and Elizabeth Bimilcombe, who plays Lionel's mother as a zombie), and Ian Watkin is the most disgusting human being to come along in a long time.

So, will a disemboweled Frodo eat Sauron's brains? Well, I sort of hope so, but if nothing else, Dead Alive proves Jackson can handle the make-up effects and visual stylings that a big budget movie like The Lord of the Rings necessitates. It will certainly be a sight to behold, however it turns out. Dead Alive is available on VHS and DVD, but whatever you do be sure to get an unrated version. (In America it's about ten minutes longer – elsewhere it's closer to twenty. America can be a bitch sometimes.)

Next time on Look Closer... Audience Appreciation Day!

As always, Hollyfeld can be reached at hollyfeld_@hotmail.com

You there! You think you could do this job better than I can? Well, you might be right! Look Closer… is always looking for guest columnists, and you might as well be one of them. Just write a review of reasonable length for a movie that you think is under-rated, over-rated, no one knows, etc., and if it makes the grade we will print it in an edition of this column! Those whose reviews are published will also receive a free piece of (slightly cheesy and really inexpensive) promotional merchandise from a movie, to be sent when their review is published, courtesy of me. Just send any and all reviews to the above address. Thank you for reading and participating in the site!

Lazlo Hollyfeld is the pseudonym of an aspiring writer/actor/director located in Southern California. With one screenplay under his (collaborative) belt and more to come, he is sure to work his way up in the world with the help of his talented and close-knit group of friends, co-workers, and penguins. Yes, you heard me, penguins. A film student since before he can remember, he has devoted much of his life to the study of the silver screen and its related art forms.