Braindead

“Brain­dead” (also known as “Dead Alive”) is a 1992 horror comedy film written and dir­ected by Peter Jackson. The film is about a young man named Lionel who lives with his overly pos­sessive mother in a suburb of Wel­lington, New Zea­land.

When Lionel falls in love with Paquita, a young woman from the neigh­bouring vil­lage, his mother tries to thwart their rela­tion­ship. But during a trip to the zoo, she is bitten by an aggressive monkey and begins to turn into a zombie. Lionel tries to hide and care for his mother, but she quickly infects other people in the neigh­bour­hood who also become zom­bies.

As Lionel tries to stop and kill the zom­bies, an epic and absurd battle ensues against the undead hordes, with plenty of gore and guts. The comedy of the film comes mainly from the exag­ger­ated and absurd depic­tions of viol­ence and destruc­tion as well as the satir­ical por­trayal of New Zea­land and its cul­ture.

The film has ref­er­ences to the horror classic “Psycho”, fea­tures a karate-fighting priest kicking some zombie rocka­billy ass in the grave­yard and we wit­ness the “making” and birth of a zombie baby. In the grand finale, we exper­i­ence the ulti­mate gore-fest and that the lawn­mower is the new chainsaw.

Overall, Brain­dead is an extremely gory but also very funny film that demon­strates Peter Jack­son’s talent for visual effects and his ability to create grot­esque humour.