Directed by:
Peter JacksonCast:
Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin, Stuart Devenie, Brenda Kendall, Jed Brophy, Harry Sinclair, Stephen Papps, Forrest J. Ackerman (more)Plots(1)
Peter Jackson proves that if gory is funny, then excessive gory is downright hysterical. As our hapless hero wades through an ankle-deep puddle of blood and entrails, brandishing a lawnmower like a portable Cuisinart at the climax of this zombie-fest, you'll either be screaming with laughter or fleeing in disgust. Timothy Balme stars as the shy mama's boy Lionel, whose controlling shrew of a mother (Elizabeth Moody) starts rotting away, literally, with a vague supernatural disease. Mother dies but refuses to stay down, rising as a flesh-eating zombie infecting everyone she bites. Lionel tries to hide her in the basement, but the victims keep piling up and finally break out when Lionel's blackmailing uncle (a grotesque, leering Ian Watkin) throws a party in the house. It's snack time as the guests become undead hors d'oeuvres and rise again as hungry soldiers of the new zombie army marching on Lionel and his girl Pacquita (the lovely Diana Penalver). New Zealand goremeister Jackson pulls out all stops in this truly outrageous sanguinary comedy, from gross-out gags of oozing puss and rotting body parts at a formal dinner to slapstick antics as Lionel tries to keep his flesh-hungry mother sedated during the funeral to the final Freudian showdown between a now-monstrous mother and the newly liberated Lionel. If you like your horror with a sense of humor or your comedy with gristle, then wade through this taboo-busting bucket of blood. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (10)
This is simply legendary. For me, it’s the best horror comedy I've ever seen. Every time I look at it, I get excited. This is just something you don't forget. When I first saw it quite a while ago, it made such an impression on me that I still can't forget it. And that will never happen. Peter Jackson was still indulging in stop-motion animation at that time. Where have those times gone? And the dark humor... Just beautiful. This is always worth remembering. I don't understand how this film couldn't have been chosen for the book "101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die."
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An old fortune teller's magical talisman carves its way through the protagonist's mother's belly, where she has trapped her son so he won't run off with his immigrant love. Freud takes it on the ass in a big way at the end, and rightly so. For a story that was no doubt originally intended to be just a thread through an incredible compilation of death and mutilation, it really goes the distance. And I suspect Frank Walsh's writing hand behind it, adding a certain mischievous woman's touch to the scripts of this enthusiastic nutcase. Just as it was the first time as a young adolescent, and still is now, the greatest satisfaction for me is not the lawnmower dance, but the very final gasp after the protagonist is free of the reins of a basement full of corpses and the emotional blackmail of his rotting mother. I also kept falling under my seat laughing during the scene at the children's park.
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So, this is carnage, total carnage and nothing but carnage. I didn't have quite the fun I was expecting from some of the reviews, but I can say for sure that if there are any films that can be described as exceptional, unforgettable or unrepeatable, one of them is the disgusting, but in its own way terribly charming and captivating Braindead. Peter Jackson wasn't afraid of anything at the beginning of his career, and where other horror directors would put the brakes on and tease the viewer's imagination, he, on the contrary, stomps on the gas with all his might, perhaps teasing the viewer's stomach juices. His Braindead is simply an indescribable spectacle, with a well-developed humorous side, which, combined with a likeable main character, runs like clockwork from the beginning, and with an absolutely incredible last act that completely rewrote the history of all brutal and bloody films and raised the bar to an unsurpassed level in this respect. Blood spurts, limbs fly and ribcages are torn from bodies, but the viewer laughs, laughs and keeps laughing... How does Jackson do it? 4.5*
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My platonic childhood love, the funniest or second funniest movie I’ve ever seen. Coincidentally, it is also the bloodiest. Watching Braindead is like watching a 50-year-old horny nun losing her virginity to Rocco Siffredi – the ultimate ride through the sea of decadence and the most perverse humor imaginable. I’m allergic to pets, but there’s one I want to have at all costs – the Sumatran rat monkey. And pudding will never taste the same.
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I will forever wonder how is it possible that Peter Jackson at the beginning of the nineties filmed the bloodiest and most disgusting movie of all times, just to excel the following year with the most epic fantasy movie ever. If nothing else, he is truly the genius of our time. However, Braindead is not a movie I would gladly remember again and again. Sure, filmmaking is fun, and it involves a range of incredibly crazy ideas. Just that the interpretation is exactly what I would imagine it to be. I’m glad I’ve seen it and at the same time I’m glad it’s over.
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