Beautiful, moving film.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

A group of adventurers discover and bring back a deadly rat monkey to a zoo, who can transform their victims into blood thirsty zombies. When a man's mother gets accidentally bitten by the rat monkey, mayhem ensues. Dead Alive, also known as Braindead, was Peter Jackson's third feature after the splatter fest Bad Taste and crude Muppet parody Meet the Feebles. Jackson this time delivers a humorous take on the zombie genre, which harkens to the likes of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead in its combination of physical comedy with blood and guts galore. Dead Alive is said to be the bloodiest movie of all time and I'm not exaggerating! One of the final sequences required 5 gallons of blood to be pumped out per second! That's absolutely ludicrous! Thankfully it pays off and the film remains one of the greatest zombie comedies of all time.Timothy Balme excellently pulls off the wild physical comedy and in all honesty, he is a runner up for Bruce Campbell in terms of giving the best performance in a zombie horror comedy. There are some insanely over the top moments and you just have to see it for yourself- they're insanely good! Dead Alive/Braindead is over the top violent gory fun that I'm sure you'll enjoy!

Five years after Peter Jackson's blood splattering hit 'Bad Taste' churned the stomachs of cinema goers, the young director went even further down the gore route and came up with 'Braindead' ( known in North America as 'Dead Alive' ), set in 1950's New Zealand.It was disgusting to say the least. Not one moment goes by without gross, blood and gut letting violence going by. It was all about the life of a young mummy's boy whose life is turned upside down when his mother is transformed into a flesh hungry zombie. Lionel Cosgrove is a well mannered, well intentioned though dim witted and spineless young man who has not yet managed to break himself free from the apron strings of his malicious, conniving mother Vera.Eventually, Lionel strikes up a relationship with beautiful Spanish shopkeeper Paquita and one day takes her on a day out to the zoo where a hideously deformed creature known as a rat monkey is known to reside. Lionel soon discovers his mother is spying on him and Paquita when she stumbles against the cage containing the deadly animal which bites her.The venom from the bite causes Vera to mutate into a zombie. Eventually, Vera's appetite for human flesh spirals out of control and before long all of the city has become overrun by the undead.'Braindead' is certainly not one of the best comedy films around, it's not even great but it is fun, if sick and vile. The acting is nothing too special ( apart from Elizabeth Moody, who played Lionel's nasty mother ) but for a film like this that is probably to be expected. Timothy Balme, who played Lionel, more recently has appeared in the dreadful New Zealand drama 'The Almighty Johnsons'. Diana Peñalver, who played Paquita, I suspect was hired for her looks alone and not her acting ability.The funniest moments in the film included a slowly zombifying Vera trying to host a dinner party which ends in gory disaster, a zombie priest and zombie nurse having sex and giving birth to a baby zombie, a female zombie having her head impaled on an active light bulb thus alighting her head like a Halloween lantern and the zoo keeper announcing to Lionel and Paquita that the rat monkey creature came into existence after a plague of rats raped all the tree monkeys of Skull Island. Only the scene at the end where Lionel massacres the zombies with a lawn mower doesn't work. I personally found it horribly overdone.Whilst the special effects used for their time would have been pretty impressive, I suspect now they probably wouldn't stand the test of time. As I said previously, 'Braindead' may not be great, but it is still fun.

**THIS REVIEW COULD CONTAIN A LOT OF SPOILERS. IF THE READER DOESN'T WANT THE FILM TO POSSIBLY BE SPOILED FOR THEM, THEN I SUGGEST WATCHING THE MOVIE BEFORE READING THIS REVIEW. Thank You.**I do believe that this movie is supposed to be a horror comedy, or so that's my best guess anyway. Anything else that would've been aimed for would've just been ridiculous. It's so silly it makes me laugh. The "well constructed" and planned over-the-top effects were executed perfectly in this film. When the movie started, I thought it was going to be a monster on an island type movie, but boy was I wrong. A team of zoologists capture this weird looking rat thing, and bring it back to the states to be placed in a zoo. They knew that whoever gets bit from the rat thing, will turn brain dead ("Brain Dead" is the original title.)and develop zombie like traits. When they become infected, it's just like any other zombie, once it bites someone else, then they'll be transformed as well. This all begins to happen at the zoo when the son of a wealthy old woman goes to the zoo, and spies on her son with a woman he met delivering them their groceries from their regular store. For some reason she didn't want him seeing other women (this is explained towards the end of the movie to why she didn't want him dating). She then gets bit by the rat when she was hiding behind a bush spying on them, because she got too close to the cage. When she screamed, the guy (her son) recognizes it, and dreads it. He notices her getting bit, but she pushes it off of her, and bashes its skull in off the ground. This is where the fun begins in the movie. Believe me. It's a trip and a half. The guy starts stuffing people that become infected in his mother's old basement (now his basement because of inheritance after his mother's death), hoping no one will find out. It's funny as hell because he starts feeding the zombies, and grooming them; along with whatever other goofy sh*t, like sitting them down and helping them get comfortable. He does all sorts of hospitality chores for them, which I actually got a kick out of. There's also a bunch of ridiculous mishaps that occur while he is attempting to keep this situation isolated, while also in the midst of battling with his uncle over the inheritance of the manor. This movie tickled me in some parts. Some will find it silly/funny, and others will find it over-the-top stupidity. Depends on what kind of person you are. The acting is fair, the script is fair, the story- line is silly, and the dialog is also silly. I would recommend this movie to people who appreciate low budget comedy horror, for a one time laugh.

He's finally done it. Jackson has finally created something that is a gore fest and a half, the last half hour, almost non stop with it. Whereas Bad Taste was cheap and had repulsive gore, was slightly funny, where in between this were some long stretches of boredom, and was just plain stupid, here Jackson has made a much smarter film of better quality, where so far, this was his best. Braindead is a romantic horror tale, where boy introduces girlfriend to mother, where they make the dreaded mistake of going to the zoo. The mother is bitten by a Samutrian Rat, something I'd never wanna be bitten by, especially if the rat was infected, as I can recall. As to how this horribly ensues, all I can say, is strap in for one hell of a zombie fest, no holds barred, and I'm talking buckets of the stuff. High level horror fans won't be disappointed as Jackson has really shown what he's capable of with this mainstream, pre Lord Of The Rings, pic. Trivia note: Braindead took two years to hit video shelves.