Dead Alive

The last movie I watched before this was Beautiful Creatures, directed by the same person as this, Peter Jackson. In my review of that, I expressed that while I felt it was directed well (as in, he got the best performances from the actors, and Jackson's weird sense of humor was instrumental in bringing the fantastical mania of the girls to life), he was the wrong director for the job given the seriousness of the subject matter. Braindead does not suffer from the same issue, although I think it does suffer from another directorial issue. But we'll get to that. Braindead is equal parts a love story, a young man trying to escape the clutches of his oppressive mother, and a zombie outbreak story. And it's a comedy. It juggles a lot of balls, and unlike Beautiful Creatures, I'd say does so gracefully. Timothy Blame plays Lionel, a loveable, shy guy that longs for a normal life outside of his mother's orbit, all the while feeling indebted to her. Diana Peñalver plays Paquita, a shopkeeper in town who is desperately searching for her future husband. A tarot reading by her grandmother reveals it will be Lionel, but great turmoil will follow. That turmoil turns out to be Lionel's mom getting bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey (don't ask) and somehow getting zombified from it. Lionel then has to balance his devotion to his mom, Paquita's advances, and, you know, zombies. Braindead owes a heavy debt -- we're talking national budget deficit-levels -- to Evil Deads 1 and 2. Lionel is an assuming every-guy, just like Ash, and is pressed into becoming the reluctant hero in extreme circumstances. Both even use power tools in their assault on the undead. Both balance slapstick humor and shock value with gore and horror to great effect. Braindead throws a ton of ideas at the wall and does not hold itself against any particular set of zombie mythology. Its aim is maximum carnage and the humor that comes from going balls to the wall with it. I mean, there's a zombie baby. Braindead is not afraid of anything. Timothy Blame gets extra credit here for a fearless performance, both emotional and physical. On the emotional level, he is sweet and easy to root for and you genuinely want to see him stand up to his mom and get the girl. On the physical level, he is all over the place, tumbling, stumbling, getting beaten up and thrown around at will, and covered in blood, entrails, and other assorted viscera. He is COMMITTED. Diana Peñalver doesn't have quite as much to do as her costar over the course of the whole movie, but in the final act, she's just as involved. And despite chasing after Lionel HARD, she's so damned cute and earnest, it's hard not to love her. Did I mention blood and entrails? Well, I didn't give it enough attention, because Braindead is positively awash in practical gore. One scene in particular reportedly used almost 80 gallons of fake blood. Braindead is pre-CGI, so it's all practical, and it's all wonderful. The kills, the zombie design, the carnage, all of it is absolutely, positively excellent. It is a non-stop barrage, especially in the last 20 minutes, but it's also presented in such a ridiculous manner that it could never be taken as seriously as something like Halloween or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And the weirdness and the blood and the chaos is heightened by early Peter Jackson's unique directorial style. Off-kilter angles, wide lenses, and crash zooms, all hallmarks of pre-Middle Earth PJ, to give the world a disorienting feeling. Nothing about Braindead feels settled or natural, starting with the viewer's window into it. It's by design, and it works with the frenetic, kinetic nature of this movie. It's going for the wild and brash, it's trying to sucker punch the viewer and leave them in a state of shock. The camera and the score and the performances should, naturally, follow suit. That relentless pursuit of energy and shock value has its limits, though, and that's where Braindead might wear on people. Once it starts, it DOES. NOT. STOP. Not with the comedy and not with the crazy. It becomes a bit numbing by the end, because the movie has to find ways to one-up the last crazy thing it did, and it all becomes a bit tiring. It's never boring, but this movie has no sense of pace. Even Evil Dead 2 knew when to be scary, when to be silly, and when to let the viewers have a moment to catch their breath. Braindead is just punch after punch after punch, and it wound up numbing by the end. The other flaw in the direction is that Peter Jackson good at developing one character, but not more than that. Even his best pre-LOTR movie, The Frighteners, suffers from an imbalance of Michael J. Fox's character having depth, and everybody else being either wild and zany caricatures, or sketches that orbit around and bounce off him. Braindead is no exception. Paquita loves to love. That's it. That's her character. Lionel's mom is domineering. His uncle is a pig. The romance between Paquita and Lionel is undeniably cute and wholesome, but it moves at the speed of light. They meet and she's over the moon for him, literally following him around like a puppy dog, and pretending not to have a firm grasp of English to trick him into a date. I know the story has places to be and things to do, but it doesn't feel natural at all (The Frighteners suffered from the same issue), and it turns Paquita into this thirsty, desperate stalker girl that she isn't supposed to be. Whether or not you liked Evil Dead 2 is the barometer for this; if so, you're good here. You'll love the camp, the slapstick and the physical performances, the copious amount of gore, and a charming pair of leads. But if Evil Dead 2 didn't tickle your fancy, be it for the violence or the blend of horror and humor or anything else, don't even bother.