Rating: 
Summary: Pee Wee Herman, Psycho, The Fly, slapped together
Review: Boy, this feels like Pee Wee Herman, Psycho, The Fly, all slapped together. I don't like the idea of "trying to make it seem funny", which is the slapstick aspect of this movie. The main actor and main actress kissed so passionately even when there is zombie gut and blood all over their faces... oh well, apparently they knew it was just chocolate syrup.
Rating: 
Summary: Bitching!!!
Review: This one has them all topped!! you wont soon forget !!
Rating:
Summary: Gory and Funny!
Review: Any fan of splatcoms will love this movie.It is by far the goriest,and the most hurl-inducing movie ever made...plus..it's funny.A pretty good combination,really.However,I am serious when I say hurl-inducing,so if you have a weak stomach,please be forewarned! .On the otherhand,if you can watch carnage like this and eat a bologna sandwich in one hand,and sip on your coffee with the other ...then this movie is for you.If your stomach is up for it(mine was,barely),then give it a shot.There is a really neat scene involving a zombie and a lighbulb..all in all a perfect Saturday night gore-fest of a movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Dang COOL
Review: Some people would say that 3 stars is a harsh rating for someone that liked the movie. However, some people would also give The Green Album 5 stars. All I'm saying is, just because you liked it doesn't mean that it is one of the best movies ever made-It doesn't have to. Remember, a review board is not always a way to voice your opinion. Some people actually read it to get information and see whether or not they should buy it.Anyway, enough of that annoying babbly crud. I caught this one on some sci-fi channel with no commercials, so it was probably edited WAY down. I have also heard that every version but the English version are edited. But I thought it was very good, the way that it was filmed, and the way the gory scenes were executed. Fun to watch, but do not watch this for the acting, plot, or anything of that matter. This is simply an escapist gore movie. Also, very few scenes were very suspenseful or scary, nor were they meant to be.
It will blow your mind if you haven't seen any hard-core gore before. Even if you have, (which I haven't) apparently this is still good.
Rating: 
Summary: How do you kill something that is already dead? Party over!
Review: Just last night I was watching the end of "Sense and Sensibility" and thinking how it was possible to cry and laugh at the same time at a particular seen (Eleanor's hysterical crying when she learns Edward is not married). Tonight I am staying up late watching "Dead Alive" and wondering if it is possible to laugh and throw up at the same time. Not that I was thinking of doing both, because I am fairly certain that "Dead Alive" is an either-or proposition. Either within the first five minutes of the film you are going to run screaming for the bathroom or you are just going to sit there and watch this completely over the top blood fest from the wacky mind of director Peter Jackson and laugh yourself silly. There is no middle ground on this one, boys and girls, and those who check this out because they loved "The Lord of the Rings" are going to be in for a rude (and bloody) awakening. The story is of poor Lionel (Timothy Balme), who has an overbearing mother who is bitten by a rare Sumatran rat monkey while keeping tabs on her son's date at the zoo. She dies and turns into a zombie (we learn from the film's prologue that one bite from this rat monkey and you cannot cut off body parts fast enough to save yourself from becoming one of the walking dead). Lionel does not tell anybody about his mom, trying to keep her locked up in the house. But she keeps killing people, who then turn into zombies, and when Lionel's uncle blackmails him and throws an open house party, it becomes a zombie jamboree. The plot is pretty much a tertiary consideration because it really exists only for Jackson and his special effects people to come up with as many creative ways of throwing blood and gore around the screen as possible. For those of you who have already checked out Jackson's directorial debut "Bad Taste," be aware that for this second film somebody gave him money. How much? Well, apparently enough to indulge his every fantasy when it comes to gross out humor and special effects. You cannot warn some people enough about how gross "Dead Alive" is and if you have anything close to a weak stomach or are easily offended do not even look at the cover of this DVD let along check out the movie, because this one being an acquired taste is a monumental understatement (and for everyone who is wondering how Peter Jackson was every allowed to direct "LOTR" after this one, check out his "Heavenly Creatures"). Not only is "Dead Alive" completely over the top more than any other film I can think of off the top of my head, but it also threatens to over do it on that score as well. But just as I was about to lose interest Lionel shows up with a lawnmower and announces "Party over!" What follows is a sequence of brilliant lunacy that has blood spraying all over everyone and everything for several minutes while I laughed myself silly. Unfortunately that was not the real climax of the film, which is where my doubts about the proceedings started to settle in again. I figure either the zombie baby or mum's final form are going to be too much for a lot of viewers. But since this film does not take its zombies seriously, there is no reason for the audience to do so either. You just have to admire the creative energy that Jackson exhibits in coming up with ways to cut off body parts or have green fluid shooting across the room. Apparently channeling that energy in the service of Tolkien's trilogy was a good thing.
Rating:
Summary: YOU GOT THE BITE!!
Review: As an avid fan of graphic horror, I'm delighted to say that "Dead Alive" is the biggest bloodbath ever to be filmed. This gaggle of gore is even more disgusting and vile than 1987's "Evil Dead II," which I once thought had pushed cinematic violence as far as it could go. However, once I witnessed the seemingly endless trail of amputations, cannibalism, writhing organs, and exploding heads, my jaw dropped. Of course, this film (like Evil Dead I and II), is an insane mixture of undead violence and camp comedy. However, what makes "Dead Alive" stand alone is that it's a bleeding British farce for the 90's. As a result, it can be enjoyed by any freak who collects episodes of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "Fawty Towers." I guarantee that "Dead Alive" will make you laugh, gag, and vomit all over your seats! Ironically, the film was directed by Peter Jackson, the same New Zealander who unleashed the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy!
"Dead Alive's" synopsis takes place somewhere in the English suburbs. A nice but timid young man named Lionel (Timothy Balme) slaves as a caretaker to his cruel, straitlaced Mother (Elizabeth Moody). Lionel is Great Britain's answer to Norman Bates, although what follows is no fault of his own. While fearful and pathetically dependent on his Mum, he starts dating a pretty Hispanic girl named Paquita (Diana Penalver), who becomes infatuated with Lionel immediately. Beforehand, Paquita was given a premonition by her fortune teller Grandmother; the old woman claimed that Paquita would be romantically involved with the man of her dreams. Unfortunately, it's later revealed that this same man is haunted by dark forces, and that he'll be surrounded by a cloud of suffering and death. Still, Paquita decides to pursue Lionel's heart. He, meanwhile, is determined to win her love despite his Mother's power over him. The next day, the two blossoming lovers take a trip to the zoo. One particular cage holds a vicious rat monkey imported from Skull Island. Soon enough, this same animal attacks and bites the arm of Lionel's Mum, who just happens to be spying on him and his new date. In a few hours, the old woman gradually turns into a zombie; while wheezing and groggy, she develops an appetite so voracious that she ends up devouring Paquita's dog! Throughout the rest of the film, Mum bites on the people around her, infecting the town with the decaying disease. Poor Lionel tries to control the situation by locking the corpses in the basement and injecting them with toxic tranqulizers. Things get even more twisted when he's blackmailed by his fat, greasy Uncle (Ian Watkin), who wants get his pudgy hands on his sister's inheritance. I don't want to bore you with any more details, but would like to mention the film's finale, when Lionel and Paquita are forced to battle a crowd of flesh-eating party guests. In perhaps the most grisly sequence in history, Lionel himself pulverizes skulls, limbs, and torsos with a lawnmower! In other gory instances, a woman is punched through the head and mouth, a man has his ribcage ripped out, a another fellow's face is torn off! If that's not horrible enough for you, a dead biker's intestines squirm across the floor, wrapping themselves around Lionel's legs like tiny snakes. Even obnoxious Uncle Les contributes to this massacre; in one example, he cuts off a zombie's head with a pair of clipping shears!
The gruesome action I just described is merely a taste of what "Dead Alive" has in store. But despite how nauseating this film is, it's also quite humorous! What other film includes an over-the-top karate match between Father McGruder (Stuart Devenie) and a rotting gang of bikers? Or how about a Terry Gilliam-style scenario in which Lionel strolls down the park with a zombie infant in a carriage? Okay, so "Dead Alive" isn't quite like "Lord of the Rings." The acting is sometimes mediocre, and Diana Penalver's artificial accent can be annoying to some. BUT SO WHAT?!! This movie still diplays a generous slew of shock and surprises. Buy the DVD when you can, kiddies. Movies like this aren't made anymore.
Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: I really heard a lot of cool things about this flick. I became a huge pete jackson fan when lord of the rings came out, and the premise of a Zombie film directed by the New zealand fellow seemed like it would be worth checking out.
I was sorely mistaken.
The so called horror never really comes of as any kind of scary, and the supposed comic slapstick stuff is nowhere near as clever or enjoyable as evil dead 2, a frequent comparison. The gags, as they were, are really just long, drawn out scenes of shameless cartoon violence, and i was really turned off by the whole thing. The idiots who edited the US version basically butchered all of the violence, making almost the entire final twenty minutes nearly incomprehensible, or maybe it was due to the nothing-budget, i'm not really sure because it hardly ever shows much of anything.
The best way to describe this film is like putting a frog in a blender and then trying, through heavy, thick beer goggles of some sort, to watch the horrid thing spin around in juicy, revolting agony. It might come off as entertaining if you really stretch your imagination, or you have a tremendous amount of time on your hands.
in other words, avoid this one at all costs.
Rating:
Summary: Really disgusting, but good
Review: Peter Jackson's DEAD ALIVE (a.k.a. BRAINDEAD) seems to have acquired the reputation of being the "goriest movie ever made". After viewing this DVD, I have no reason to disagree with this assessment. The sheer volume of spilled blood and severed body parts staggers the imagination. However, this would just seem gratuitous if not for the comic vision which Jackson brought to the film. Self-consciously cheesy in its plot, with the violence being more along the lines of slapstick (think "Evil Dead 2" but MUCH more extreme), this movie builds up to a ridiculously bloody climax involving a house full of zombies and one man with a lawnmower blade. It's not the type of film which is meant to seriously scare the viewer; rather, its a wild, hilarious ride. Those who are squeamish and easily grossed-out should probably avoid this, but if the concept of multiple decapitations and disembowelments sounds funny to you, you may well enjoy this.
Rating:
Summary: Requires a new definition for "Over the Top!"
Review: I bought this movie on a whim. Like many people of late I have become something of a Peter Jackson fan, and the only pre-Lord of the Rings movie of his I had seen before this was "Heavenly Creatures." (Also a great movie). I am very pleased with my purchase, to say the least! Yes it is gore and gore upon gore, but more than that it is wickedly funny. I first watched this movie with a good friend of mine, and we both enjoy a good zombie film now and then, so we have seen just about all there is in movie blood and guts . . . or so we thought! This is a whole new level. Thing is, we were laughing ourselves silly throughout the entire film. It is so wacked and crazy ("over the top" is an understatement!) that the gore becomes hilarious (when even a zombie's entrails can't be killed, you've got trouble!). Gross? Yes, but somehow so gross that it's not. If that makes any sense. It's "Dawn of the Dead" meets "Evil Dead" meets Three Stooges meets the Marx brothers meets . . . I don't know what. One thing's for sure: You gotta see it to believe it! In an interview on Charlie Rose Viggo Mortensen and Eljiah Wood said they would love to do a zombie movie with Jackson. Man, I'd love to see that!
Rating:
Summary: Leaving Mum is so hard to do...
Review: The first film I ever saw from the now famous Peter Jackson was "Dead Alive." What an experience! For rabid gorehounds, this movie about a nice New Zealand boy with a domineering mother was an absolute revelation. Jackson's frenetic energy, over the top gore, and truly tasteless behavior had me running out to look for some of his other films. "Bad Taste" and "Meet the Feebles," his other early efforts, are just as entertaining in uniquely sick ways but lack the visceral impact of this cult classic. We all know what director Jackson is doing now; he's turning into a cinematic legend with his phenomenal "Lord of the Rings" adaptation. It amuses me to no end that there are still people out there praising this amazing visionary without seeing his early work. I had the chance a few years ago to introduce one of these unknowing souls to "Dead Alive" and the look on their face was worth any amount of money. Hey, they wanted to see a Peter Jackson film, and so they did! "Dead Alive," I think, shows why the powers in Hollywood chose this director to helm the Tolkien trilogy: the sheer imaginative powers displayed in this gorefest work just as well in non-horror, big budget tour de force fantasy films. "Dead Alive" opens with a scientific expedition's discovery of the ultra rare rat monkey; a repulsive, vicious creature whose bite is definitely worse than its bark. The expedition rapidly descends into anarchy when some local natives insist on keeping the monkey. The scientists manage to escape with the abomination, but not before the monkey bites one of the explorers. When two of the tour guides with him notice this wound, they promptly chop his hand off. Something, apparently, is seriously wrong about receiving any sort of attention from this nasty little beastie. Of course, that doesn't stop the expedition from tossing the monkey in a crate and shipping it off to a zoo in a major city. Flash forward a number of years to the present, where we rapidly meet Lionel Cosgrove, his mother Vera, and Paquita Maria Sanchez, the three main characters of the movie. Lionel is one of those guys who caters to his mother's every whim. Ever since his father died-a subplot that eventually finds resolution towards the end of the movie-Lionel has doted on his overbearing, obnoxiously vocal mother. Vera Cosgrove knows that her behavior doesn't help her son achieve any sort of independence, but she simply doesn't care because by dominating her son she gives expression to her desire to control other people's lives. Lionel's life as a momma's boy would probably have gone on indefinitely if he had not suddenly met Paquita, a spicy little number who works at the local grocery store. Paquita is quite the spiritual person, and is absolutely elated after her grandmother sifts through some tarot cards and informs her granddaughter that she's about to meet the man of her dreams. Predictably, Paquita runs (literally) into Lionel and sees several signs that convince her this nervous nelly is the man of her dreams. When Paquita attempts to establish a relationship with Lionel, Vera Cosgrove feels threatened and does her best to quash the burgeoning romance. When Lionel and Paquita go to the zoo on a first date, mother Cosgrove follows to spy on the two. Regrettably, in her haste to see what her son is doing, Vera accidentally receives the toothy attentions of the little rat monkey. From this point forward, "Dead Alive" descends into a gross out gorefest. Vera begins to literally melt to death from the monkey bite while a panicked Lionel has no idea what to do. After a scene that will give you a life long phobia about eating pudding, along with another unpleasant situation involving a dog and Vera's suddenly voracious appetite, Lionel and Paquita decide to call for medical assistance. Things get very icky from this point on, as various characters including a nurse, the local priest, Lionel's uncle, and a bunch of townspeople fall victim to the nightmare unfolding at the Cosgrove residence. It seems that the bite of the rat monkey not only causes problems for the initial victim (in this case, Vera Cosgrove), but can also spread when that victim attacks other people. What you get are dozens of shambling zombies looking to turn the living into jigsaw puzzles. The last twenty odd minutes of the film are a marathon of bloodshed, as Lionel and Paquita attempt to destroy the hungry creatures roaming through the halls of Castle Cosgrove. You've never seen oceans of gore this deep in any film, rest assured, or the inventive techniques Jackson developed to make his film a memorable experience. Lawnmowers used to kill zombies, heads spinning in blenders, a pile of murderous organs, and a transmogrified Vera Cosgrove are just a few of the mind blasting things you will see in "Dead Alive." This is jaw dropping stuff, made slightly more palatable by the significant doses of humor injected into the whole thing. If Jackson made this just to be cruel, it would be unwatchable. Instead, the movie allows you to laugh even as it turns your stomach. Avoid the 'R' rated version! All of the sauce is missing from that edition! Watch the unrated version, or better yet find the uncut print under the title of "Braindead," which contains seven minutes of additional footage. We really need to see a disc with all the trimmings, though, such as a commentary from Jackson and any other extras that might exist. I hope the director finds time to revisit this territory again, but with the fame he has garnered from "Lord of the Rings" and his remake of "King Kong" due sometime in 2005, I fear that Jackson's will never return to his groundbreaking early days. Hopefully, I am wrong.
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