Zombie Flicks: Dead Alive (Braindead) (1992)

I saw so many horror VHS covers at our town's video rental store from when I was a young kid all the way to middle school that they tend to run together, and whenever I see one for a movie I now at least know of, it's sometimes hard to remember if I saw it back then or not. That's the case with today's nasty little subject: I first learned of it when I was either in late high school or first started college and, whenever I saw that American cover art, I found myself wondering if I had seen the VHS at Harold's, as the image looked vaguely familiar. Regardless, when I read up on it in various books and online sources about modern horror, where it was typically called Braindead, what I always came away with was how it was considered the goriest movie ever made. I wasn't sure what to make of that declaration because, as you know, that's a pretty big moniker, one that could be used to describe a good number of movies made since the 70's (note that I just said "movies" rather than "horror movies," as The Passion of the Christ could easily be in the running). But what got me was that every... single... source I read from insisted it was so, indicating that this film trumped other really gory films I'd seen by that point like Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, some of the later Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, and Freddy vs. Jason. But, aside from a few vaguely gruesome images, I didn't actually see anything of the movie until it was featured as part of Bravo's 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments in 2006, where it was called Dead Alive. Needless to say, I was floored by I saw, which included the woman getting her guts ripped right out of her midsection, the one zombie getting his head sliced in half by shears, the woman getting the zombie's fist through the back of her head and out her mouth, the disgusting as hell custard scene, and just some of the climactic lawnmower scene. Little did I know that that was just a taste of how insane this movie was, as I later saw some more of the third act when James Rolfe featured it on the first edition of CineMassacre's Monster Madness and, again, I couldn't believe what I was watching. I was sitting there, thinking, "God, this is sick." And as with what I knew of Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles, I couldn't believe this was directed by the guy behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the epic 2005 version of King Kong.

Speaking of which, Dead Alive was the first of Peter Jackson's early movies I both saw and actually owned. I was up in Pigeon Forge in October of 2009, attending my very first horror convention, as well as spending a ridiculous amount of money I'd saved up in order to get a lot of movies I'd either never seen before or had but vaguely remembered them. It was in a now defunct video and music store that I found the old Lionsgate DVD of Dead Alive and figured I'd see what other sick stuff it contained. Well, after watching it all the way through (fortunately, the version I found was the 97-minute one, which is the most complete one currently available in the U.S.), as well as having now seen the complete 104-minute version with the original Braindead title, I can say this does earn its reputation as the goriest, sickest movie ever. There have been a lot of really gross, over-the-top, perverse horror films made since movie censorship was pulled back in the late 60's, but this thing is on another level. Besides being ridiculously twisted, gory, sick, and insane, it has dark humor and splatstick aplenty, and just plain crazy stuff like a priest who kicks ass for the lord getting turned into a zombie and railroading a zombie nurse in order to produce a hideous, mean little hellspawn, a nasty "rat-monkey" that starts the whole thing, zombies getting hocked up on animal steroids and becoming supercharged, a set of zombie innards coming to life and chasing after the protagonist, and a finale that involves the lead's undead, overbearing mother becoming a literal giant monster. It's like Jackson was trying to top the craziness of his first two movies by combining and then triple-downing on their sick perversity, and indeed, he succeeded with absolute flying colors.

(I almost never do this but, in this case, I feel I better warn all you readers who aren't in the know that I'm not exaggerating when I saw say this movie is really, really sick, so read on at your own risk.)

The year is 1957, and Stewart McAlden, an official for the Wellington Zoo, has captured a rare Sumatran rat-monkey from the mysterious Skull Island. While trying to escape with his catch, he and his interpreter are cornered by the natives, who insist the monkey must be set free. Regardless, McAlden is determined to bring it home to his zoo, but while he and his team manage to escape the natives, the monkey bites him in the chaos. Immediately, his team dismembers him, fearing the effect of the bite, and the monkey is sent on its way to Wellington. There, Paquita Maria Sanchez, a young Spanish Romani woman who works in her father's convenience store, is told by her fortune-telling grandmother that she's destined to become romantically involved with a young man whom she will recognize by "the symbol of the star and of the moon." Immediately, she meets Lionel Cosgrove, an awkward young man who lives with his domineering and controlling mother, Vera, in a large Victorian mansion, and the sign manifests itself when he fumbles about on the front counter. Convinced he is the one, Paquita delivers his mother's groceries to the house personally that afternoon. While talking and seeming not to entirely understand what Lionel is saying, she ropes him into going on a date with her to the zoo the next day. While there, the two of them see the rat-monkey, which is just as ferocious as it is ugly, hideously killing another monkey in the cage next to it. Vera also follows them to the zoo and gets bitten by the rat-monkey, which she immediately kills. She then forces Lionel to take her home and, after being attended to by Nurse McTavish, admonishes him for going out a date and calls Paquita an "oily shop-girl." That night, the bite begins to have an effect on Vera, who looks horribly sick the next day but insists that Lionel take care of her. Skin and body parts begin to fall off, and after she devours Paquita's dog, she attacks Lionel and appears to die afterward, only to reanimate as a ravenous zombie. She attacks and turns McTavish into one as well, but Lionel manages to get them down into the basement in order to keep Paquita from finding out. This is just the beginning of his troubles, though, as the undead start piling up in his basement and he has to deal with a sleazy uncle who's intent on getting Lionel's inheritance for himself, leading to a night of absolute horror and debauchery for the poor young man.

Dead Alive was first conceived around the time Bad Taste was getting distributed, as Peter Jackson was working on a number of scripts for possible future projects, including a Nightmare on Elm Street movie he would have directed. It almost became his immediate follow-up to Bad Taste but then, Meet the Feebles came about and it wasn't until after its release in 1989 that he focused his attention back onto Dead Alive. Notably, it was by this point that Jackson had assembled together some of his key team members, including his writing and life partner Fran Walsh and effects artists Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger, who would go on to work on all of his movies afterward and the latter of whom would be responsible for Dead Alive's spectacular makeup effects. Although it was made on a small budget of just $3 million, it would end up being Jackson's largest and most ambitious movie yet, and it also marks the end of the first phase of his career, where he was seen as a sort of bad boy, rebel filmmaker who made darkly comic and disgusting movies. After this, he would direct Heavenly Creatures, the first movie to earn him very prestigious critical acclaim and awards, setting the stage for what was to come.

Calling Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) a mama's boy is not only an understatement but an insult to most mama's boys in general, as this guy is really pathetic. He's an awkward, clumsy string-bean of a man who waits on his domineering mother, Vera, hand and foot, takes all of her verbal abuse and emotional manipulation with little to no fight, and allows her to interfere in his relationship with Paquita, whom he obviously likes. Because he lost his father at an early age, his mother is all he's had for much of his life and thus, as smothering and controlling as Vera is, he feels completely devoted to her, even at the expense of Paquita's feelings. Things only get worse for him when Vera is bitten by the Sumatran rat-monkey and he has to take care of her as her health quickly and hideously deteriorates, culminating in her attacking him, dying, and resurrecting as a zombie. When the same thing happens to Nurse McTavish, Lionel gets them both down in the basement and desperately tries to keep Paquita from finding out, telling her that Vera was taken to the hospital. He buys some tranquilizers from a veterinary clinic and injects the zombies in order to keep them sedated, only for Vera to break out one day when he's in town and get hit by a tram in front of a bunch of people. Now, Lionel has to keep her sedated long enough for her funeral to be held, though she ends up attacking him and the two of them tumble out right in the middle of the service, making everyone think he's gone off the dead end and is now into some really perverted stuff. Moreover, when he returns to the churchyard that night to give her more of the sedative, she not only rises again but attacks and infects two members of a gang of punks who accost Lionel, along with Father McGruder. Now, he has more zombies to keep sequestered in his house, and that becomes all the more complicated when his sleazy uncle, Les Cosgrove, comes by, intent on getting what he feels he deserves from Lionel's inheritance. When his uncle discovers the zombies, which he thinks are dead bodies, he believes Lionel to be a necrophiliac and blackmails him into giving him the money and the house in order to keep it a secret. Between that, the undead McGruder and McTavish spawning a troublesome zombie baby, his having to break up with Paquita in order to keep her safe, and Les deciding to throw himself a housewarming party and forcing him to hand out the refreshments, Lionel is in quite the pickle.

And yet, it gets all the worse when Paquita stops by to make amends with Lionel and discovers the zombies. She's able to convince him to poison them, although doing so to his undead mother is something Lionel finds heartbreaking to go through with. Regardless, he does it and buries them, only to discover a few minutes later that what he injected them with was actually animal stimulants, causing them to resurrect as highly-energized and far more violent than they were before. During the

carnage that breaks out, with the zombies slaughtering the party guests and then turning them into zombies, Lionel barely avoids getting munched on himself, with even a set of zombie organs chasing him. At one point, he ends up in the attic and discovers a trunk full of photos of his father with another woman, as well as a decaying corpse. This makes him realize that these visions he's always had of his father drowning, which he thought were a result of him trying to save him from drowning in the ocean, are repressed

memories of his seeing Vera murder his father and the other woman when she discovered the affair. This gives him the gumption necessary to, first, use a lawnmower as a means of grinding up a bunch of zombies, and then, confront Vera when she grows into an enormous, hideous monster. Ultimately, he's able to defeat Vera, despite being devoured by her, and be with Paquita.

Speaking of Paquita (Diana Penalver), I have to say I'm not that big on her, as I find her to be rather shallow. She's initially interested in Roger, this good-looking deliveryman who often comes by her family's store, and when her grandmother uses tarot cards to see if she'll end up with him, she's really hoping it will be so. Moreover, Paquita is initially dismissive of and impatient with Lionel, finding him to be little more than a nuisance when he bungles around in the store, and it's only when a supposedly significant symbol inadvertently forms during their interaction that she changes her tune, now believing him to be the one she's fated to be with. From there, she's all over him, delivering his mother's groceries herself, talking him into taking her on a date to the Wellington Zoo when he tries to correct her English (which, I have a feeling, was her tricking him), and doesn't seem to comprehend or really care about the trouble she's causing him, as she shows up at his house later that night and manages to get him in the sack. She does go on trying to be helpful to Lionel when Vera becomes "sick" and is supposedly taken to the hospital, and also tries to be there for him when his mother appears to die, but, again, this only stems from her thinking she's fated to be with him. Granted, she may have grown to genuinely care about him by this point, as even after he breaks up with her in an attempt to keep her safe, she, despite being hurt, senses that something's wrong and goes to the mansion to make amends, but I'm still not that fond of her. While fighting off Uncle Les' unwanted attention (that's one thing I will her: she doesn't take any crap), Paquita discovers what Lionel is keeping in the basement and talks him into poisoning the zombies to kill them. She even offers to inject Vera herself when she sees how hard it is on him but Lionel does go through with it. Unfortunately, before they can leave, Les traps and tries to have his way with Paquita, which is when the zombies come back stronger than ever and massacre everyone. Like Lionel, Paquita manages to fend them off, grinding up animated body parts in a blender in one memorable scene, and also does everything she can to help another woman, Rita, although she's ultimately killed by the zombie baby. By the end of it all, she and Lionel are the only ones left alive to confront the monstrous Vera when she rises up and chases them to the roof. Vera almost kills Paquita but she's saved in time from Lionel and, after the mayhem is over, the two of them walk away from the now burning house.

Lionel's mother, Vera (Elizabeth Moody), is best summed up as a New Zealand Mrs. Bates. Selfish, overbearing, and horribly controlling, she makes Lionel do everything, from waiting on her to running her errands and keeping the house clean, and she constantly berates and blames him for anything that goes wrong. Not only does she declare the house to be infested when she sees one beetle, admonishing him for not spraying the place properly, she also orders him to clean the windows and dust the whole place in preparation for the arrival of the president of the Wellington Ladies' Welfare League. The worst thing, though, is how she mentally abuses and manipulates him. Not liking his interest in Paquita, whom she sees as a slut, she follows them to the Wellington Zoo to spy on them, getting bit by the Sumatran rat-monkey in the process, and then makes Lionel end his date and take her home. After she's been tended to by Nurse McTavish, Vera, sighing melodramatically, tells Lionel, "I don't think you have any idea of the pain and anxiety you've caused me. I thought you were a trustworthy boy, but going out behind my back with that... that oily shop girl, kissing and cuddling in public... Why have you deliberately gone out of your way to upset me?" Lionel then assures her it won't happen again and Vera smiles satisfactorily. But then, after Lionel puts her to bed that night, she begins to feel the effects of the rat-monkey bite and wakes up the next morning looking horrible, her bite wound now infected and pulsating. Rather than allow him to call Nurse McTavish, Vera insists that Lionel look after her himself. When the WLWL president, Nora Matheson, shows up to see her, Vera insists on going through with the luncheon, despite her horrible condition and the fact that pieces of her skin are coming off! She's a shaking mess at the table, barely able to talk, and her wound spews out blood and pus and one of her ears falls off into her custard and she unknowingly eats it. Once they're gone, Vera makes Lionel promise not to let them take her away, and he comes to regret that when she deteriorates even farther, actually eats Paquita's dog, and attacking both her and Lionel before dying and then coming back as a zombie.

For most of the time she's a zombie, Vera is just a mindless monster like the rest of them, attacking and killing anybody and anything she sees, with Lionel constantly having to use tranquilizers to keep her under control, even when she's being embalmed, during her funeral, and after she's buried. But, when she's returned to the house and tied up in the basement with the rest of the zombies, she becomes a little more docile, even seeming kind of sad and pathetic towards Lionel

when he prepares to inject her with poison. And while all the other zombies are wreaking havoc after getting juiced up on animal stimulants, Vera takes her time in making her appearance. During this time, Lionel discovers that Vera actually murdered both his father and her lover by drowning them in the bathtub and lied to him his entire life, saying his father drowned while trying to save him from suffering the same fate. After all the other zombies have been dealt with, Vera rises from the basement as an enormous, disgusting

beast and pursues Lionel and Paquita up to the roof. In this form, she's able to speak again and is intent on not just killing Lionel but devouring him through an open slit in her stomach, essentially returning him to her womb. She manages to do so, commenting, "Such a good boy," and prepares to kill Paquita, but Lionel cuts his way out of her, causing her to spill out her blood and innards and fall back into the burning house.

Vera's brother, Les (Ian Watkin), is about as rotten a person as his sister. An overweight schlub with an obvious hairpiece, he has four defining characteristics. He's a total sleazebag, for one, wasting no time in hitting on Paquita when he meets her at Vera's wedding, and when she continually resists his advances, kicking him in the balls when he tries to come onto her at the house party, he intends to trap and rape her, though she manages to fight back. He smokes, despite needing an inhaler. He's a mean-spirited, selfish bully towards Lionel, jealous that he's receiving all of Vera's money and the house and going as far as to blackmail him into giving it all to him in exchange for his not telling everyone he's a supposed necrophiliac. Moreover, when he decides to have a housewarming party for himself, he forces Lionel to serve him and his guests, threatening him when he tries to leave the house and mocking both him and his father to the other guests. And finally, Les is a total coward, opting to save himself rather than help Lionel and Paquita when the zombies start attacking, yet expecting them to help him when he's in danger. But, despite being an unlikable douchebag, he does manage to kill a good number of zombies, although he's also intent on killing Rita before she's turned. Ultimately, while chasing the zombie baby, he makes his way down to the basement, where he's attacked and torn apart by Vera. He reappears as a badly mangled zombie but Paquita manages to put an end to him once and for all.

Aside from Vera, three other characters make up the initial batch of zombies. Mrs. McTavish (Brenda Kendall), the local nurse who sees to Vera after she's initially bitten and who's present when she dies. Showing herself to be a very compassionate woman, she attempts to comfort Lionel after Vera's death, telling him he's not alone and that she'll arrange for the funeral, only for Vera to resurrect and attack her from behind, ripping her face and almost decapitating her. This torn open

throat goes on to be a distinguishing characteristic when she herself becomes a zombie, leading to a bit of gross humor when, while she's trying to eat later, the chewed up food drips out of the big hole in her throat, forcing Lionel to push her head back and put the stuff down her throat himself. The most memorable person turned zombie, by far, is Father McGruder (Stuart Devenie), who initially appears to be a rather frustrated priest due to Lionel's absence at his mother's funeral and his crashing into the middle of the service while seemingly

hugging her corpse, commenting, "Well, I've seen some displays of grief in my day, but nothing quite like that." (By the way, am I the only one who thinks he looks like Phil Donahue?) But, when he comes across Lionel getting attacked by zombies in the churchyard that night, he proves to be a full-blown warrior of God. He jumps into the fray, starts beating the crap out of the zombies, and declares, "I kick ass for the Lord!" Indeed, he does beat them senseless, managing to dismember one

with just his kicks, but, unfortunately, said zombie's decapitated head lands on him and bites his neck. I really hate that, as I wish he could've stuck around and kept on kicking zombie ass rather than becoming one. Significantly, after he's turned, he and the undead Nurse McTavish have sex, leading to the birth of the evil zombie baby. When they're finally destroyed, they're impaled together and continue screwing as Lionel takes the lawnmower to them. Finally, the leader of the gang that ambushes Lionel in the churchyard, Void (Jed Brophy), has his cronies beat him up and take his wallet for being an apparent necrophiliac, while he literally pisses on Vera's grave. Vera proceeds to grab his crotch, pull him down, and rip open his chest, exposing his ribcage. Another member of the gang, Scroat (Murray Keane), also becomes a zombie but Father McGruder manages to dismember him, although he does bite him and turn him into one as well before going out. Void, however, proves to be a persistent zombie to the end, with even some of his organs chasing Lionel after they spill out of him, and both are only put down with the lawnmower.

Roger (Harry Sinclair), a delivery boy who often drops off products at the convenience store owned by Paquita's father, is the one who Paquita initially has her eye on, as he's tall and good-looking, but he proves to be overly mean and cruel to Lionel. Okay, he thought he was assaulting Paquita, but still, he not only decks Lionel but also rubs the rumors of him having lost his mind in his face, adding, "You touch her again and I'll knock you into next week." He's also quite a bore when Paquita hangs out with him, going on and on about his lacrosse

accomplishments, giving her more of an incentive to ditch him and try to make up with Lionel. It's Paquita's grandmother (Davina Whitehouse) who prompts her to forget about Roger in the first place and try to hook up with Lionel, as she uses tarot cards to see who she'll end up with. She tells her that this person, who's not turning out to be Roger, will be her one and only love, will enter her life very soon, and she will recognize him by a symbol of a star and a moon that will accompany him. Shortly afterward is when Paquita first meets Lionel, and while her grandmother initially dismisses signs from the cards that something terrible may soon follow in his wake, she realizes it's true the very night Lionel's mother becomes sick from the rat-monkey bite. Later, when she meets Lionel herself, Paquita's grandmother warns that "death surrounds him," "There will be torment and suffering," and he is "marked." She then gives him a pendant that she says will protect him, and it turns out to be invaluable, as it leads him to the truth about his father's fate and allows him to cut his way out of Vera when she devours him.

Since it's a Peter Jackson movie, we have a plethora of quirky characters here. When Lionel first needs to sedate the zombies, he goes to a veterinary clinic and meets with a bald German vet (Brian Sergent) who talks in a very stereotypical accent, is a little too into his job of examining dead animals, to the point where he drools about it, and wears a magnifying eyepiece over his glasses. When Lionel shows up, he believes he's from immigration and insists he just lost his papers,

giving a sob story about his family being run out of Latvia. He also says he doesn't sell sedatives, although he does give away tranquilizers, just not for the general public. He happily takes Lionel's money and gives him a big bottle of the tranquilizer, at one point ripping his lab coat's sleeve to reveal a Nazi swastika. Before Lionel leaves, he asks, "You want a syringe, or are you going to sniff?" Wellington Ladies' Welfare League president Nora Matheson (Glenis Levestam) and her husband, Albert (Lewis Rowe), are at the

center of the disgusting lunch scene involving Vera. Though Nora realizes there's something not quite right about Vera from the get-go, Albert is too stuffy and focused on enjoying his meal to notice, at one point declaring, "What we need is another war!" He's the one who complains about there not being any pudding, prompting Lionel to bring out the custard, and some of Vera's blood and pus squirt into his bowl. Albert obliviously eats it, much to Nora's revulsion, and he also doesn't notice Vera's ear fall off into her own custard and she herself eats it. This leads Nora to run out of the dining room, on the verge of vomiting, with Albert still not having a clue what's going on. Before he leaves, he does mention how Vera seems a bit "off-color," but at the funeral, he says he saw her just a couple of days before and describes her as a, "Picture of health."

Forrest J. Ackerman appears in the scene at the zoo, reading issues of, what else, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and also takes pictures of Vera killing the rat-monkey after it bites her. The local undertaker (Peter Vere-Jones) mentions how Lionel has been insisting on viewing his mother's body while they've been embalming her, and returns there to find that his moronic assistant left the body alone in the room while it was being embalmed. When the two of them rush into the room, they see

embalming fluid explode out of the body's mouth, nose, and eye sockets, much to the undertaker's aggravation, while his assistant merely lets out a stupid giggle at the sight of this. Said assistant is where Peter Jackson makes his expected cameo, basically playing Derek from Bad Taste again, as he's clean-shaven, dopey-looking, has buck teeth, and laughs in a similar manner. The undertaker slaps him, calling him a half-wit, and tells him it's coming out of his pay, while the assistant, after removing his lunch, which he left on the body, offers to get the mop but there's no time, as they have to get the body to the church.

While it's certainly gory and gross, Dead Alive also has a certain feel that add to its surreal, disturbing nature. Like Bad Taste, it has a distinctive look, in this instance a soft, somewhat desaturated one where the colors are a bit muted and the whites come off as rather strong, not only helping the copious amounts of blood stand out but the blood also has a sort of pinkish hue to it that makes it all the more nauseating to look at. The setting of 1950's Wellington, New Zealand, which is depicted as a somewhat quaint, yet stately place, one where

the populace is made up of a number proper, upper-class citizens, make it all the more impactful when the really grisly stuff starts to happen. The prime example of this is how Vera and Lionel's large, posh Victorian mansion becomes the scene of complete and total carnage during the climax, covered in gore, innards, and severed body parts by the time Lionel gets done mowing down the zombies with the lawnmower. Speaking of the setting and period, there's also the notion that things aren't as respectable as they seem, with the

greaser-like hoodlums who ambush Lionel in the cemetery and piss on his mother's grave, the good-looking Roger turning out to be a boorish jerk, Uncle Les proving to be a scumbag from the get-go, and Vera being revealed to be not just overbearing but also having killed Lionel's father decades before and lied to him about it his whole life. And finally, I've always found the idea of some ancient evil from elsewhere being unleashed upon a modern setting and proving to be just as deadly there as it was in its place of origin to be rather unnerving; in this case, you have the monstrous Sumatran rat-monkey being brought to New Zealand from Skull Island and bringing an awful plague with it.

While you can tell he'd definitely grown as a filmmaker since Bad Taste, it's also clear that Peter Jackson was continuing to learn his craft and develop his style on Dead Alive, as some of the camerawork and angles are still a bit amateurish. Like in Bad Taste, there are numerous sudden and tight zoom-ins on people's faces, often in tilted angles, as well as overhead angles where the camera feels like it's hovering and then going in tight on things, and it's obvious a lot of this was shot handheld. But, like before, even when things

become very kinetic in both the cinematography and editing, it's never in a manner where you can't keep track of what's going on. Trust me, when things really get crazy, Jackson makes sure you can see every gory detail, especially in the lawnmower scene, where he cuts from various angles, be it behind the mower, in front of it, looking at the blade, or from the sides, in order to show the zombies getting chopped to bits. Moreover, he'd established the mower as significant early on, in a scene where Lionel is mowing the front yard and

the camera is down really low, looking up as the mower comes at it and stopping on a shot of its blade slowing and stopping. Another interesting bit of foreshadowing on his part are the brief glimpses of the drowning death of Lionel's father, with shots of his suffocating face from both above and below the water, shots which become all the more detailed as the movie goes on. And while the movie does keep that soft, slightly muted tone throughout, Jackson and his cinematographer, Murray Milne, do a lot of nice work with dark lighting and shadows, and they employ some slight green lighting in the embalming scene and classic blue moonlight in some of the scenes in the basement and during the climax.

Also like Bad Taste, Dead Alive acts as something of a guide to the lovely sights and sounds of Wellington, New Zealand (yes, there are actually lovely aspects to this movie). The Putangirua Pinnacles, a badlands sort of area, served as the narrow, rocky canyons and riverbanks of Skull Island where the movie opens (from this early on, Peter Jackson was making no secret of his love of King Kong; he would also return to this area years later for a scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), whereas places like

Wellington International Airport and Wellington Zoo, as well as general shots of Wellington and the Wairarapa Coast, were used as themselves. The store where Paquita works is a real place at the corner of Rodrigo and Sutherland Road, as is the veterinary clinic, which is at 20 Standen Street, and the park where the scene where Lionel has to deal with the zombie baby was actually the Wellington Botanical Gardens. One of the most memorable locations used was the Karori Cemetery, and I can't believe Jackson was able to film what he did at an

actual cemetery and church. Shooting there went on to cause Jackson some legal problems, though, as a family sued his production company for showing their family tombstone in the movie. Finally, like the Gear Homestead in Bad Taste, the most significant location in the movie is the large Victorian mansion on Hinau Road in Hataitai, which served as Lionel and Vera's home. It's this big, posh, lovely house, which has a memorable kitchen with a yellow-and-green color scheme, a

very nice dining room with a table big enough for six people, a quaint sitting room where Vera listens to the radio, a big, lovely upstairs bedroom for her, a smaller, more average bedroom for Lionel himself, a flight of stairs with a landing in front of a stained glass window (there are stained glass windows all over the place), a door beside the stairs that leads down into the basement, and a massive foyer that serves as the spot where Lionel hacks up the zombies with the lawnmower. By the end of the movie, the entire house is totally

covered in gore and body parts, and from what I can tell, like with Bad Taste, they shot everything at the actual location, as they didn't have the money to build sets. As good as Jackson and his friends were about making sure the Gear Homestead didn't damaged, I couldn't imagine what it must have taken to clean all that crap up after shooting on this climax was finished. I'm sure that house was never the same after that.

Going back to the notion of the movie being a period piece, it's something I rarely ever hear talked about, to the point where I myself had forgotten it was so until this most recent rewatch. Maybe it's because it's not an American film and, therefore, is not as obvious for someone like me, but it seems like Peter Jackson decided not to put too much emphasis on the notion that the movie takes place in 1957. Make no mistake, can see it: the vehicles are definitely vintage, as are the clothes and the depiction of various archetypes, like the stuffy

upper class, especially in regards to Albert Matheson, and the greaser, black leather jacket-wearing hoodlums who attack Lionel in the cemetery; there's no television, only radio; and there are timely references, like Lionel mentioning Sir Edmund Hillary, Albert declaring that another war is needed, and the veterinarian turning out to be a Nazi who's in hiding after fleeing Germany. And yet, it only becomes really apparent when you start looking for it; otherwise, you wouldn't think twice about what time period it's set in, and I'm sure the gore and sick humor would also help with that as well.

Speaking of which, as I've said before, this film takes the penchant for edgy, dark, and downright gross humor Jackson demonstrated in Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles and tripled, maybe even quadrupled, down on it. The sheer amount of insane gore manages to come off as both genuinely disturbing at points and hilariously outrageous, especially during the third act, when all hell absolutely breaks loose. The carnage caused by the zombies is often really sick, with torsos being ripped apart, the skin being pulled right off a

screaming, bloody skull, a zombie punching through the back of a woman's head and out her mouth, and so on, and yet, it gets so crazy that you can't help but laugh at the absurdity, especially when Lionel is being chased by Void's innards and when he's mowing through the zombies as Paquita is grinding up sentient body parts in the blender. For me, the prime example of "splatstick" in general is here, when Lionel is surrounded by zombies and tries to run, only to find there's so much blood on the floor that he's running in place

and has to walk across a bunch of severed body parts and organs just to get some traction. Besides that, there's plenty of just plain dark, morbid humor involving the zombies, like how Lionel has to continually sedate his mother, including right after multiple witnesses have seen her get hit by a tram, during the funeral, and after she's been buried, in order to keep her from attacking people (he injects her right through the nostril, too), and he often fails at it. Moreover, his house soon becomes a place to

keep the growing number of zombies contained, first by feeding them food laced with tranquilizers at the dinner table and then tying them all up down in the basement (Jackson has said it is sort of the inverse of Night of the Living Dead, in that regard). It's also darkly funny how Lionel accidentally causes the massacre during the third act when he injects the zombies with animal stimulants, supercharging them and allowing them to run amok. 

The best bit of dark humor, though, is the scene at the park between Lionel and the zombie baby, whom he calls Selwyn. I don't know why he takes this little monster to the park to begin with (the only reason why this scene even exists is because initial shooting finished ahead of schedule and Jackson still had some money left to spend) but, once there, he tries to act like he's a cute little baby in a stroller, only for his hand to get grabbed, the stuffed animal he offered him getting torn apart, and the stroller rolling downhill away from him. What

follows is a lot of dark slapstick, as the stroller runs between two people having a picnic, the baby rolls out of the stroller, climbs up onto a seesaw, Lionel trips and falls on the other end, sending the baby flying up and bouncing off a roof, and the baby then sits on the ground, crying, only for a cyclist to slam into his backside and get sent rolling down the hill, which he laughs at. Lionel keeps tripping and falling over himself, trying to catch him, when he crawls towards some kids nearby, threatening to attack them. Lionel catches him in time, struggles

with him, and punches and smacks him against the railing of a swing-set, much to the horror of some women watching from nearby and the delight of a drunken hobo who yells, "Yeah!" After slamming the baby down on the ground and stomping him, Lionel pins him down to put him in a sack, only for the baby to throw him off and onto the swing-set. The baby comes at him menacingly, but Lionel hits him in the face with the swing and then stuffs him into the sack. He finally leaves, punching at the struggling little monster in the sack, and telling the shocked onlookers, "Hyperactive."

The very existence of that zombie baby is at the center of the downright gross humor that's prevalent here. You have the undead Father McGruder and Nurse McTavish leering at each other, McGruder touching her leg, the two of them starting to make out, and though Lionel initially stops it, he's then distracted by Uncle Les showing up. This enables them to do the nasty, the sound of which is heard by both Lionel and Les, the latter asking Lionel if he found his father's stag movies and then, as the moaning gets louder and more intense,

further asks, "Is that the one with the donkey and the chambermaid?" By the time Lionel gets Les to leave, he goes back into the dining room to see McGruder completely railroading McTavish across the table, and when he pulls them apart, they're so lip-locked that half of McGruder's face comes off. Later, after he's taken them down to the cellar, McTavish gives birth to that ugly little demon, which Lionel finds inside the radio, attacking a rat. Both zombie parents give each other loving glances over this, and what's really disgusting is

that the baby is covered in fluid and still has the cord. He tries to attack Lionel, crawling up on top of him and going for his throat, only for the cord to get snagged around a nail. There are also references to necrophilia, like how Lionel tumbles out into the middle of the funeral while holding onto Vera's "corpse," the punks believing he's trying to dig up Vera's body that night for that very reason, and Les believing he's into it when he sees the zombies and using it as a way of blackmailing

him. And then, there's what I like to call nasty "fluid" humor: Vera's body getting so filled with green embalming fluid that it explodes out of every orifice in her head, the shot of Void actually peeing on her grave and his subsequently getting grabbed by the crotch, the gross moment where chewed up food runs out of McTavish's ripped open throat, and low-angle, upward-looking shot of Les when he relieves himself after dropping in on Lionel unexpectedly (thankfully, you don't really see anything there).

But the scene that always gets me is the custard scene, where blood and pus squirt out of Vera's arm wound and into Albert Matheson's bowl, with him then unknowingly eating it (he never becomes a zombie, which I thought was where they were going with it), and Vera's ear falling off into her own bowl, with her then eating it. It is just flat-out disgusting and foul, but then, you should expect nothing less from this film.

The creature that starts all of this mayhem is the Sumatran rat-monkey, a hideous little thing with a disgusting thin, hairless body, a long rodent-like tail, long fingers and toes topped with claws, and a monstrous rat head with completely black eyes, big ears, and a mouth full of sharp, nasty teeth, with two long incisors at the front. It's just as mean and aggressive as it is ugly, viciously snarling and attacking anything it can get at it, including the monkeys in the cage next to its own. It not only kills one of them for its apple but then, it tries to

pull its body into its cage, rips off the arm in the process, and starts munching on it. According to the zookeeper, the rat-monkey's origins are just as twisted as the creature itself, as its race is said to have come about from rats reaching Skull Island via slave ships and actually raping the monkeys there. He also tells them that the island natives use the monkeys in black-magic rituals, suggesting there might be something supernatural about this nasty little bugger. Whether it's an infection unlike

any other or some otherworldly curse, the rat-monkey's bite is feared by those who live in the region, so much so that, when Stewart McAlden reveals that it bit him during the opening, the locals working with him promptly kill and dismember him. As for the rat-monkey itself, it's killed by Vera slowly crushing its head with her foot after it bites her. Some shots of the rat-monkey are of a puppet but, for the most part, it's brought to life through stop-motion in another tribute to King Kong, which not only fits given that it's from Skull Island but also because gives it an even more uncanny and unsettling feel.

While the other people who become zombies immediately die and then resurrect, Vera slowly deteriorates after being bitten by the rat-monkey. Her bite wound begins to fester and bleed, squirting out blood while she sleeps, and by the next morning, she really looks bad, as she's now pale, sweaty, has trouble breathing, boils appear on her forehead, and her bite wound is bloody and pulsating. A piece of her skin comes off when she's trying to put on makeup, which Lionel literally glues back on, she begins to lose the ability to speak, her

wound squirts blood and pus, her ear falls off, and she starts to develop a ravenous appetite, culminating in her killing and half-eating Paquita's dog. That's when she goes berserk and attacks Lionel and Paquita, then dies in his arms and resurrects as a zombie. She continues to deteriorate afterward, with more of her skin tearing and falling off, her flesh becoming grosser and more discolored, and her losing all sense of reason and becoming a mindless killing machine. She looks even worse after the funeral due to all the

embalming fluid, really coming off like a corpse, and after she's injected with the animal stimulants, she turns into an enormous monster with a bloated torso, breasts, and legs, long, thin arms with clawed hands, and a hideous, misshapen face that often drips mucus. Here, she's able to speak again, although her possessiveness of her son is now just as monstrous, as she intends on devouring him and absorbing him back into her womb. The other zombies are kind of typical in that they're pale and decrepit, with dead, milky-white eyes, and their

only behavior consists of ripping apart and eating people. What makes them stand out is how each of them has a distinguishing wound, like Nurse McTavish's throat being so ripped open that she's virtually decapitated, Father McGruder getting half of his face ripped off by McTavish when Lionel pulls them apart, Void's chest being ripped open to where his rib-cage is exposed, and, after he gets attacked by the monstrous Vera, Uncles Les resurrects with his head atop his spinal cord, which

has been ripped out all the way to the base, while his torso is slumped over. The monstrous baby is especially memorable because he's undead from the get-go and also because he's really ugly, with very little hair, one bad eye and another that's a sickly yellow, and warts around the corner of his mouth, which only has two misshapen buckteeth in it. I always have mixed feelings about him, because he cries and acts like a baby, so it is hard to watch him get beaten up, but then I'm reminded of what a

mean little shit he is. But the worst thing about these zombies is that, once they're supercharged, it's impossible to kill them without destroying every little part of them, as their severed body parts become sentient and continue chasing after you, notably in how Void's long intestine, lungs, and trachea continue chasing after Lionel after they're separated from their body. They're like the zombies in The Return of the Living Dead taken to the ultimate extreme.

Bob McCarron handled the prosthetic makeups for the actors, while Richard Taylor took care of the creature and gore effects, meaning he really had his hands full. Sometimes they probably came together, like with the rat monkey and the zombie baby, which was done through a combination of puppetry and an actor in makeup and costume, and I'm sure McCarron also helped Taylor on some of the more extreme zombies, like Uncle Les and the zombies that become severed torsos and heads, but for the most part, a lot of the really crazy stuff

was all Taylor's work. Speaking of which, it's truly amazing how much stuff they were able to do on such a low budget, and how elaborate they were able to get with it as well. I find it especially impressive that they were able to make that particular set of innards feel like a character, with the top of the trachea looking like a face with eyes and a mouth. And the fact that they purportedly went through 300 liters of fake blood just during the scene where Lionel rips up the zombies with the lawnmower is both insane, yet totally believable. Of course, that

leads us into the incredible gore effects the movie's known for. I'll go into more detail on them presently but I can't stress how mind-blowing the sheer amount of it is. I know I'm sounding like a broken record but it's true, and just like in Bad Taste, it continues to get crazier and more outrageous right up to the very end. Like with that movie, after a while, it does start to get a little overwhelming and mind-numbing, but I can deal with it more because I seriously cannot believe

what I'm seeing. They use just about every blood, gore, and prosthetic gag you can think of, and what makes the gore itself particularly nauseating to look at is that it sometimes comes off as pink and has a thickness to it, qualities that are very prevalent when Lionel gets covered in it during the climax. Finally, there are some miniatures here, particularly of the house in some shots, that were created by Jackson himself, and the way they pulled off the big monster that Vera turns into at

the end is very impressive. I think she was done through a combination of puppets and a person in a suit filmed in a small reconstruction of the house's interiors and roof, while Timothy Balme and Diana Penalver were made to look small in comparison to her via forced perspective, which Jackson would later famously use for the hobbits (I don't think they had the budget for compositing and matting).

There are many different versions of the movie throughout the world, with two in the United States, one being a 97-minute, unrated version (which is the more common one) and another being an 85-minute R-rated one, which I've heard is virtually incomprehensible. The former is the version I have on DVD and am most familiar with, although I have now seen the complete 104-minute version that sports the original title of Braindead (it was changed to Dead Alive over here because in 1990, a movie was released that had the virtually identical title of Brain Dead). That's the version I've been talking about and will continue to do so. What's notable about this complete version is that it doesn't just contain more instances of gore but also more dialogue and character moments, such as when Vera makes Lionel feel bad after the incident at the zoo, her asking him not to allow her to be taken away after the lunch with the Mathesons, and Nurse McTavish trying to comfort Lionel about his mother's death right before she becomes a zombie, among others. Jackson himself removed them from the U.S. versions because he felt they were unnecessary but I think they add just a little bit more to it. Oddly, that version also begins with footage from the 50's of the Queen of England standing in front of the New Zealand flag, giving absolutely no hint of what you're about to witness.

When the movie opens on Skull Island, you see Stewart McAlden and a member of his crew carrying a wooden cage containing the Sumatran rat-monkey. The man warns McAlden that he feels the monkey is evil and tries to convince him to let it go, but he won't hear of it. At one point, they stop and the man falls to the ground, refusing to pick the cage up. The natives then appear and surround them, threatening them with their spears, when the chief shows up and speaks, pointing at

the cage. McAlden's man tells him the chief is saying the monkey must be set free and that they are to leave and never return, or else, "The evil spirits will exact their revenge." He then says they're also threatening to disembowel them, but McAlden takes out a permit and shows it to the natives. Obviously, they have no clue what it says and rip it apart, prompting McAlden to pull out a machine gun and fire on them, sending them running. He takes out a machete, cuts the ropes

tying the two carrying poles to the cage, picks it up, and runs off, telling his interpreter to move it. The natives show back up and start chasing them as they run through the canyon and reach the riverbank it opens up into, where two other crewmen are waiting. They pile into a waiting jeep and take off, although the interpreter lags behind, trips on a large rock, and falls. With the natives throwing spears and hitting all around him, he quickly gets up and rushes after the jeep. He's only

able to catch it because it hits a small mound of rocks and is momentarily slowed down. However, this also causes the cage, which McAlden is still holding, to lurch into his face, allowing the rat-monkey to bite him several times. The interpreter climbs into the jeep and they manage to escape the natives, when McAlden mentions that he's been bitten. Hearing this, the interpreter says a word that makes the driver stop suddenly. When he does, the interpreter kicks McAlden out and to the ground. He grabs a blade from the jeep, horrifying

McAlden, as the others hold him down. He slices off McAlden's right hand, and when he grabs for the stump and yells in pain, they see that there's a bite on his left arm as well and they promptly cut it off. Finally, they see a scratch on the right side of his forehead and bring the blade down on him there. It then cuts to an animated splatter of blood hitting a black background and forming the title (both versions use the exact same animation).

As the credits roll, the rat-monkey is taken to a small airport and put onboard a cargo plane. The interpreter appears to try to warn the pilot but one of the crewmen stops him, as the other receives payment for their job. The plane takes off, flies through a storm, and lands at Wellington International Airport, where the rat-monkey is picked up by a man from the zoo. He drives on through the city and passes by the store where Paquita works. After she's introduced, along with her

interest in Roger the deliveryman, we get the scene where her grandmother uses tarot cards to see if she's destined to be with him. The person whom her grandmother says is the one appears in the image of a knight on one card and she then shows her a card with a drawing of a crescent moon and a star next to it, saying she will know this person from this symbol. Paquita also notes a card that reads "OPPRESSION" but her grandmother takes it away, telling her it's nothing. Hearing the door's

bell ring, Paquita's father orders her to see to the customer up front, who turns out to be Lionel. Proving himself to be very awkward and clumsy, fumbling everything he touches, he gives Paquita an order from his mother. He also attempts to take a licorice strip by the cash register, only he pulls and knocks over a jar full of pencils next to it. Paquita is annoyed by this, but then sees that the strip and two pencils fell into position to form the fateful symbol. She's struck by this and approaches Lionel, who stumbles backwards out of the store, knocking off stuff from the fruit stand, and actually bumbles into the street behind him. A trolley passes right by him from behind and he quickly jumps on it when he gets a chance.

When Lionel returns to his home, we meet Vera and see just how domineering she is when she yells at him for having seen a beetle in the kitchen, saying he didn't spray the house the way he was supposed to. Her menacing side is also alluded to in that she's holding a butcher knife and uses it to open up a letter, which turns out to be from the Wellington Ladies' Welfare League, saying she's been voted treasure-elect. Unfortunately, she decides Lionel is going to have to clean the house

from top to bottom to prepare for a visit by the president that Friday, and in the next scene, he's mowing the front lawn. When he stops to have a look at the rotor, a big dog suddenly jumps the fence, gets him down, and licks his face. It turns out to be Paquita's dog, Fernando, and she's come to bring Vera's groceries. She leaves them on the doorstep and the two of them make small-talk, with Lionel commenting on the size of Fernando, saying he'd belong in a zoo if he were any bigger. Paquita

doesn't understand what he means by "zoo," but when he describes it to her, she says, "Ah, claro. I like to go with zoo." Lionel corrects her, saying, "You want to go to the zoo," and Paquita responds with, "Yes, please!" It then hits Lionel that he ended up making a date with her and he agrees to meet her the next day. However, they're being watched by Vera through an upstairs window, and she then drops some flowers on the floor and steps on them with a loud crunch. Outside, after Lionel and Paquita make formal plans for their date, he hears a

crash inside and says he has to go. When he rushes inside, he finds a shattered vase with flowers on the foyer, which Vera says happened because he didn't dust enough. She goes on to say it was his father's last anniversary present for her before his death, and she starts to cry about it. Lionel comforts her, saying, "I miss him, too."

The next day, Lionel sneaks out of the house for his date, although Vera spots him. He and Paquita are then shown having fun at the Wellington Zoo, looking at animals like lions, gibbons, and camels. But when they reach a spot with some water behind a fence, Lionel suddenly freezes and stares at it in terror, as he sees a vision of a hand struggling in water. Paquita snaps him out of it and he explains the reason he reacted that way is because his father died while saving him from

drowning at the beach. She comforts him and they walk off, coming across the monkey cages. Paquita drags him over to them and they laugh at the spider monkeys fooling around inside their cage, when Paquita gives Lionel a peck on the cheek. They go in for a bigger kiss, but don't get far before one of the monkeys tosses an apple core at them, hitting Lionel on the forehead. Paquita picks the core up and tosses it back into the cage. It lands near an adjoining cage and one of the monkeys goes to

grab it. But, just as he reaches it, he's killed instantly when something bashes him in the head, then grabs and takes the apple core into its own cage. That's when Lionel and Paquita walk over and see the hideous rat-monkey as it munches on the core. Turning and snarling at them, it goes to the cage wall, grabs the dead monkey's arm, pulls it through one of the gaps in the chain-link, and does so until the arm tears off. The rat-monkey starts munching on the arm and, again, snarls at the

onlookers, while sending the other monkeys into a frenzy. The zookeeper comes running, sees what happened, and removes the dead monkey from the cage, with the rat-monkey swiping at him through the chain-link. Holding the dead monkey, he explains to Lionel and Paquita the story behind the rat-monkey's origins. Blood from the corpse leaks onto Paquita's shoes and she goes to sit down, although Lionel is so intrigued by the story that it takes him a moment to realize it. As they sit down on a bench, Vera is revealed to be watching them

from nearby. Standing behind a bush in front of the rat-monkey cage, she slips and falls back against it. The rat-monkey promptly jumps up and bites her on the left arm. Her screams sound throughout the zoo, getting the attention of other visitors and the animals. Lionel and Paquita turn to see Vera's arm getting chewed on until she wrenches it away. Enraged, she smacks the rat-monkey down with her purse and, as its head sticks through the bars, slowly crushes it into a blood pulp with her shoe in front of a group of horrified onlookers. Lionel and

Paquita join them, as Vera shows the zookeeper what the rat-monkey did to both her arm and her dress. Paquita offers to help her but Vera shoves her aside and has Lionel take her home.

That night, Lionel puts Vera to bed, kisses her goodnight, and leaves the room. He goes to his own bedroom and starts to prepare for bed, when he hears the sound of Paquita calling for him outside his window. He walks out onto the balcony, as she loudly tells him she brought him his jacket, which he left at the zoo. He tries to send her away, saying he'll get it tomorrow, but when she refuses to leave, he has her climb up an unfinished trellis. After making sure Vera didn't wake up, he fumbles

across his bed when Paquita reaches the window and climbs out onto the landing with her. Once he gets his jacket, he tries to send her away, turning down her offer for another date and saying he can't see her at all. But, when she's clearly crushed and is just about to leave, she gives him a red rose. This prompts him to stop her and then, the two of them kiss and embrace, with Paquita remembering her grandmother's words, "There will be one romance, and it shall last forever." Meanwhile, Vera is shown tossing, turning, and moaning in her sleep, as her

bandaged bite begins to bleed, with an inside look showing an infection spreading. While Lionel and Paquita get up to a nice time in his bedroom, elsewhere her grandmother uses the tarot cards and comes up with such horrifying predictions as "OPPRESSION," "FAILURE," "DEBAUCH," "DEFEAT," "SORROW," and, worst of all, "DEATH." At the same time, just as Lionel and Paquita reach the peak of their pleasure, pus-filled, pinkish blood squirts out of Vera's wound, hitting a picture of Lionel's late father. Paquita's grandmother then takes out a medallion consisting of a star and the moon.

The next morning, Lionel happily goes into Vera's bedroom and opens the blinds, remarking on what a beautiful day it is, when he looks over at her and sees how horribly sick she is. He removes the bandage and is shocked when he sees the bite wound is badly infected and pulsating. He dabs it with a wet cotton-ball but this only causes her more pain. He says he's going to get Nurse McTavish but Vera stops him, insisting he be the one to look after her. The front doorbell rings and

he answers it to find it's Nora Matheson, the president of the Wellington Ladies' Welfare League, and her husband, Albert. Remembering how she was going to come over and personally congratulate Vera for becoming treasure-elect, Lionel rushes back upstairs and tells her they're here. Gasping hoarsely, Vera begins getting ready, putting on makeup and, ignoring Lionel when he says she's not well, ordering him to get her dress. When she's frantically putting on her makeup, a bit

of flesh on her cheek tears, to which she simply responds, "Oh." Seeing this, Lionel, again, begs her to go back to bed and let him send the Mathesons away, but Vera won't have it. He uses an adhesive to glue the patch of skin back onto her face, though he struggles to keep it from looking crooked. That leads into the lunch scene, where Vera sits at the table, shaking and barely able to talk with Nora, before stealing the meat from her plate and munching on it. With that, Nora attempts to end the lunch, when Albert exclaims, "What? No

pudding?!" That, of course, leads into the disgusting custard scene, which culminates in Nora seeing Vera eat her own severed ear and her rushing out of the dining room, on the verge of vomiting, much to her oblivious husband's confusion, as he comments, "Touchy on the old food front, eh?" Lionel then sees Albert out, turning to look as Vera's earring drops out of her mouth. Once the Mathesons have left, Lionel finds his mother munching on some meat in the kitchen. That's when she asks him not to let them take her away and he promises he won't.

Lionel is shown cleaning up some... mess Vera left for him in the foyer (the brown, slimy stains on the floor put some really bad suggestions in my head), when Paquita shows up with Fernando. She tries to warn Lionel about dark forces her grandmother claims are massing against him, while Fernando runs upstairs. They then hear Fernando barking and growling, as well as Vera yelling, and rush up to her bedroom. When they get there, they find Vera sitting beside her bed, with something hanging out

of her mouth. Lionel pulls it out to reveal it's a very big chunk of Fernando's remains. Horrified, Paquita yells, "Your mother ate my dog!" (which is actually the movie's Spanish title!), although Lionel concedes, "Not all of it," as the camera pulls back to show a bloody and furry mess on the bed. Just as Paquita starts crying, Vera growls and shoves Lionel, then charges and claws at Paquita. Lionel tackles his mother and they tumble down the stairs, all the way to the foyer. There, Lionel

holds Vera in his arms and tells Paquita to go get Nurse McTavish. She rushes out the door and returns with McTavish shortly. When she sees how bad off Vera is, McTavish goes to call an ambulance, while Paquita runs upstairs to pack some clothes for the hospital. But, no sooner do they do so than Vera, who's been gasping for breath, lets out a long, hoarse moan before falling silent. McTavish takes Vera from Lionel, examines her, and places her on the floor, breaking it to Lionel that his mother is dead. But just as Lionel

starts crying and McTavish tries to comfort him, Vera rises up behind her as a zombie and grabs her face. She tears into her cheeks and then pulls her head back, ripping open her neck. She tosses McTavish's body aside, grabs Lionel, and throws him, causing him to slide across the floor and into the sitting room. His foot hits a knob on the radio, which plays really happy music that covers up what's happening for Paquita upstairs. As Lionel is almost getting strangled by Vera, Paquita asks which toothbrush is hers and he just manages to

say it's the green one. Vera lets him go and Lionel gets to his feet and stumbles out of the sitting room, with Vera lunging for him. He backs into the foyer and along the side of the staircase, grabbing a pitcher and smashing it over her head. Fortunately for him, a play being broadcast on the radio then says, "Sorry, mother, that was your favorite teapot. It slipped out of me hand," making Paquita think it was the source of the noise.

As Lionel backs up towards the door leading down into the basement, the now undead McTavish rises up behind him and grabs him by the neck. Vera lunges for him and he ducks down, causing her to grab McTavish. While they're distracted, Lionel grabs a bird ornament from the wall and flings it at McTavish, hitting her in the forehead and causing her almost severed head to flop over onto her back. The two zombies rush at Lionel but he manages to send Vera tumbling down into the basement. He

then deals with McTavish, who circles around him, staring at him, her vision upside down due to her head having flopped over. She stumbles, her head falls back into place, and Lionel takes the opportunity and picks up her legs from behind, shoves her through the door, and sends her falling down the stairs. He quickly closes and locks the door, just as Paquita, unaware of what's happened, comes downstairs with Vera's bags packed. Lionel, standing up against the door, tells her that

McTavish took Vera to the hospital in her car. He leads her to the sitting room so she won't hear the commotion going on down in the basement and takes the night-bag himself. The zombies start pounding on the other side of the door and Lionel turns up the volume on the radio to drown it out. He starts laughing at the play being performed and totally ignores Paquita, who leaves in a huff. After spending the night with the two zombies moaning and roaring down there, Lionel goes to the

veterinary clinic and gets a big bottle of animal tranquilizers. When he returns to the house, he walks down into the basement, armored with anything he could find. He cautiously goes down the stairs and into the middle of the basement, searching among the junk down there for the two zombies. At one point, he gets startled and falls to the floor, when a rat comes running at him. That's when McTavish comes down at him but he gets her in the left eye with the syringe, causing her head to fall back again. Lionel gets to his feet and switches

on the overhead light, when Vera jumps him from behind. She pins him to the ground and he has to hold her off while also grabbing for the syringe that's still sticking in the now sedated McTavish's eye. He yanks it out and injects Vera into her right nostril. She passes out immediately and Lionel breathes a sigh of relief. However, that night, he has a nightmare about his recurring images of drowning, this time involving a blond woman's head just below the surface of the water.

The next day, he goes to Paquita's store and asks to see her grandmother about those "dark forces." Using the tarot cards, she tells him that death is all around him, that "there will be torment and suffering," and that he has been marked. As Vera is shown breaking out of the basement and the house, Paquita's grandmother gives him the pendant with the moon and star, saying it contains the power of the "white light." On his way out, he tells Paquita that his mother is going to stay in the hospital for a

few more days, all while she wanders the streets of Wellington. She's hit by a tram and sent flying through the store's front window, sliding and landing at Lionel and Paquita's feet. While Paquita screams, Vera grabs at Lionel's leg but he quickly takes out a syringe and injects her, knocking her back out. Several witnesses, including the one driving the tram, run inside and Lionel tells Paquita, "They must've discharged her early," while gripping the pendant behind his back. Come the

day of Vera's funeral, which is when Uncle Les makes his appearance, immediately hitting on Paquita when he sees her, Lionel sneaks into the mortuary, finding a room where Vera's body is being pumped full of embalming fluid. He prepares to inject her again, but then has to hide when he hears someone coming. The undertaker and his dopey assistant come in to see the fluid blow out of every hole in her head. The undertaker switches the machine off and, once the fluid stops spraying,

slaps his assistant, calling him a half-wit. Though the assistant offers to get the mop, the undertaker says they need to get the body to the church as quickly as possible, popping the eyes back into their sockets after the discharge of fluid caused them to bulge out. In the next scene, the service gets underway, while Lionel sneaks into the room containing the coffin and struggles to get it open. As Father McGruder delivers the sermon, talking about what a fine woman and mother Vera was, her hand explodes out of the coffin and grabs Lionel by

the neck. He tries to inject her but she knocks the syringe out of his hand in their struggle and pounces on him as he goes to grab it. He shoves her off him, grabs the syringe, and jumps to his feet as she charges at him. He is able to inject her, but she pushes him through the glass behind him and they tumble out into the middle of the service, stopping it cold. While Les laughs at this, Paquita sits there stunned, and McGruder is annoyed, everyone else runs to see Lionel lying on the floor, holding Vera's "corpse." After the funeral, Paquita tries to talk to Lionel but he tells her he wants to be left alone and walks away. Elsewhere, Les overhears the mourners talking about the inheritance Lionel is to get as the sole beneficiary, putting a cigarette in his mouth and smiling menacingly.

That night, Lionel returns to the churchyard and digs up Vera's grave, only to be found and accosted by a group of punks. Void, the whiskey-chugging leader, accuses him of being a necrophiliac, which the others laugh at, and picks him up and tosses him into their hands. He then punches him in the gut and shoves him onto the ground, where the others start kicking him. Void tells them to get his wallet, while he relieves himself on Vera's grave and headstone. Suddenly, her hand explodes out of

the dirt and grabs his crotch, pulling him down until the two of them are face to face when the rest of her emerges. An explosion of blood occurs on the underside of his torso and he's then thrown clear and hits one of the fleeing boys, Scroat, knocking him to the ground. He's horrified to see Void's rib-cage completely exposed, when Vera comes running, grabs him, and bites into his neck. Lionel runs at Vera but she knocks him back and continues feeding on her victim. McGruder

comes running out and, seeing the other two fleeing, goes to see what's happening. Both Void and Scroat resurrect as zombies and, along with Vera, they corner Lionel. McGruder appears atop a tomb and, seeing what's going on, tells Lionel, "Stay back, boy. This calls for divine intervention!" He jumps down, kicks Scroat in the face, throws Vera to Lionel, allowing him to sedate her, and easily throws Scroat and Void off him when they grab him from behind. He proceeds to completely own them, flooring Scroat with a series of

roundhouse kicks, kicking Void repeatedly in the chest before spin-kicking him in the head, blocks a blow from Scroat, punches him in the face, tears his right arm off, easily fends off Void when he comes at him again, delivers some more kicks to Scroat from over his left arm, which he holds in place, and, after knocking Void back, rips off Scroat's other arm. After kicking the crap out of Void again, he does a leg-sweep that rips Scroat's legs out from under him, leaving him a torso with bleeding stumps where his limbs once were.

Another kick sends his screaming head flying up into the air, while McGruder kicks and then throws Void, causing him to smash his head right through a gravestone. But then, Scroat's severed head lands on McGruder's shoulder and he bites into him. Throwing him and seeing the blood on his hand, McGruder charges at Void, going in for a flying kick. However, Void grabs and throws him, impaling him through the chest on the upward-stretched hand of an angel statue. Lionel does manage to sedate Void but it's too late for McGruder.

The next day, now with four zombies to deal with, Lionel laces some food with tranquilizer and takes it into the dining room, where they're sitting. He gives each of them a bowl and spoon, which Void refuses to use but Lionel actually makes him do it, as if he were his mother. Void does then use it but shoves it into his mouth too hard and it goes out the back of his head. Meanwhile, Lionel has to help Nurse McTavish with the disgusting problem she has with her split open neck, while Vera steals

from the spoon-tip sticking out of Void's head, with him reacting like a baby. Lionel, after putting McTavish's head back on right, goes to help Void, but then has to stop McTavish and McGruder from getting too intimate. Unfortunately, the doorbell rings and he goes to answer, telling the zombies to be quiet, but he gives McTavish and McGruder the opportunity to act on their impulses. Finding it's Uncle Les at the door, Lionel tries to stop him from coming in but he pushes by him, saying he needs to

use the restroom, and remarks on the foul smell in the place. After he relieves himself, Les brings up the subject of what Vera was going to leave him, saying she didn't get the chance to include him in the will. They then hear some moaning coming from behind the door to the dining room, a sound Lionel initially says is just the pipes. However, Les recognizes that it's someone doing the nasty and tries to go in and see, but Lionel stops him. He asks if it's audio from one of his dad's stag movies and Lionel merely nods at this, when the sound

becomes really loud and passionate. Lionel then manages to get Les to leave when he tries to go in again, with Les saying, "I understand, Lionel. Some things a man prefers to do on his own. It's all part of the grieving process." On his way out, he tells him, "Be seeing you, Lionel." Once he's gone, Lionel goes back into the dining room and pries McTavish and McGruder off each other, the former tearing half of the latter's face off in the process and with her head then flopping back as she chews on the flesh. Lionel puts them down in the basement, but while he's gone, McTavish falls to the floor, as her stomach is now suspiciously swollen.

While coming back from town to get more tranquilizer, Lionel tries to hide from Paquita when he passes by her store but is unsuccessful when the car he ducks behind drives away, exposing him. She confronts him about how he's been avoiding her and he tells her it was a mistake for the two of them to start seeing each other. He then tries to walk off, but when Paquita starts crying, he runs up to her and attempts to explain himself. She wants nothing to do with him, and when Roger pulls up

and sees Lionel grabbing at her, he thinks he's assaulting her. He runs at them, punches Lionel in the face, knocking him to the ground, and tells him to stay away from Paquita. When Lionel returns home and goes down into the basement, he sees Nurse McTavish lying on the floor. He also notices that the radio he had playing for them down there is starting to malfunction. He tries to fix it, when a small, clawed hand rips through its front. The whole thing shorts out and falls over onto the floor upside down. Lionel then sees a pair of little,

gooey feet sticking out of the bottom and grabs them and pulls up McTavish and McGruder's zombie baby, who's holding a rat in his hand. Initially, Lionel smiles at this, but then the baby lunges at his face, grabs onto him, and Lionel throws him and falls to the floor. While he lays there, the baby crawls up onto him and across him, going for his face, but his umbilical cord gets snagged around a nail, just keeping him from reaching him. Lionel crawls out from under him, he gets yanked back by the cord, and Lionel puts a bucket on him.

After the scene where Lionel tangles with the zombie baby at the park, and then spots Paquita on a date with Roger while heading home, he returns to the house, only to find the door down to the basement open. Frightened, he looks down there and sees that all the zombies are still there, much to his relief. Unfortunately, Uncle Les shows up and, having seen them himself, thinks they're corpses and that Lionel is into necrophilia. He then goes to call the police, saying he'll be an accessory after the fact if he doesn't. Lionel, after tossing the

zombie baby down there, sits at the bottom of the stairs as Les gets through to the police. That's when Les comes up with the notion of being more inclined to protect Lionel if he were to get his "fair share" of the estate, namely the money and the house. When Lionel reluctantly agrees to those terms, Les hangs up the phone and walks out, saying, "Blood is thicker than water, Lionel." In the next scene, Lionel has all of the zombies tied up and prepares to sedate them, when he's distracted by the sound of music playing upstairs. Void gets

loose and comes at him, causing him to stumble and spill a bit of the tranquilizer everywhere. He doesn't drop the bottle, to his relief... until he steps on a rake and the handle hits him in the back of the head. As Void dances to the music, Lionel heads upstairs and is about to go out the door, when a bunch of people come through it, including a guy carrying a crate full of beers. It turns out Les is having a housewarming party, and when Lionel tries to leave, he stops him, shoves him into the kitchen, and warns him to get rid of the stiffs.

Soon, the party is in full swing, with people dancing everywhere, drinking, and smoking, as Lionel is forced to walk around like a waiter while carrying a platter of cheeses and other appetizers. One of the guests hears someone banging on the other side of the basement door and opens it up to see Void standing there. He promptly headbutts him, knocking him out, and walks into the midst of the party, still dancing to the music. Lionel sees this but is distracted by an amorous woman who's

hitting on him. Outside, Paquita and Roger walk by and the former, looking at the house and seeing and hearing the festivities going on inside, ditches her date and heads there. Back inside, Void throws a nerdy guy onto a couch and attempts to attack him, although the guy thinks he has a gay crush on him. Lionel smacks him over the head with a bottle of whiskey, but this just angers him. When he comes at him, Lionel pours the whiskey down his throat and the zombie actually gets drunk. Paquita enters the house and, after fighting off Les by kneeing him in the balls (one of many times he'll get hit there, by the way), she manages to slip through the door leading to the basement.

Paquita heads on down into the basement, where she sees the zombies sitting, but is unable to tell what they are because of how dark it is. It's only when she gets near them and says hello that they turn to look at her. McGruder grabs her and pulls her to him, as the other zombies snarl at her, but she manages to get loose and run back up the stairs. At that point, Void comes through the door and comes at her. She tumbles down the stairs and he falls on top of her, but Lionel is able to stop him by impaling him through the head with the rake,

hoisting him up, and putting the handle in a vice. Paquita is initially horrified of both Lionel and the zombies, but then remembers the words of her grandmother: "Death surrounds him." Lionel says he doesn't know what to do about them and Paquita tells him he must destroy them. Naturally, he's reluctant to do so to his mother, but Paquita tells him that zombie is no longer his mother. With that, Lionel grabs a large bottle on a shelf that's labeled POISON, while upstairs, Les is unable to dance because his balls still hurt. Now, with the syringe

full of the poison, Lionel prepares to inject his mother, but has a hard time going through with it. Ultimately, despite Paquita's offer to do it for him, Lionel, after kissing his mother on the forehead, injects her and she appears to expire. As he sobs, Paquita hugs him and he then proceeds to do the same to the others, after which he and Paquita bury them. They head upstairs and prepare to leave, but Les refuses to let Lionel go until the paperwork about the house is done. Paquita tries to get past Les but he grabs and flings her against the

wall. This enrages Lionel, who socks him right in the face, only for Les to charge and slam him against the basement door, before opening it and throwing him back down in there. Locking Lionel in, he grabs Paquita and drags her into the kitchen in order to have his way with her. As Lionel goes to get up, he spies the bottle of "poison," realizing that was only a health warning. Turning the bottle over, he sees that the liquid is actually animal stimulants. While Les throws Paquita into a

laundry room off from the kitchen and she fights him off, Lionel watches as the zombies explode out of the ground, now supercharged from the stimulants. As they roar at him in deep voices, Lionel runs up the stairs, only for the zombie baby to explode out and fly at him. He manages to kick him away and pounds frantically on the door, yelling for help. As the zombies approach, he grabs the pendant for protection, when the door is opened by the same person who opened it for Void earlier.

Lionel closes and locks the door behind him, then tells the man to run before doing so himself. The door falls down on top of the man, pinning him to the floor, then Void crawls up on him, rips open his chest, and tears out his rib-cage, all while he watches and screams in pain. This is where the massacre begins, as the zombies run into the midst of the party, with Void grabbing a guy, slamming him down to the floor, and holding him as McGruder rips the flesh off his screaming, bloody skull. Nurse McTavish bites into a woman's throat

and rips it out, Void slams another woman against the wall, punches into her midsection, and rips out her innards and holds them up to her face before she dies, and Lionel runs for the cover in the laundry room where Paquita and Les are. Les apparently got kicked in the balls yet again, and Lionel closes the door behind him, only for a zombie's hands to break through and grab him from behind. Paquita tries to pry him loose and yells for Les to help, but Les, instead, smashes out the window and climbs outside. Paquita grabs a pair of

scissors and stabs the zombie in the hand until it comes off, while all of the dead party-goers out in the foyer resurrect. Even though the zombie's hand is severed, it still crawls up to Lionel's face and sticks its finger in his nose before he grabs it and throws it away. The zombies start coming through the wall and the two of them try to escape through the window, only for more zombies to appear outside. They become surrounded in that small room, though Paquita pulls a rope that drops some

hanging laundry onto the zombies, disorienting them enough to give her the chance to run back out into the house, while Lionel fights them off inside. Outside, Les manages to stave the zombies off with a small lawn gnome, throwing it and hitting one in the head, before running for another section of the house that a woman tried to get into before she was grabbed into the bushes. Inside, some of the party-goers who are still alive barricade the doors, when a man tries to slip in through a window whose paneling

opens only just a little bit. The others pull him through, but his legs get ripped apart to the point that, when they do pull him all the way through, they're nothing but bloody bones. A woman screams, only for Void to punch through the back of her head and out her mouth, before reaching for a girl who manages to get up and run. Back in the laundry room, Lionel manages to break his way through the wall and get into another part of the house. He then finds himself surrounded by

zombies, as they either tear into victims or munch on body parts (this carnage trumps anything seen in George Romero's movies), and when they then start to converge on him, he tries to run but can't get any traction because of all the blood on the linoleum floor. He walks across the body parts on the floor, using them as stepping stones, and manage to get across and head to the stairs. He steps right on the now zombified guy whose legs were eaten and he gets grabbed himself but  bymanages to get free, although Void jumps on him momentarily.

He runs up the stairs, nearly getting grabbed by a zombie in the corner, and is chased by Void into a bathroom. Though he closes the door, Void starts smashing it down, while elsewhere, the guy Void tried to attack before gets munched on. Paquita, wielding a butcher knife, hides in a cupboard in the kitchen, only to find someone else in there too. Initially trying to attack and stab them, she then sees it's Rita, the woman from before. Outside, Les runs into a tool shed, with some zombies led by McGruder right on his tail. He grabs a pitchfork,

manages to stick McGruder, and flings him over him. He closes the door and uses a shovel as a way to brace it, and when faced with McGruder, who's still in there, he punches him, puts him into a headlock, grabs a pair of pliers, and starts pulling his teeth out one by one. Back in the kitchen, Paquita tries to block the window to keep more zombies from getting in, with Rita helping her. Suddenly, Rita's friend, Mandy, the woman who got punched through the back of the head, appears,

now a zombie herself, obviously. Rita tries to reason with her but Mandy attacks. Paquita grabs her, slams her against the wall, and then slams her against a light-bulb sticking out of a socket on another part of the wall. The bulb and socket go into her head from the back and light it up in an orange color, making it look almost like a jack-o-lantern. Upstairs, Void tries to get at Lionel in the bathroom by crawling through the smashed open part of the door. Lionel smacks him down and impales his torso through the wooden shrapnel on

the bottom part, but this doesn't stop him, as his torso detaches from his waist and he continues crawling at Lionel. He jumps at him and tries to bite him, the two of them falling into the bathtub. Outside, the zombies surround the tool shed Les is in, when he comes out and chops one zombie's head in half vertically with a pair of hedge clippers, and the severed cranium is then kicked away by Les. Back inside, Void's innards fall out of the hole in the bottom of his torso as he tries to get at Lionel

in the tub. When he's distracted by this, Lionel grabs and throws him, landing him in the toilet. Lionel, putting the seat down on Void, tries to run out, only to get kicked by his waist area, which is walking around by itself. He ducks back inside and, spying a panel on the ceiling, attempts to climb up through it, as Void swipes at him. That's when he realizes the innards are now sentient and after him, as the long intestine snags his foot and he looks down to see them, including the lungs and

trachea, looking up at him (the trachea expels air like a fart, which made me initially think it was his anus). Another intestine grabs his other leg, but then, Void accidentally flushes the toilet, which overflows and heads for the innards. In response, they let go of Lionel and jump into the sink. While they're then distracted by their reflection in the mirror, Lionel makes it up to the attic, blocking the way with a wooden trunk. He crawls across the boards, when the pendant tumbles out of his pocket and turns by itself, the star pointing at the trunk. Lionel decides to look inside the trunk and finds a film reel, as well as an old picture of his dad and another woman, whom he recognizes as the woman he saw drowning in his nightmare.

Paquita and Rita continue barricading themselves in the kitchen, when the zombie baby pops out of a box the latter is holding and bites into her neck. She throws him to the floor and Paquita smashes a chair over him, but he just laughs at this. He isn't laughing when she kicks him across the room, but then laughs again when he gets bounced back towards her, only for her to hold out a frying pan, which his face bashes into. He gets knocked into a blender and she's about to turn it on, when he starts crying. For a moment, she hesitates, since he is a

baby, but then, he projectile vomits in her face. With that, she switches the blender on, only to look and see he jumped up to a light hanging from the ceiling. The light breaks loose and he has an, "Oh, crap!", look on his face as he falls towards the spinning blender. He gets wedged right above the spinning blade, pops up, Paquita punches him, sending him through the window, and he flies across the lawn and hits Les in the crotch with his head. Enraged, Les tries to get the baby with the hedge clippers, but his hairpiece falls off and all he

manages to do is snip that. The baby, now able to walk, runs off, while a number of other zombies converge on Les. He grabs the lawn gnome from earlier and jams it into the stump of the zombie whose head he sheared in half before running for it. As Paquita tends to Rita's bite wound, Les pops up outside the window, banging on it and yelling for help. Naturally, Paquita isn't inclined to help him, but Rita says they must and they remove the barricade from the window and open it up. They

pull Les in, and though one of the zombies grabs his foot, its hand gets severed when the window comes down on it. Half-crazed over what's happening, Les then sees the bite on Rita's neck and raves about how she's going to turn into a zombie herself. The refrigerator, which they put up against the door, falls over and the zombies try to squeeze their way in. Les and Paquita struggle to put it back up, while Rita touches her bite wound. Up in the attic, Lionel finds more pictures of his father and the other woman, revealing they were having an affair. At the bottom of the trunk, he finds the remains of the woman herself under a dress. Suddenly, an intestine rips through the bottom of the trunk and snags his neck.

In the kitchen, they've barricaded themselves again successfully, when Les threatens Rita with a meat cleaver. Paquita tries to fight him off but he proves too strong for her. Just as he's about to kill her, Mandy, who's still stuck on the wall via the light fixture, rips loose and comes at him. He swings around and plants the cleaver into her head, sending sparks blowing out as she futilely reaches for him. Meanwhile, Lionel gets a break when the trunk falls over and the intestine choking him gets caught under it and snaps. He crawls away, only for

his foot to get snagged on a section of insulated electric cable attached to the boards. Seeing that Void's innards are crawling after him, he struggles to get free, when another intestine goes up his pants leg. The section of floor under him gives way and he falls through the roof above the foyer, the force of it yanking Mandy back against the wall by the cord in the socket, and ends up suspended right above the bottom of the staircase. The pendant falls out of his pocket to the floor and the zombies start converging on him, while the innards crawl down the cable after him.

A bunch more zombies burst through the laundry room wall and into the kitchen, but Les proceeds to crazily hack them to bits with a pair of meat cleavers. Paquita and Rita run out the door, when the former sees the predicament Lionel is in. She and Rita try to help him, but one of them accidentally kicks the pendant across the floor. A zombie lunges at Paquita but she smashes a large potted plant over his head, when the innards snag Lionel's foot again and start pulling him back up.

In the kitchen, Les lights himself a cigarette after filling the room with twitching, severed body parts, and then takes a swig from his inhaler, when the zombie with the gnome in his stumped neck comes at him. Paquita and Rita are forced up the stairs, while Lionel lifts himself up, bites into the intestine, and falls loose. He falls farther down, smashing another zombie's head with his own, and as he's still suspended from the cord, McTavish and McGruder, who still has the pitchfork sticking out of him,

come at him from either side. However, McTavish gets impaled by the pitchfork's handle and the two zombies, regardless, go in for a kiss. McTavish's head then falls back, confusing McGruder, and Lionel punches him, causing him to fall back on the floor, bringing McTavish with him. As McTavish tries to free herself, it looks as though they're screwing again (they may actually be, for all I know).

While Paquita and Rita flee more zombies upstairs, Les literally grinds up the lawn gnome zombie, spilling his guts out. Hearing the girls scream, he remarks, "Just as well someone around here's got balls, eh, girls?!", and snidely laughs, when he gets kicked in the crotch yet again, this time by the baby doing so with a severed leg. Seeing the baby run out, Les chases him with a meat cleaver, smashing right through the wall. He runs after him through the foyer, pushing the still hanging Lionel aside, and chases the baby down into the basement,

as something begins to emerge from the floor. While Paquita and Rita continue to deal with zombies, Lionel grabs onto the staircase's handrail and crawls his way up it, futilely trying to help them, when he sees he's right across from them. He spies the pendant on the floor below him, then sees a zombie attempt to bite Paquita. He lets go of the rail and swings at them, grabbing the zombie and yanking him over the railing. All the zombie manages to do is get his dentures on Paquita's arm, while his body totally splatters on the floor below.

As Lionel swings back, the cord he's snagged on finally snaps and he goes right through a window. Down in the basement, Les searches for the baby, when an enormous, clawed hand rises up behind him and taps him on his shoulder. He turns around and sees Vera's new, monstrous form, as she grabs him (by the balls, of course) and, as we see in shadow, tears him apart, while the baby watches and laughs from nearby. Upstairs, Void's severed torso and waist menace Rita and Paquita, but they

manage to each grab a leg and rip it in half like a wishbone. They attempt to use the legs to fend off the hordes of zombies on either side of them but instead run down the stairs. Rita collapses at the bottom and tells Paquita to leave her, as the zombies close in on them both. The cranium of the one zombie whose head was snapped in half gets slid over to them, but Paquita knocks him across the floor to the front door, which suddenly opens, smacking him back across. When the girls and zombies look, they see Lionel standing there, wielding the lawnmower. He declares, "Party's over," revs up the mower, and starts walking towards the zombies, as they rush at him.

Of course, this is when the zombies get turned into mincemeat by the mower, with blood and body parts flying everywhere and covering the floor as Lionel makes his way through them. But, once he gets on the other side, he finds there are still plenty of zombies left and goes back in for another pass. As more zombies are torn apart, Paquita and Rita head back into the kitchen, when the cranium slides in with them. Tired of him, Paquita grinds him up in the blender, while Lionel tears up McTavish and McGruder, who are still seemingly

fornicating on the floor. Paquita grinds up any body parts that get flung into the kitchen, while Lionel, respectfully turning around a portrait of the Queen, really goes to town, grinding up zombie after zombie after zombie, and getting splattered with so much goop and gore that he has to stop and wipe it off his face, letting out a maddened yell at one point. Paquita continues to do the same in the kitchen, when a hand she's grinding up grabs her hair. Les shows up as a torn apart zombie and is still a pervert, as he goes at Rita and puts his hands

on her shoulder, with drool coming out of his mouth. Before he can have his way with her, Paquita, after finishing with the hand, rips his spine and head completely out of his body, spits in his face, swings him around, and smashes his face into a bloody pulp on the counter. Out in the foyer, it looks as though Lionel has wiped them all out, when Void appears at the top of the stairs, his torso sitting atop his waist. Lionel tries to rev the mower back up, but it proves to be obstinate, as Void's

torso launches itself at him. He lands right on top of the still blade, knocking Lionel to the floor. As he tries to grab at him from the other side of the mower, Lionel tries to reach the cord himself but has to use a nearby severed arm to do so. When he yanks it, Void's torso is spun around on the blade and Lionel maneuvers the mower and sets it down across from him. As Void spins around, an intestine grabs Lionel's neck but he grabs Void's arm and holds him in place, allowing the blades to slice him

up, covering Lionel with even more blood and guts. Unfortunately, Void's innards pounce on him, while in the kitchen, Paquita grinds up what's left of Les. She notices that Rita seems to have lost consciousness and approaches her. She awakens with a gasp, as her throat bulges, a pair of small hands burst out of the sides of her head, and her face is torn in half to reveal the laughing zombie baby.

He uses her body as a way to menace Paquita, when Mandy's head bursts into flames from the power surges coming through the light socket she's impaled on. Paquita ducks when the baby comes at her and opens up a gas valve. An explosion engulfs the room, though Paquita manages to dodge it, while outside, Lionel forces the innards wrapped around his face towards the mower's spinning blades. Realizing what he's doing, the organs jump away and onto the floor. Lionel is about to bring the mower down on them, when he sees the

pendant stuck in them. Paquita shows up, punches the trachea, grabs the pendant, and gives it to Lionel with a kiss. With that, Lionel finally puts an end to this persistent nuisance and brings the mower down it, ignoring its pleas for mercy as it puts the tips of the lungs together as though it were begging. He pushes the mower away and embraces Paquita, but then tells her she needs to leave, as he hasn't seen Vera in all this chaos. That's when she erupts from the floor behind them with a roar and,

as they look at what she's become in terror, she focuses on them and says, "Come to mommy, Lionel." The two of them run up the stairs and into Lionel's bedroom, where they attempt to escape through a window. Vera rips her way through the wall and they instead climb up through a chimney, reaching the roof of the house, which is now on fire. Vera smashes up through the roof and stomps towards them, as they're now truly trapped.

As she looms over and roars at them, Lionel stands up to his mother for the first time in his life, telling her that he's not afraid of her, as well as revealing that he knows she murdered both his father and her lover in the bathtub. A flashback to her doing so reveals that young Lionel saw everything, but the memory was repressed by Vera always lying to him about it. Paquita then finds a line stretching away from the house and yells to Lionel, but Vera smacks her, sending her tumbling across the roof. She manages to grabs onto a pole sticking out of it,

when Vera moves to send her falling to her death. Lionel growls, "Don't you touch her!", but Vera swings around and slams her huge fist down on the roof, causing Lionel to lose his footing and slide towards her. She says, "No one will ever love you like your mother," as her stomach splits open and Lionel slides into it. Paquita screams as Lionel is slowly absorbed into Vera and her stomach closes back up. Having been truly reunited with her son, Vera turns her attention to Paquita and uses her enormous finger to pull one of her hands off the

pole. A part of her face falls off, but Vera ignores it and moves to send Paquita plummeting off to her death. The other side of her face then falls off and she recoils and moans in pain, when the pendant rips through her midsection. Her stomach opens up and a tidal wave of blood and innards spill out onto the roof, with Lionel getting swept along in them. Vera falls back through the hole in the roof behind her and an explosion rips up through the center of the house. Paquita starts to slip off the edge of the

roof, when Lionel emerges from the mass of blood and innards. He quickly wraps his belt around the line, hangs down by it, grabs Paquita, and, after kissing her, the two of them slide across and fall to the ground when it's safe enough to drop, a bush breaking their fall. The fire department shows up and prepares to battle the blaze, while inside the burning house, the zombie baby is seen one last time. Behind the group of onlookers, Lionel goes in for another kiss from Paquita, then decides to toss the pendant away. Paquita tries to stop him but he insists and does it. After that, they kiss passionately and walk off into the night.

Peter Dasent, who'd worked with Peter Jackson before on Meet the Feebles and would go on to score Heavenly Creatures, scored Dead Alive in a memorably bizarre, freakish manner that plays up both the sheer craziness of the movie and also how disturbing it can be. The most memorable part of the score is this often used, high-pitched, screeching motif that accentuates how truly horrific and unsettling this whole thing is, and that same aesthetic is present in the movie at large, especially the third act. Speaking of which, he scores the lawnmower scene with music that's like a cross between carnival tunes and a waltz, making it all the more surreal, and when the monstrous Vera chases Lionel and Paquita up to the roof, it's almost operatic. Dasent also uses a piano for the more heartwarming or poignant moments, such as those between Lionel and Paquita, the moment when Lionel first realizes his mother is dead, and when he struggles to inject his now undead mother with the poison, and he does use some upbeat-sounding music here and there, like the date at the zoo. Finally, Dasent, along with a woman named Jane Lindsay, composed the song that plays over the ending credits, which is this nice, peaceful, romantic tune called The Stars and Moon. Sung by Kate Swadling, it does have some significance to the story, obviously, but it's the last kind of song you'd expect to close out a movie as crazy, sick, and twisted as this. Knowing Jackson, though, I'm sure that was part of the gag.

Call it Dead Alive or Braindead, one thing's for sure: if you're looking for the absolute sickest, bloodiest, most insane movie you can imagine, you need look no further. Like Bad Taste, this movie is truly a marvel and a testament to the amazing talent Peter Jackson displayed from the beginning of getting everything he could out of a movie, no matter the budget. It's always moving, has a cast of memorably quirky characters, becomes more and more outrageous as it goes along, has tons of dark,

nasty, and perverse humor, a look that makes the movie come off as all the more off-putting, numerous memorably disgusting sequences, a third act that is nothing less than a vision of hell, very impressive creature and miniature effects for the budget, a bizarre, off-kilter music score, and, of course, lots and lots of blood and guts. If you're a gorehound like Eli Roth, there's no doubt that this flick will satisfy your bloodlust and also make you laugh along the way, but even then, I caution you to know what you're getting into, as this could upset even the most hardened stomachs. One thing's definitely for sure, though: you'll never see another movie like this, from Jackson or anyone else, ever again.