Dead Alive [DVD]

The Film: Dead AliveYear Made: 1993Overview: A man keeps watch over his dominating mother who wants her son's complete attention. When Lionel (her son) meets his love of his life, mother is not happy for him. Things great really ugly after mother is bit by the Sumatran Rat Monkey! Mother begins to get ill and lose more than just her temper, dinner will never be the same again!The Package: 2 Stars. The cover is ok, but I thought it should have been a bit more gory much like the film itself. The inside has no inlay at all, the disc itself is very easy to pop out and holds itself in the holder which is great. The disc is pretty plain though with only a white look to it, no zombies or anything spooky or gory on the disc graphics. Included is the trailer for the film which is great, not much else to say for the package though, thought it could be better.Spook Meter: 2 Stars. Dead alive is not very spooky at all. There are a few parts that will make you jump a little, but overall it's not super spooky. Ok, now it's time to highlight why this film is still a 5 star film. Gory, funny, violent, cheesy acting that is beyond words is what makes this extremely unique and oh so fun to watch. Dead alive will not keep you awake for the night in fear, it's not that kind of film. It will however give you a huge smile and think to yourself at the end of it `this was one of the best moments in horror for a film of its kind that I just seen' I loved the pace of how everything built up. I won't give much away; I never like to do that in my reviews. It starts out kind of tame and builds to a knock your socks off horror event that must be seen to be believed. Another extreme strong point is the sounds of the zombies. In some films the demons or zombies just don't sound that great. Here we get some really excellent sounds. When one zombie's head gets chopped nearly off, the gargle ling sounds that it makes is so gory and gross and so funny at the same time it's worth it just to hear that sound! The other standout and one of my favorite things of the whole film is the zombie baby! I won't give out details of it, just watch for a baby zombie and I thought that is so cool I can't even put it into words! Oh and the lawn mower scene, ok, enough, you have to see this film for yourself, it's indescribable and something that you needs to be seen for yourself.Gore/Violence Meter: 5 Stars. This is where Dead Alive truly makes it's own special mark in horror history. The gore IS truly the most bloody horror film that I have personally ever had the chance to see as of this writing. In fact, I really don't think there is or will be another that could top this as far as gore. Before I bought this, I read other reviews and admit I thought, nah these reviews are probably not really true and it won't be all that gory. I didn't want to get my hopes up and be let down after all. I admit, it really was that gory, my guess is a good part of the films budget just went for fake blood alone! As for the violence, it's extremely violent. Before someone reads this and thinks, no way will they watch Dead Alive because of the gore/violence, I must point out that it's not the same type of extreme violence that can be found in films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. This is not a torture real feeling type violence that makes you cringe as you watch it. It does have a different feel to it, with that said though; no doubt it's 5 stars on the gore/violence meter and then some. If spewing ooooze offends you or makes you sick, DO NOT watch Dead Alive.Profanity Meter: 3 Strikes. There is a fair amount of bad language throughout Dead Alive, it is closed captioned though so you can filter out the bad language if you have a DVD language filter like I do.Sexual Meter: 2 Strikes. The sexual meter was a bit more difficult to determine for this particular film, but I'll describe here what you can expect as a potential viewer so you can decide for yourself if you wish to view this. Ok, there is nearly nothing sexual as far as normal people are concerned in Dead Alive. There are a few kissing scenes and that is it. What is shown are a couple of zombies and ones wants to get a bit "fresh" with the other one. Nothing is really shown however lots of sounds can be herd as two people stand outside of a door and can hear zombies having sex. One other scene is of the another female zombie and her breasts are shown, however what you see is, well, rotted zombie decaying flesh for breasts so it's not exactly anything to be offended by as a viewer. That is it on the sexual meter; I'll let you decide as a viewer what you feel.Final Thoughts: Dead Alive is truly a one of a kind film. It gets a few ideas from something like The Evil Dead, yet it has it's own charm that makes it unique and fresh enough that make it a well deserved 5 star film by itself. If you LOVE GORE, (my hand goes way up, I LOVE gore) you will watch this in absolute sheer delight and have a grin from ear to ear all the way through just as I did. No other film is as gory as this, it's a must have to your horror collection.

What more can be said about Peter Jackson's classic 1992 release Dead Alive (a.k.a. Brain Dead internationally)? It is still my personal favorite film of his ever growing filmography and is still just as hilariously gross and depraved today as when it was first released. People who only know of Peter Jackson from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and his re-make of King Kong are usually shocked when they are exposed to his initial 3 films Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Dead Alive. If you haven't experienced Dead Alive yet, what are you waiting for?!Regarding the blu-ray of Dead Alive that was released by Lionsgate on 10/4/11, I would first like to mention that despite a lot of grumbling around the internet that the picture quality on the blu-ray is supposedly terrible, that is actually not the case at all. I have owned the old anamorphic Trimark DVD of the unrated version for years and did direct comparisons to the blu-ray.The blu-ray is a big step up in overall picture quality from the old Trimark DVD. In fact, the blu-ray shows how blurry in a lot of places the DVD was. Color, textures and especially flesh tones are much improved on the blu-ray release and I find it to easily be the best that the film has ever looked to date. Don't listen to reviews that state that the blu-ray looks worse than the DVD. They either don't actually have the old Trimark DVD for direct comparison or are expecting a low budget horror film from the early 90's to look like The Dark Knight or something on the blu-ray. Could Lionsgate possibly have restored the movie further than was done for this blu-ray release? Perhaps, but since the blu-ray represents such a leap in picture quality over the DVD, I'm very happy as a hardcore Dead Alive fan.One other thing that is important to mention is that the framing of the film is much closer to the original 1.66:1 intended aspect ratio that Peter Jackson shot and intented the film to be shown at. The Trimark DVD was overmatted, specifically at the bottom of the frame. The scene near the third act for instance when the poison bottle rolls over to show the words "animal stimulant" on the back of the bottle completely cut off the S at the bottom of the frame. The top of the picture was also a little overmatted too. Lionsgate has opened up the matting to where most of the S is visible and there is a little more picture information at the top of the frame too so the blu-ray doesn't feel as cramped as the DVD did. If your TV has a "screen fit" mode that you can watch in instead of the usual slightly cropped "16:9" mode like my HDTV does, I recommend watching it in screen fit mode as it still fills up your HDTV. This way no picture information is cut off at all when watching the blu-ray.The other thing that people are complaining about is that the blu-ray like the unrated DVD features the 97 minute cut of the movie instead of the 104 minute international cut. Peter Jackson ha stated multiple times that the 97 minute version is his preferred cut of the film and is what he considers his director's cut. There was a delay in the North American release of Dead Alive as there was another horror film out at the time that had the rights to its original title of Brain Dead. While Trimark was working out the legal problems of trying to work out a deal with the title, Peter Jackson decided to revisit his initial 104 minute New Zealand cut and tighten it up further. Mostly what was removed were some character moments that slowed down the pacing of the film. Yes, a little gore mainly during the infamous lawn mower sequence was removed but all of the cuts that he did were purely for pacing reasons. I have seen both verions and prefer the tighter pacing of the 97 minute cut.Would it have been nice to have a choice of what version to watch on the blu-ray? Yes, it would have been. Also, the blu-ray is bare bones with the exception of the theatrical trailer. I would have loved to seen at least a Peter Jackson commentary track or some kind of featurettes on the film's legacy and importance in Peter's career at that point & time. But, most places are selling this for only 10 bucks and if you love Dead Alive as much as I do, it is well worth shelling out a bit more money to get the film in the much superior picture quality on the blu-ray.So as I stated earlier in this review, don't pay attention to reviews stating that the blu-ray looks horrible. It is a huge improvement over the Trimark DVD released over a decade ago and worth every penny in my opinion!

Was super excited when this came today, popped it into my Blu-Ray player and no go it didn't play. Bummed out because the back said it was a region A B C disc so it should work right? I have a 4K player so I tried it there and lo and behold it worked and looked great. I ordered it from Spain so Spanish is the first language track and since I live in So Cal not a terrible problem not fluent but understand enough to get through it but the second track was original New Zealand English best of both worlds. Overall the look and sound quality of Braindead or here in the states Dead Alive is excellent and well worth the purchase for all of us Horror fans out there!!!