Dead Alive
A monkey bite turns the white-breaded, overbearing mother of a New Zealand youth into a flesh-eating zombie with the victims as dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors.
24 November 1916, Los Angeles, California, USA
31 October 1961, Pukerua Bay, North Island, New Zealand
1965, Spain
29 December 1959, Naenae, Wellington, New Zealand
21 April 1926, 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair, London, England, UK
1963
1945
12 October 1936, Kiren, Argyllshire, Scotland, UK
10 January 1959, Wellington, New Zealand
October 19, 2016
Dead Alive represents the absolute zenith of director and co-writer Peter Jackson's comedy-horror style.
October 19, 2016
Ordinarily I don't care for this kind of thing at all, but something must be said for Jackson's endless reserves of giddy energy, which are clearly meant to be silly.
February 12, 1993
Horror films used to be primordial spook shows, tapping midnight-dark fears. Now they tap bodily goo: rivers of blood, dripping limbs, eyeballs that go pop in the night.
January 29, 2012
Takes a few views to really appreciate, but Peter Jackson's blood-splattered horror masterpiece is a gory good time.
October 19, 2016
A plasmafest.
October 19, 2016
After you see it, you want to race out of the theater and recommend it to your sickest friends right away.
July 22, 2008
The best to date from Kiwi gore specialist Peter Jackson.
October 19, 2016
This horrendously funny gross-out shocker from Lord of the Rings and King Kong director Peter Jackson is a brilliant black comedy and the ultimate gore movie.
June 25, 2008
Originally released as Braindead, this gory, maccabre satire of 1950s New Zealand society is yet another proof that Peter Jackson is one of the sharpest, most skillful directors working in the genre; a good companion piece to Meet the Feebles.
May 20, 2003
Because all of this looks blatantly unreal, and because the timing of the shock effects is so haphazard, Dead Alive isn't especially scary or repulsive. Nor is it very funny.
October 20, 2011
Lionsgate's visceral, albeit barebones Blu-ray package lets viewers really sink their teeth into Dead Alive.
June 24, 2006
The finale, in which Lionel reduces a horde of flesh-eaters to a mulch of blood, flesh and offal with the aid of a flymo, is probably the goriest scene ever.
