'I kick arse for the Lord' - the gospel according to the kung fu priest (Braindead (DVD))

Member Name: hewhoisme

Product:	Braindead (DVD)
Date:	29/05/09 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gore, more gore, and a zombie baby

Disadvantages: None, providing you have a stomach made out of lead

Long before his big blockbuster debut in Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson was working on much more humble projects, in this case a load of stomach churning zombie madness with about as much storyline as the back of a cereal box. So, it should suck, right? Wrong. Despite the fact that Brain Dead is horribly low budget, awfully acted, and makes about as much sense as the speaking clock talking backwards, it is still an awesome movie. Funny old business ain't it?

Brain Dead follows the life of Lionel Cosgrove, a shy but charming young man who falls for the local shop keeper. It looks like love at first sight, but there's a problem: Lionel's mother. She is a domineering control freak who rules Lionel with a rod of iron, and obviously isn't too happy about him slipping off for romantic afternoons at the local zoo. So she follows him and gets bitten by the rare Sumatran Rat Monkey, a charming little beastie with more than just several sets of teeth in its mouth. Soon Lionel's mother takes a turn for the worse. Her bite has turned septic, bits of her face are falling off, and she's started to get a craving for raw dog. Now Lionel is no longer dealing with an ailing mother, he'd dealing with a zombie mother, and has the number of her victims rises (and of course also the number of zombies) he finds it increasingly hard to keep the outbreak underwraps. Take that, throw in an undead baby, a kung-fu priest, and a lawn mower massacre, and you have Brain Dead.

I won't beat about bush, Braindead is awful. In fact it's so awful it's awesome. The characters are plastic and the special effects, although incredibly disgusting, are certainly not award winning. Take that and mix it with a plot that simply revolves around zombie induced carnage, and you should have the biggest cinematic flop of all time. But you don't, for one simple reason: Brain Dead doesn't take itself seriously. Peter Jackson knew the film was stupid, but instead of breaking his back trying to get it screen worthy he just decided to lie back and have some fun. And fun he had. Brain Dead is an hour and half of pure chaos, filled with sentient intestines, a post-homous relationship between a priest and a nurse, and men with gnomes for heads. It basically contains everything a zombie film should contain, but nobody was brave enough to do it.

Mr Jackson, you've done me proud.

Summary: Pure undead zombie silliness, with a Kiwi twist