Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1462 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-09-09
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
If you're not a connoisseur of graphic horror and gruesome gore, you'd better steer clear of this wicked 1992 horror-comedy from the demented mind and delirious camera of New Zealand-born writer-director Peter Jackson. However, if nonstop mayhem and extreme violence are your idea of great entertainment, you're sure to appreciate Jackson's gleefully inventive approach to a story that can judiciously be described as sick, twisted, and totally outrageous. The movie's central character is a poor schmuck named Lionel who's practically enslaved to his domineering mother. But when ol' Mum gets bitten by a rare and poisonous rat monkey from Skull Island and is turned into a flesh-eating zombie, Lionel has the unfortunate task of keeping Mama happy while fending off all the other zombies that result from her voracious feeding frenzies. If you've read this far, you'll either be crying out for censorship or eagerly awaiting your first viewing (or second, or third...) of this wildly clever and audaciously uninhibited movie. And while director Jackson would later achieve critical success with his fact-based drama Heavenly Creatures, his talent is readily evident in this earlier effort. If you find this kind of thing even remotely appealing, consider Dead Alive a must-see movie. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.com
Peter Jackson proves that if gory is funny, then excessive gory is downright hysterical. As our hapless hero wades through an ankle-deep puddle of blood and entrails, brandishing a lawnmower like a portable Cuisinart at the climax of this zombie-fest, you'll either be screaming with laughter or fleeing in disgust. Timothy Balme stars as the shy mama's boy Lionel, whose controlling shrew of a mother (Elizabeth Moody) starts rotting away, literally, with a vague supernatural disease. Mother dies but refuses to stay down, rising as a flesh-eating zombie infecting everyone she bites. Lionel tries to hide her in the basement, but the victims keep piling up and finally break out when Lionel's blackmailing uncle (a grotesque, leering Ian Watkin) throws a party in the house. It's snack time as the guests become undead hors d'oeuvres and rise again as hungry soldiers of the new zombie army marching on Lionel and his girl Pacquita (the lovely Diana Penalver). New Zealand goremeister Jackson pulls out all stops in this truly outrageous sanguinary comedy, from gross-out gags of oozing puss and rotting body parts at a formal dinner to slapstick antics as Lionel tries to keep his flesh-hungry mother sedated during the funeral to the final Freudian showdown between a now-monstrous mother and the newly liberated Lionel. If you like your horror with a sense of humor or your comedy with gristle, then wade through this taboo-busting bucket of blood. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Finally Delivers
Dead Alive is one of the few films that actually delivers what it promises, it's got the gore. As far as the story is concerned, it's your typical flick, but this movie did something I have never seen in a horror movie before. My favorite scene is probably the girl who gets her head knocked into a light bulb and her head lights up like jack-o-lantern. If you like Evil Dead or Sean of the Dead, you will like this.

My favorite horror movie of all time made by my favorite filmmaker!
I do admit that there are movies scarier than Dead Alive like The Shining and Halloween but Dead Alive has more than that. Loads of gore, humors galore, some good scares, romance, and even more. I could go on. Not to mention the lawnmower sequence which is the best scene in the movie (George Romero should do something like that in his next zombie flick). I give 5 stars for the movie but the DVD is something else. And not in the good way. The movie is in desperate need for a better DVD release with a better picture quality and some extras would be nice too. Other than that one hell of a great horror movie. I guarantee that this will become a horror classic in the future!!!!!

A zombie spoof I don't hate? I think the drugs is kickin in.
This film definitly delivers on its claim to be gory. Now goriest of all time? I wouldn't know that but it's the goriest I seen and has its funny moments too. Dead Alive to me, seems like a spoof of the zombie genre. Even though incredibly stupid at times. I was still entertained for the most part.

I didn't find the story to be good at all. But it was definitly pulled off in a hilarious way. There is a creature called a rat monkey that was taken out of its environment and displayed at the zoo. After a funny incident involving the main characters mother. She's bitten by the creature and comes down with a disease. This disease kills and turns her into a zombie.

The film definitly has alot of funny moments but I don't want to add these spoilers. The complete unpredictability of this film is one of its strengths. I would go so far to say the gore is second in order of rank here. I take my horror very serious at times. And it's hard for me to get into films like this. But the turning of some of these over the top events won me over.

I also get to see exactly what I wanted to see. And that's zombie mayhem. People are getting ripped apart and I love that. So I guess the flick did its job. There's lots of gore here for gores sake. This is one sick flick.

Fans of zombies or zombie spoofs should definitly give this a shot. Horror fans that must witness, 100% pure horror at all times should skip this. This film is not scary in the slightest and it never tries to be.