I've seen a lot of horror movies in my time, and few can compare to the insanely over the top blood and gore of "Dead Alive". Sure, millions and millions of people think that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is Peter Jackson's finest work. But for my money, it just doesn't get any better than his early work about a spreading rat monkey disease which turns people into flesh-eating zombies. If you like this film, be sure to check out "Bad Taste" as well... another hilarious gorefest. That being said, let's get into the beefy chunks of the timeless classic, "Dead Alive".

We start of on Skull Island, and with a name like that, I was expecting hordes of pirates to be running around and pillaging everything in sight. Instead, we find a New Zealand zoo official carrying a crate which contains a Rat Monkey. He intends to bring it back to Wellington, but an angry tribe tries to stop him from taking it because it carries a curse. As he and his guides try to escape, the zoo official gets bit by the monkey in the cage. When his guides notice he has been bitten by the monkey, they start to hack off any body part that has a bite mark because they know of the curse. Unfortunately for him, this includes his head. The guides deliver the monkey to another zoo official and collect on the money all for themselves instead. And so, our little rat monkey friend is on his way to New Zealand.

Back at the local Wellington grocer, we find Paquita, a young girl looking for love. Her grandma just happens to be quite the ol' fortune teller, and proceeds to inform Paquita about her future love. Instead of saying she will find her love in the basement of the Alamo, she tells Paquita that she will recognize him by "the symbol of the star and the moon." A nice cryptic little message for Paquita.

Enter a clumsy customer, Lionel, who is here to pick up some groceries and supplies. He moves to take a piece of candy and knocks over a bunch of crap on the counter. Before he can move it away, Paquita grabs his hands and can't believe that his mess has made the symbol of the star and the moon. Paquita instantly falls in love and Lionel runs the hell out of that store like a jackrabbit back to his home.

Perhaps Paquita should think twice about going out with this guy Lionel though, he's a total momma's boy. In fact, she pretty much rules his life and makes him feel guilty all the time. But Lionel loves his dear old mum and wouldn't want to upset her, so he waits on her hand and foot no matter how ridiculous her demands for a clean household are. Fortunately for Lionel, Paquita has been blinded by love and could care less if he's a slave to the mum or a child pornographer. Soon enough, they're both on a date at... the Wellington Zoo of all places! And guess who's at the zoo now?

Cute lil' bugger, ain't he?

Yep, it's the Rat Monkey from earlier and he's just killed another simian from a nearby cage and devoured one of his arms. I don't know why he's so hostile, I mean they made him a really nice sign: "Simian Raticus - Rat Monkey, Sumatra." If any of you are in an 80's hair metal revival band and are looking for a name, Raticus should be atop your list.

Being the overbearing, controlling old hag that she is, Lionel's mum secretly follows him and Paquita around the zoo. She would have gone unnoticed had she not stood far too close to the cage so that the Rat Monkey could bite her. Angered by the lil' rodent, she smacks it and then digs her high heel into its skull until his eyes pop out and gush blood. Poor lil' fella, he was just hungry. :( Lionel completely ignores the fact that his mum was spying on him and rushes her home to nurse her wounds. I told ya he was a total momma's boy.

By morning, her bite wound has gone from "bad" to "fucking nasty, bloody, & pulsating." But his mum has guests from the Wellington Ladies Wellfare League (WLWL) because she was just voted Treasurer Elect and will not miss this meeting just because of a monkey bite. She starts to put on make-up and manages to slice off a chunk of her face, but Lionel being the quick thinker that he is, glues it right back on. Good as new! So she goes downstairs to have lunch with her guests and by this point she can barely mutter any coherent speech. After lunch, it's time for an extra treat. That's right, it's...

To this day I haven't eaten custard simply because it looked so wiggly and nasty in this film, and it gets worse. This fella really likes his custard, so much in fact that he doesn't even notice that Lionel's Mum's wound has just spurted out some goo into his bowl. He simply eats it up and is delighted by how rich and creamy it is. He's delighted, we're nauseated. Seems like a fair trade-off. And speaking of Lionel's mum...

She apparently enjoys a nice custard as well, but hers has the addition of an ear. Her own rotting ear falls right into the bowl and she scarfs it down along with a spoonful of that nasty looking custard. Hungry yet? Glad to hear it, because there's still plenty left on the menu today.

Paquita the chiquita arrives at Lionel's house and her dog runs upstairs to bark at his mum. They both go up to see what all the ruckus was, and it turns out Lionel's mum was still hungry. "Jor mother ate my dog!" a shocked Paquita exclaims. Easily one of my favorite lines in the film. Lionel then tackles his mum after she tries to attack Paquita and they fall down the stairs. He tells Paquita to call for Nurse McTavish because his mom is obviously quite ill. Ill is putting it lightly, for crissakes she's an ear-munching, dog-eating zombie beast woman. Wake up, Lionel.

Nurse McTavish arrives on the scene only to have mum dig her hands into her cheeks and then proceeds to rip her head back. I should note that it makes a lovely gurgling sound when this happens. Paquita is still upstairs packing some bags for mum, so Lionel throws his zombie mum and the newly zombified Nurse McTavish into the basement hoping that she won't realize what just happened. After she leaves, he goes to the local veterinarian (who just happens to be a Nazi hiding in New Zealand) to pick up some tranquilizer. He doesn't have the heart to kill his mum, so he tranquilizes her with a syringe up the nose instead.

Next, Lionel goes to visit Paquita and she has the old fortune teller lady tell him all about the "dark forces" and "death" that surrounds him. She then gives him an amulet that contains "the power of the white light", so it's safe to assume that it comes from G.E. This amulet will apparently protect him as long as he has it on hand at all times. Meanwhile, Lionel's mum has awoke and escaped from the basement. She's headed straight for him when she gets hit by a trolley. Everybody figures that all the damage to her body was caused by the accident, so they take her to the funeral home to prepare her for a proper burial.

Before her funeral, there was a botch-up with mum's embalming. They left the machine on for too long and by the time they realized it, they found mum's corpse with its eyes popped out and gushing embalming fluid from every orifice. Actually, it looks a lot more like Hi-C Ecto Cooler than real embalming fluid, but I wouldn't be surprised if that stuff could preserve a body for hundreds of years anyway.

After the funeral, Lionel returns to his mother's grave later that night to dig her up because he knows she's still alive (more or less). Before he can dig her up, some punks rough him up a bit and then their leader starts to piss on mum's grave. And it is here that we learn a valuable lesson: don't piss on somebody's grave if they're not dead yet. Mum's arm bursts through the ground and grabs onto the punk's crotch. She yanks him down onto the grave and then things get much worse for the rebellious young fool.

While it may look like he's humping the grave, a popular activity among all true punks, his genitals are actually being torn to shreds by zombie mum. That's a bad way to go. It's also a very noisy way to go because it wakes up the local priest, Father McGruder. But this isn't just any normal priest, nosiree bob.

IT'S NINJA PRIEST!

That's right, this guy is a martial arts expert and doesn't hesitate a second to start beating the crap out of these now zombified punkers. He also proclaims, "I kick ass for the lord!" which is easily the most quoted line from this movie. With an impressive display of speedy kicks it looks as though the zombies have finally met their match.

He even rips off every limb of one of the zombies, followed by kicking off the punk's head. Unfortunately, one of the zombies catches him in mid-air and throws him onto a statue which pierces his body. It's sad to see him die, but don't worry, he's not gone for good. Before he died, one of the zombie punks bit him, and that means he's going to become a zombie as well. Might as well get your money's worth out of your actors, right?

Being the guilt-ridden fool that he is, Lionel takes his mum, the punk, and the priest back home to where he can take care of them. He makes them eggs (with tranquilizers) and they all start to munch away. The nurse has trouble eating since the food leaks through her severed neck, so Lionel just cranks her head back and shoves the eggs directly into her throat as we are treated to some more delightful gurgling sounds.

Ah young love...

Who said Lionel was going to be the only one getting some action in this movie? If you think the only thing these zombies are interested in is eating human flesh, you're wrong. Zombies have a healthy libido and apparently this priest doesn't have to be celibate any longer now that he's one of them. So he and the nurse make eyes at each other, then one thing leads to another and...

Yep, you guessed it... a zombie baby is born. Instead of a nice, smooth spoonful of Gerber "Peaches 'n Cream", this zombie toddler prefers to eat rats. Those are gonna be some stinky diapers to say the least. While Lionel is disgusted by the lil' bastard, he can't help but feel like he should try to take care of it like a mother. So what does he do? He takes it out for a nice day in the park.

For those of you who don't know already, bringing a zombie (baby or not) to a park is always a bad idea. It quickly causes a bunch o' havoc and Lionel has to result to a public display of child abuse as the baby zombie continues to giggle and laugh.

Back at home, Lionel's uncle Les stops by and finds the zombie corpses in the basement. In exchange for keeping his mouth shut, he gets Lionel to agree to give him the house and the money that his mum left him. Having no choice, Lionel agrees to the terms. Now unlike Lionel, uncle Les is quite the socialite, so he quickly throws a big party for himself. Paquita soon shows up, and after avoiding some of Les' sexual harassment, she runs down into the basement and finds all of the zombies. Knowing that the old fortune teller lady said that he'd be surrounded by death, she's very understanding of Lionel's predicament. She tells him that he has to put an end to the madness by poisoning them. So he injects all of them with some poison, even his dear old mum and the whiny baby zombie. Finally, it appears the local zombie outbreak has ceased.

OR HAS IT?

Lionel realizes that there's a notice on the back of the poison bottle: "Animal Stimulant". That's right, he didn't just kill the zombies, he gave them all something that's going to make them 10 times stronger and faster than they were before.

Will the zombies decide to just play nice for a change?
Will Lionel ever stop being such a momma's boy?

CONTINUE TO PAGE 2 TO FIND OUT!

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