Dead Alive
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Take the frantic energy of Clue, the insanity of the ending of Blazing Saddles, listen wholeheartedly when people tell you what they loved most about The Evil Dead, and then think about the fact that before Peter Jackson could sit down to tackle the epics of Tolkien, he had to get the craziness out of his head. This is some of that craziness. This has everything you never thought you needed in a zombie movie. No matter how schooled a scholar you are, no matter how thorough your explorations, if you have not seen this movie, then there is something that you have not seen. You, your vision, your quest… nothing is complete if you have not seen this. Are you familiar with the multiverse theory that everything must exist, somewhere, sometime, because if not, limitations would be a thing, and then consequently, something would have to be in charge of determination of limitations; this is absurd (fuck religion) and as such, the only proof of lack of limitations is admitted acceptance of everything? This is that everything that needs to be touched upon before anything else can be measured or weighed with any objectivity. This is a movie by a master, made when he was filming for an audience of one, and still hungry and curious for how much red could be shown, and from where. If you repeatedly mated the stupidest parts of UHF with Spaceballs and then crossbred the runts of the litters with each other, this has the energy of the end result of your meddling, but with the puppy scoots of unbridled excitement at the wonderous joy of existing. This movie is a film, this movie is a farce, this movie is required viewing yet will leave you no wiser than you were prior to inebriation.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- Paquita needs a man, and she’s willing to do anything- consult the elderly, consult the occult- to get one.
- Lionel’s mom is an evil bitch but he doesn’t have the cajones to stick up for himself.
- Something about a monkey biting his mom at the zoo and ruining his date with Paquita.
- Uh… zombies start multiplying and Lionel locks them in the basement.
- The zombies, uh… *really* start multiplying (ahem) and now there’s a baby zombie locked in the basement.
- The movie takes acid and begins laying on the red with a fire hose. Exit anything resembling coherency.
- Picture a sixth grade cafeteria food-fight, and then make it all zombies and… this is a horrible analogy.
- Look, watch the fucking movie or you’re never going to be complete. Or understand the true meaning of Hobbits.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
Disgustingly good. Not so much into eating brains as they are into simply dismembering bodies and then eating bits and pieces here and there. The zombies are damn near true to Romero zombies, but… like… insane Muppet versions of them. No, that’s not exactly right. The Muppets were primarily dry. These zombies… they’re wizened and wrinkled, but they have so much red bursting out of them at every instance. Or puss, or green formaldehyde if you prefer. The liquid to solids ratio of this film was precariously wet to the degree we got to watch a “running in place because your feet can’t traction in all the blood you’re standing in” bit for two minutes.
Where the money went
Where the money went
This is a Peter Jackson movie. I’m not exactly sure what I mean to convey by that, but I think the intent is a statement of overall “If the money was spent on something, it was spent correctly, and money that was not spent did not need to be spent.” The special effects here were outlandishly detailed. Lasciviously. The movie was spent answering questions such as “What would it look like to rip a body’s ribcage out of it while the subject was still alive?” and “How would a kung-fu priest actually fight the undead?” as well as the ever-presently nagging “What does zombie sex look like on a banquet table?”.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
The Lawn Gnome that Les uses to try to fight zombies off with. I loved it. There’s so much violence and zombie killing and chaos here that there’s a whole lot that’s new, and much of it was the ad-hoc weaponry. But… who would give best weapon to a wall-mounted lamp? I mean, cause first you have to give an honorable mention to the zombie fist that made the hole in the head that the lamp then fit into, allowing such an interesting aesthetic as well as future wacky shenanigans.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
So… For such a non-traditional zombie movie, there sure is a plethora and wealth of hands. From severed hands being used to extend reach, to severed hands picking one’s nose, to severed hands flying through the air, to severed hands being used to slap a different zombie around… And then it’s got a hand-breach to gonad-grab that results in a red-spraying fountain of fresh-grave humping? I mean… This is not your average zombie movie, and it doesn’t play like your average zombie movie, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not constructed out of the same parts that other zombie movies are made out of. Think of this not like cinema, but like pharmaceutical pills. You can take them as recommended, like everyone else, by swallowing them and absorbing their pharmaceuticals into you as intended; or you can crush that shit under a spoon and blow some fat lines and get ALL the drug at once. This movie leaves you feeling like you had a straw up each nostril while hoovering to your heart’s content.
That was new!
That was new!
Look. This entire movie is different than anything you’ve ever seen. This movie has so much that’s “new” and different that there’s really no point in going through it all, otherwise I’d simply be noting a list of everything that happened in the movie. You want to know what’s in this that’s all new? Read the review notes. You’ll see that damn near nothing is traditional here. This plot makes less sense than most LSD trips, and it’s rolled over you like a wave breaking upon you for the umpteenth time that you’ve surfaced in an attempt to take a full breath. This entire movie is new, this entire movie will shock and confuse and awe you. This isn’t a zombie movie as much as it’s… fuck it. It’s subjective. Here- print this review out, watch the movie, and then fill in the blank. This movie is ___________________________________________.
Review Notes
Review Notes
Skull Island!! Isn’t that where King Kong is from? Anyway, it’s 1957.
Down on a ravine…
“I got the vibes! This thing is evil, Mon! I got the feeling!”
Tribesmen… Horribly clichéd.
But they want the monkey let free.
“I’m a New Zealand official, and this monkey is going to New Town.” (pulls out a submachine gun and begins firing into the air)
Wow, white people are great at wildlife conservation and management.
The monkey bit the guy…
The assistant kicked him out of the jeep…
“Singaya!” Evidently this means “chop off that wounded part of the body” and “even if it *is* the head we’re talking about.”
Title. Dripping red.
That was the most racist moment ever filmed.
Airplane flying.
Airplane landing.
That dude is in a right-hand dive truck.
She likes Roger!
Old lady has a lot of wrinkles and a deck of magic cards.
That is a LOT of butter.
That old guy is dirty and eating what looks like great food.
Dude is trashing the apple display.
Wow. She’s rude.
Dude trashes a counter display and suddenly a beautiful woman is staring him down.
And a streetcar almost running him down.
I want to rub his head aggressively yelling “McFly? Hello? McFly?”
That’s a big house.
His mom is a bitch.
And prone to waving knives around far too enthusiastically.
“Does this look like a well maintained frontage?”
I like dogs.
I like groceries.
Women silently circling me… not so much.
Damn, she played him.
Oh, shit… his mom is evil. Who else would crush a flower?
Something about how his dad died and his mom uses it to control him.
Zoo footage.
Camel froth.
Oh, shit. He’s hallucinating. Bad addition to a romantic date.
Turns out he almost drown as a child, but his father saved him and then drown in the process.
AND… she’s off to the monkeys!
And kissing!
Monkey threw an apple-core at his head!
The girl threw the apple-core at the monkey!
And… Something evil and stop-go motion capture just punched out the monkey and took the apple-core.
A Simian Raticus. I think that’s gonna be my new porn name. So long, Hobo Bizsnatch!
Evil creature dude just ripped off the monkey’s arm and ate it!
Here comes Earnest’s redneck inbred cousin.
“Story goes, these great big rats came scuttling off the slave ships and raped all the little tree monkeys. The natives use them in black magic rituals!”
Just spilled blood on her foot.
What the fuck? Mom is stalking them?
In the ugliest glasses I have ever saw.
Whoah! She just got bit by the rat-monkey thing!!
And then killed it to death and until it’s eyes popped out.
Momma’s boy. Ick.
She got a free jacket out of it though!
His mom is so evil.
Paquita. That’s her name. She seems really nice.
“But we are romantically entangled!”
She brought him a rose! Dude, do NOT fuck this one up. She’s better than you deserve.
Good. More kissing.
Mom is getting sicker, more tarot cards, more kissing, some groping, some puss splashing, some amulet waving…
Whistling, what a beautiful day…
Mom’s arm looks BAD. Oh, that’s gross.
Uh… The Lady’s Welfare League.
Mom is rallying, gonna get ready…
And she just ripped her cheek mostly off.
He… just used rubber cement to glue her face-flap back on. Surprisingly, watching that made me REALLY hungry for pizza.
Mom is having trouble holding it together.
“What we need is another war!”
Oh, shit, mom is getting grabby with the meat.
I also like custard.
Oh, shit, that’s so gross. Mom squirted arm-puss into the fat-man’s custard. And he’s eating it. Looks like New York Clam Chowder. Fucking waste of good chowdah if you ask me.
Mom’s ear just fell off and she’s eating it!
“Dark forces are massing against you!” If I had a dollar for every time I heard that from a woman I’d dated…
I think mom just ate the dog.
And… he’s pulled the pelt out of her mouth? I… Our Pit ate a roll of Christmas Ribbon, and I had to pull it out of her gullet in very much a similar way. The whole time though, all I could do was thank the lord that I wasn’t pulling it out of the other end.
“Your mother ate my dog!”
“Not all of it!”
Zombie mom attacks Paquita!
And the Fernando tackles her down a couple flights of stairs! I grew up in a house with fancy stairs like that. I fell down them more than once.
Here comes the nurse!
I think mom just died…
“Your mother is dead, Lionel.” Such good news…
Oh, shit! Mom just rose up and ripped the nurse’s head off! That “Fingers into face” grip… I’ve never seen that before.
The record… is narrating along with Lionel smashing his mom’s head ineffectually with crockery.
SHIT! The zombie nurse is up already!
Lionel threw a bird into the nurse’s forehead and then threw both of them down the stairs to the basement. Did a sort of wheelbarrow move with the nurse, too. Never seen that before.
Now it’s night.
He can’t sleep.
The next day, at the vet’s clinic…
Who is… a shaved head German Nazi refuge? What the hell?
“Sedatives? What do you think I am, a goddamn doctor? I do not sell sedatives. Tranquilizers, I do have.”
Whoah! Shit! The vet has a Nazi armband showing through the rip in his uniform!
“Would you like a syringe, or are you going to sniff?”
He’s wearing a Homer Simpson Bear Suit.
Syringe into the nurses’ eye!
Syringe up his mother’s nose!
Hallucinations of drowning again!
“Tell me about these dark forces.”
Oh, shit! Mom has broken out!
More close-ups of sweating, staring eyes than a Sergio Leone film!
Here comes Zombie Mom!
Another syringe through the nose!
Wow. Cemetery scene, enter… obnoxious jerk in a red car.
Les. What kind of weird thing are you huffing?
What the fuck? Is that the formaldehyde pump? Looks like an industrial version…
Zombie mom is about to pop!
There she goes! Eyeballs!
Oh, that was some Three Stooges eye poking right there.
Mom is smashing her way out of the casket.
Syringe up the nose one more time…
“Resurrected.” (you kinda gotta be there)
Hmm… Les is up to something.
Cars in a cemetery late at night.
Lionel is digging his mom up?
A bunch of greaser punks out drinking in the cemetery.
“Yeah! Meental!”
“That’s my mother you’re pissing on.”
Oh. Shit. That’s the best hand-breach I’ve seen.
He’s humping the grave. So much red.
Zombie mom is raising some hell.
Is he gonna stick that srying up all three noses?
“Stay back, boy. This calls for divine intervention!” (Priest, still in his bathrobe and slippers, leaps off the crypt into a martial arts stance.
“I kick ass for the Lord!”
And… he does. There’s five minutes of some of the best kung-fu ever filmed. It’s fucking awesome.
NO! The priest gets bit! SO not fair!
Oh, shit. And then impaled by… a statues finger. That’s gross. And unexpected.
Now he’s serving all the zombies… Some kind of food. With sedatives in it.
Teaching the szombie to use a spoon.
Not going to talk about how to feed a corpse whose head is mostly severed.
Oh, no… the zombie priest is getting frisky.
Les is here. With his belt buckle. And his strange urination noises.
What the fuck does Les keep huffing off of?
Horrible grunting sounds coming from the dining room.
Zombie sex.
She… chewed his face off. And ate it.
Fuck, she’s PREGNANT?
Lionel just pulled an awesome Jason Bourne. And then got caught.
Oh, shit, the delivery man just punched Lionel out!
And then said mean things to him!
Is there a baby zombie in the radio?
Yes.
It… just… latched onto Lionel’s face!
Now he’s taking it out in a pram?
Horribly klutzy.
Got the baby zombie behind a barbed wire…
Oh, shit… it’s loose!
Insert wacky chase scene!
Bike crash! Zombie baby laugh!
Zombie baby crawl!
Oh, shit! Lionel is beating the shit out of the baby zombie!
And the bum is cheering him on! I love it!!
Swing to the face!
“Hyperactive.”
Les found the zombies!
Les has cysts all over his face.
Les is having a party now.
“I’m not sure what kinda kinky shit you’re into, but I want those things buried.”
Lionel is not enjoying handing out snacks.
Les catches one to the nuts and loses his toupee!
Paquita is down in the basement…
Rake to the head!
“They’re not dead exactly. They’re just sort of… rotting.”
A quiet, intimate family poisoning…
Why is it always up the nose with his mom??
Buried them all in the basement. Yuck.
Lionel and Les are fighting it out!
Didn’t last long…
Les, stop being so rapey!
Oh, SHIT!! That poison is actually an Animal Stimulant!
The zombies are supercharged and bursting out of the graves!
Zombie just ripped the dud’s entire rip cage out!
Zombie just tipped the guy’s entire head-skin off! Like a mask!
Cutting a hand off with manicure scissors…
EEW!! Severed hand picking Lionel’s nose! I don’t know what to think! It’s gross! I’m still afraid!
Les is fighting them off with a lawn gnome…
Uh… a guy, with feet, and then leg bones, and then… a torso…
Zombie punched a woman in the back of the head so hard his hand came out her mouth…
Lionel is trying to flee, but there’s so much red on the floor he’s slipping and running in place.
The gag goes on for a while.
Nope. Not gonna watch Les rip out the zombie’s teeth one by one. I can’t. I don’t want to, either.
Zombie lady with the head caved in is now a lamp. Just… go with it.
So many people getting ripped in half.
Zombie in a toilet…
Zombie legs out for justice.
Sentient, farting intestines…
What the FUCK am I watching? What is looking in the mirror?
The amulet… points to an old chest in the attic?
An old film? Are there the aforementioned stag films?
He remembers a woman drowning?
Zombie baby in a blender?
No… it’s pinball time.
“You mutant little shit!”
The gnome rides again!!
Another severed hand!
That… was a very suggestive picture of his mother.
Who is this corpse??
What the hell??
Les goes into overdrive and it’s very effective.
The baby zombie just kicked Les in the nuts with someone else’s severed foot.
Paquita got bit!
Lionel got launched!
Les… got his spinal column removed from his body.
Lionel comes in with a lawn-mower…
And creates a very red mess.
Twice.
Thrice.
Quatrice.
The Les creature is a sight to behold.
The killing of the Les creature is… a first.
I… didn’t think things could get any redder.
And then they did. So much redder.
Now… THAT was a party.
Here comes mom!
Huge big ugly tits were NOT required.
That butt… does she have a tail?
Do all chimneys have handhold bricks built into them? Is that a thing?
So… young Lionel saw his mom commit a double murder.
A reverse birth… yuck.
So much more red.
Fire go boom!
So much red.
Firetrucks are red.
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
So here’s the thing. Uh… I don’t have anything specific to say there. I thought I did. I must have forgotten. It may still come to me. But, today, T____ and I discussed four different things. In no order…
1: It’s possible in a relationship for one person to be the damaged person, one person to be the immature person, and one person to be the toxic person. These are each unaffiliated titles that each part of the relationship can be, regardless of whether they are or are not holders of the other similar titles.
Each of these is a grey-scale of the light and darkness within us, and each time we come into contact with any of these things- in a fight, in a fit of jealousy, in a moment of loneliness, we have the option of where on that grey-scale we’re going to put our efforts. We can make the decision to be negative, we can make the decision to be positive; and often, it very well could be easier a task to be positive, but we still resist it for some reason. As a species, we’re not designed to co-operate well, especially when the groups involved get larger.
2: I had the best dream of my life. Prior to a few nights ago, out sleeping in the snow in the van, my favorite dream had been one from when I was 14 or so; actually, I had two favorite dreams, both from the same period of my life, but one is a short moment in time, and the other is more of an adventure- the first favorite dream I used to have was of being outside at night in the zombie apocalypse, it’s raining, I’m in New England somewhere, I’m crouched down, hiding behind a rock wall in the middle of a field by the muddy lane, praying fervently that the zombies shambling by don’t see me.
There’s a house on the other side of the field, where the ground slopes up, away from the wall and road, and there’s zombies in the field between here and there, but the house has lights on, and that’s the very moment of hope that I’m clinging to as I hide; praying that when I do gather the nerve to start moving towards the house, the rain will keep pouring down to hide me in the thunderous darkness.
The second favorite dream that I used to have was of simply wandering a world where time had stopped and I was the only creature left moving. I walked through a city taking whatever I wanted from society, mildly wondering if I truly was the last cognizant person on earth, or what things would be like if time snapped back into existence; would all the things I moved while time was stopped remain altered, and if so, how could I avoid the consequences of what I’d done?
Or would everything rubber-band back to the way it was right when things stopped and then restart as if nothing had ever hit pause and if this is the case, would I even remember this little immorally hedonistic holiday I was experiencing?
The dream that I had that replaced anything prior as my all-time absolute favorite dream was simply one of unending inebriation of the most debilitating nihilistic manner. Have you ever been so drunk or otherwise altered that when you attempted to talk a straight line, the ground tilted 30 degrees sideways under your feet and then began rotating, as if someone were holding a record player at a strange, uneven angle while you tried to walk across it?
What happens is you realize that you’re not succeeding at the ambulation thing while still working at it, and you exist as sort of an on-board observer as the vehicle that is drunk-you stumbles haphazardly off-course and then crashes a slow motion crumble off anything they encounter until they’re lying flat on their back, most likely in imitation of a dying bug, spasming their limbs awkwardly until consciousness catches up with crashed and you realize you’ve fallen and need to start trying to roll over in order to start trying to stand up again in order to start trying to walk again because how else are you going to get to your car to drive home?
Another “virgin” way to experience this is to do the whole “spin in a circle with your forehead on a bat and then try to run in a straight line” “fun with vertigo” thing- repeatedly until you vomit. The very last attempt before you hurl will be the one where you got it right.
My dream was nothing but this crashing and burning over and over again, with no repercussions. One part I remember, I was in a filthy public subway bathroom, white tile stained grey, dead fluorescent lights, broken brown glass in the corner… I remember careening out of control, trying to walk across the room, but instead finding myself staggering sideways, corkscrewing myself into the corner, rolling across the glass, feeling nothing in my hands or forearms as they smashed into the floor in a last ditch unconscious attempt to protect my skull.
I lay on the cold, spinning floor, and closed my eyes, and if I leaned back into the sensation I was taken out of space and time to a moment of perpetual dental anesthesia, where nothing remains stable and experience is fluid and it’s rolling like a warm curl of opiate fog surfing your curls and eddies while you find yourself lying back, allowing the warm to seep in.
My dream was an alternation of drunkenly collapsing in spasms of violent self-tangles, and then interluded with the closest thing to a heroin overdose I can imagine; just to find myself up and spinning again, owner of a season ticket with no agenda other than taking the ride as far as it goes.
3: I might be getting a job soon. This frightens the fuck out of me, because I associate employment with ultimate clashing with authority and then exiting under animosity and hostility and resentment and self-loathing levels of second-guessing regret. I’ve had two interviews for an office manager position with a CPA firm, and I took mushrooms before the second of the two interviews and found myself quoting Weezer in a moment of not being sure what to say.
I remember hearing myself say something like “I feel like I’m talking an awful lot but not doing a good job answering the question, so I think I’m going to just have to default to quoting Weezer here…” and then the panel erupted into laughter and the woman to my left said “I *JUST* saw Weezer last year! And they were great!
And I instantly thought “DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, VOLUNTEER YOUR OPINION THAT HASHPIPE IS THEIR BEST SONG.” So I didn’t. I made small talk that, as I listened, sounded more and more like the inane banter from Friends.
4: This not being medicated thing feels like finding a new, sharper knife in your Leatherman, or learning to enjoy driving again. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself driving 5 or 10 under the speed limit. I’ve always attributed this mainly to being continuously higher than fuck and lately also a bit on mushrooms, so these are definitely acceptable as mitigating factors when considering what a sissy you’ve been driving like, but now that I’m not taking Wellbutrin and Prozac any more, I’m driving faster. I’m enjoying driving faster. I’m enjoying taking risks.
I think T_____ sort of understands me, but… we don’t really speak the same language. He said that he plays racing videogames, and last Sunday he drove 200 miles in what sounds like a NASCAR simulator. I explained that I can’t play videogames due to my addiction issues (I’ll drink an entire 6 pack of tall-boys and then not go pee for 5 hours because I’m so immersed in a game) but that I *did* take our van out snow-wheeling over the weekend and put a big dent in the door while sliding into a forestry gate.
He thought it was funny, but I see it as… almost proof that he can’t help me. All his suggestions are simply good common sense, and I’m not necessarily willing to live a less interesting life where I don’t live mayhem and instead I sit on the couch playing simulators and using a clock to ensure I take pee breaks on a regular basis.
What I didn’t tell him was that the problem with my existence is that you can’t really find out if you’re good at killing the people who need to be killed until you kill one of them, and at this point, you are all-in committed and better never ever talk in your sleep again. I mean, maybe you shrug and think “Damn, that was some good cardio! I really liked the part where I ripped his finger off! And burying someone is easy!” and then you know why you were put here on this planet.
But what if you kill the person and then turn away and puke caviar and get the nervous shakes and develop a fascination for bleach and latex gloves and never eating out in public and occasionally taking evasive action while driving in case that really is a tail following you?
If I could sign up with a government agency that would monitor the process of approving who I select and then auditing the kill and then a couple post-action interviews and if I’m not the right person to help clean up society, I’ll take my two or three years in jail and then be released with the knowledge that I need to find some other way to contribute to society, like chainsaw carving eagle-art out of tree stumps or miming or running an interpretive dance center on the outskirts of a volcano.
What if I could have happily spent my life doing work that mattered. Every child molester killed is less children molested in the future. I can’t explain what I think I should be feeling, but I can discuss at length the sensation of charting a lifelong batting average of exactly zero.
Ok. I had to choose between two movies that I found tonight. Well, one of them I’ve seen before, a really long time ago. The other looks much newer and possibly horrible. But were going with the Bonified choice this time. This is some authentic Peter Jackson shit here. This is homeboy before The Hobbit. I know he made a couple? of lower budget craziness before he started playing with the big money and the big stories. Dead Alive “A young man’s mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors.”
Look. I have no idea what a rat-monkey is, and as far as I’m aware, Sumatran is either a curry-related spice that tastes like burnt dirt, or it’s the official title to the Kamasutra’s sequel in the native language. I dated a woman who had a scar from a monkey bite. It was the coolest thing- not really to the point where you could see individual teeth marks or anything, but if you looked at it sideways while squinting and already knowing what you’re looking at, you could sort of get the impression that you don’t want to get bitten by a monkey.