Dead Alive . Nashville Scene . 07-14-97

Dead Alive

DIRECTED BY: Peter Jackson

REVIEWED: 07-14-97

If it's over-the-top comic horror you're wanting, forget the stupid, sadistic Scream; Peter Jackson's slapstick holocaust remains the all-time champion splatter flick. The bite of a "Sumatran rat monkey" triggers a contagion of walking death in a New Zealand town; it's up to the hero (Timothy Balme) to confront hundreds of bloodthirsty ghouls with the only weapon at hand--the whirring blades of a lawn mower. Avoid the R-rated version, which, oddly, is more distasteful for being less gruesome; the NC-17 edition is a Tex Avery cartoon of hyperbolic gore, which gets funnier with each disgusting new sight gag. Best of all, you won't feel, as in Scream, that the director made the movie in order to see women tortured. Wes Craven hates his characters; Peter Jackson just liquefies his.

--Jim Ridley

Other Films by Peter Jackson
Forgotten Silver
Heavenly Creatures
The Frighteners

Film Vault Suggested Links
The Frighteners
Spider Baby
Scream

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