Dead Alive

Comedy, Horror

Timothy Balme	Lionel Cosgrove
Diana Peñalver	Paquita Maria Sanchez
Elizabeth Moody	Mum
Ian Watkin	Uncle Les
Brenda Kendall	Nurse McTavish
Stuart Devenie	Father McGruder
Jed Brophy	Void
Stephen Papps	Zombie McGruder
Murray Keane	Scroat
Glenis Levestam	Nora Matheson
Silvio Fumularo
Diana Penalver

Director	Peter Jackson
Producer	Jim Booth; Jamie Selkirk
Writer	Stephen Sinclair; Peter Jackson; Fran Walsh

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