Dead Alive a.k.a Braindead (Unrated) Blu-Ray

Lionel Cosgrove is a timid, mother-dominated young man in 1957 Wellington, New Zealand, who finally works up the courage to pursue a romance with the spirited Paquita Maria Sanchez. His controlling mother Vera, furious at the competition for her son's attention, follows the couple to the zoo — and is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey, a creature of spectacularly ill omen. Vera begins to die. Then she begins to un-die. Then she begins biting other people. Lionel, constitutionally incapable of confrontation, attempts to contain the growing zombie situation in his basement while maintaining the pretense of normal life. The situation does not remain containable.

By the film's final act, Lionel is wielding a lawnmower against several dozen zombies in what remains the single most blood-soaked sequence in horror film history — a record the film holds to this day.

Dead Alive — released internationally as Braindead — is the 1992 pre-Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson splatter masterpiece, a horror-comedy that operates as a deliberate escalation of every gross-out convention in the genre, pushed past the point of disgust into something closer to surrealist slapstick. The film was made on a budget of approximately NZ$3 million and holds the distinction of using more fake blood per minute than any film ever made. It won Best Film at the 1992 Fantasporto Film Festival. The film exists in three cuts: the original international Braindead version (~104 min), the Unrated US version (~97 min) cut by Peter Jackson himself for American release, and an R-rated theatrical cut (~85 min). The Unrated US version is also Peter Jackson's preferred version. The Lionsgate Blu-ray released October 4, 2011 presents the Unrated US version (~97 min) and is now out of print.

Notable Staff & Cast

Director: Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles; later The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, The Hobbit trilogy)
Screenplay: Peter Jackson, Stephen Sinclair & Fran Walsh (later The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Heavenly Creatures)
Producer: Jim Booth
Cinematography: Murray Milne
Editor: Jamie Selkirk (later The Lord of the Rings editor)
Production Company: WingNut Films / Avalon Studios / New Zealand Film Commission
Music: Peter Dasent

Cast:
- Timothy Balme as Lionel Cosgrove
- Diana Peñalver as Paquita Maria Sanchez
- Elizabeth Moody as Vera Cosgrove
- Ian Watkin as Uncle Les
- Brenda Kendall as Nurse McTavish
- Stuart Devenie as Father McGruder
- Jed Brophy as Void
- Peter Vere-Jones as the voice of the rat-monkey

Blu-ray Features (Lionsgate, October 4, 2011)

- Unrated US Cut (~97 Minutes) — Peter Jackson's Preferred Version
- Theatrical Trailer
- English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
- Note: Now out of print. The full-length international Braindead cut (~104 min) is not included on this release.

Spoken Languages: English Audio, English Subtitles

Edition Details

Also Known As: Braindead (international title)
Runtime: ~97 Minutes (Unrated US Cut — Peter Jackson's preferred version; international Braindead cut is ~104 min)
Director: Peter Jackson
Blu-ray Release Year: 2011 (U.S. Release, October 4 — Lionsgate Home Entertainment); now out of print
Original Release Date: August 13, 1992 (New Zealand) / February 12, 1993 (United States)
Publisher: Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Rating: Unrated (contains extreme graphic gore — equivalent to NC-17)
Region: Region A (North America)
Note: Out of print. Three cuts exist: Unrated US (~97 min, this release, Jackson's preferred cut), original international Braindead (~104 min, not on this disc), and R-rated theatrical (~85 min). Holds the record for most fake blood used per minute in film history.
Genre: Horror, Comedy, Splatter
Themes: Zombie Outbreak, Mama's Boy, Peter Jackson Pre-LOTR, Record-Breaking Gore, Lawnmower Finale

Media assumed VG+ unless otherwise noted.