Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)
Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:05 pm
Evil Dead 5 wishes it could be Braindead!
My favourite part of Braindead/Dead Alive is probably the first attack of the zombified mother that plays out to the theme tune of The Archers on the radio. Either that or the moment where 'for some reason' our hero decides to take the zombie baby created as a byproduct of a couple of zombies having carnal relations to a local park for his daily state mandated dose of outdoor exercise, which is really just an excuse for some violent slapstick in which we get to have the ever giggling baby catapulted around by a seesaw before it gets too unruly and has to be bundled away back into its burlap sack which our 'hero' proceeds to struggle quickly out of the park with, occasionally punching it as horrified parents look on!
I really think that the 1950s setting is inspired. It calls back to the heyday of B-horror films but also it sort of grates in an amusing way against the explicit gore. Surely people who dress as if they have stepped out of Leave It To Beaver cannot get ripped apart en masse? I think the beautiful, aggressively prim and proper period setting mixed with the gore is perhaps the most transgressive thing about it. As transgressive as the local town having 'ethnic types' running the store and doing tarot readings and potentially even seducing the son with their dusky charms, the domineering mother being suspicious about the burgeoning romance and covertly tailing the couple to their date at the local zoo being the thing that really kicks off the horror!
That is probably the main theme of Braindead, the attempts at maintaining a façade of social normality in the face of ever more escalating wildness that is completely out of our main characters hands and they just have to deal with the carnage that ensues (something that unites this with the fantastic The Frighteners, which starts out like GhostBusters light spooky fantasy and ends like a harrowing serial killer biopic. Or The Lovely Bones, where the façade of normality covering up a serial murderer is probably at its most graspable for general audiences (but that's what makes it a bit too conventional and obvious too). Or even arguably Jackson's First World War documentary): the film starts with the potentially 'inappropriate' romance; then it becomes about caring for an elderly parent steadily losing control of both their mind and body (parts) in front of polite company. Then its about having to deal with boorish relatives at a funeral. Then its about trying to keep an entire basement of zombies under wraps and in proper order even when they start having post-death relationships with each other! (Almost as if now that they are dead they can really let loose!). Until finally things get pushed too far by the boorish uncle throwing the house party without warning, which lets all of the repressed behaviours loose in spectacular fashion!
I guess it could be argued that it is really a Douglas Sirk film gone horribly, horribly wrong! If you ever wanted a lawnmower taken to the guests at the party in All That Heaven Allows where high society rejects Rock Hudson for being a lowly gardener, then this is the cathartic bloodbath for you!
(I also think this film works really well in a double bill with the contemporaneous Wes Craven film The People Under The Stairs, which features quite a few of the same elements - a fateful tarot reading to kick things off; social satire; a giant mansion of a house with something(s) chained up downstairs; a brief respite on a rooftop; and eventually complete real estate destruction! Only in this case the ending involves onlookers being happily showered with money, rather than covered in guts!)
Oh and never watch this film with your mother, as I did the first time. Boy, that was an uncomfortable viewing experience even before it becomes explicitly about dealing with mother issues in the final section!
My favourite part of Braindead/Dead Alive is probably the first attack of the zombified mother that plays out to the theme tune of The Archers on the radio. Either that or the moment where 'for some reason' our hero decides to take the zombie baby created as a byproduct of a couple of zombies having carnal relations to a local park for his daily state mandated dose of outdoor exercise, which is really just an excuse for some violent slapstick in which we get to have the ever giggling baby catapulted around by a seesaw before it gets too unruly and has to be bundled away back into its burlap sack which our 'hero' proceeds to struggle quickly out of the park with, occasionally punching it as horrified parents look on!
I really think that the 1950s setting is inspired. It calls back to the heyday of B-horror films but also it sort of grates in an amusing way against the explicit gore. Surely people who dress as if they have stepped out of Leave It To Beaver cannot get ripped apart en masse? I think the beautiful, aggressively prim and proper period setting mixed with the gore is perhaps the most transgressive thing about it. As transgressive as the local town having 'ethnic types' running the store and doing tarot readings and potentially even seducing the son with their dusky charms, the domineering mother being suspicious about the burgeoning romance and covertly tailing the couple to their date at the local zoo being the thing that really kicks off the horror!
That is probably the main theme of Braindead, the attempts at maintaining a façade of social normality in the face of ever more escalating wildness that is completely out of our main characters hands and they just have to deal with the carnage that ensues (something that unites this with the fantastic The Frighteners, which starts out like GhostBusters light spooky fantasy and ends like a harrowing serial killer biopic. Or The Lovely Bones, where the façade of normality covering up a serial murderer is probably at its most graspable for general audiences (but that's what makes it a bit too conventional and obvious too). Or even arguably Jackson's First World War documentary): the film starts with the potentially 'inappropriate' romance; then it becomes about caring for an elderly parent steadily losing control of both their mind and body (parts) in front of polite company. Then its about having to deal with boorish relatives at a funeral. Then its about trying to keep an entire basement of zombies under wraps and in proper order even when they start having post-death relationships with each other! (Almost as if now that they are dead they can really let loose!). Until finally things get pushed too far by the boorish uncle throwing the house party without warning, which lets all of the repressed behaviours loose in spectacular fashion!
I guess it could be argued that it is really a Douglas Sirk film gone horribly, horribly wrong! If you ever wanted a lawnmower taken to the guests at the party in All That Heaven Allows where high society rejects Rock Hudson for being a lowly gardener, then this is the cathartic bloodbath for you!
(I also think this film works really well in a double bill with the contemporaneous Wes Craven film The People Under The Stairs, which features quite a few of the same elements - a fateful tarot reading to kick things off; social satire; a giant mansion of a house with something(s) chained up downstairs; a brief respite on a rooftop; and eventually complete real estate destruction! Only in this case the ending involves onlookers being happily showered with money, rather than covered in guts!)
Oh and never watch this film with your mother, as I did the first time. Boy, that was an uncomfortable viewing experience even before it becomes explicitly about dealing with mother issues in the final section!