All The Tropes

Braindead: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Braindead (view source)

Revision as of 22:30, 8 April 2014

44 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (Dai-Guard moved page Braindead (Film) to Braindead over redirect: Remove TVT Namespaces from title)
m (Mass update links)
Line 1:
{{work}}
'''Braindead''' (1992, also known as ''Dead Alive'') is [[Peter Jackson]]'s third feature film, a gory comedy in the vein of ''[[Bad Taste (Film)|Bad Taste]]'' and ''[[Meet the Feebles (Film)|Meet the Feebles]]''. It is about a young man named Lionel whose life takes a turn to the worse when his overbearing mother is bitten by a rat-monkey of Sumatra, infecting her with a strange disease that rapidly turns her in a hungry zombie that starts infecting every unlucky fellow that she comes across. If having a zombie mom wasn't enough of a problem, Lionel also has to deal with his opportunistic uncle Les and hide his deadly secret from his girlfriend Paquita.
 
It is a [[Squick|Squicktastic]] gore fest. Intentionally hilarious in all its splattery glory. That's probably all you need to know.
Line 15:
* [[Bloody Hilarious]]
* [[Chainsaw Good]]: Lawnmower better.
* [[Chased Byby Angry Natives]]: the explorers running away from Skull Island with the captured Rat Monkey are chased by angry tribesmen with spears.
** Perfectly justified as said natives know exactly what the Rat Monkey's bite does: "Shangaia!"
* [[Church Militant]]: "I kick arse for the Lord!"
Line 24:
* [[Enfant Terrible]]/[[Undead Child]]: Baby Selwyn. Who was conceived ''after'' its parents' zombification and was born apparently about a day later.
* [[Evil Matriarch]]: Lionel's mother. She bullies him relentlessly and sabotages his social life. After her zombification, she gets worse.
* [[Everything's Deader Withwith Zombies]]
* [[Fat Bastard]]: Uncle Les.
* [[Final Boss]]: Lionel's Mother
Line 37:
* [[High-Pressure Blood]]: ''Braindead'' is the bloodiest movie of all time, with blood was being pumped at five gallons per second during the lawnmower climax. 'Nuff said.
* [[Homage]]: The explorer foolishly [[King Kong|brings a deadly primate back from Skull Island]].
** [[Shout -Out]]: Jackson later gives a [[Shout -Out]] to ''Braindead'' in his "King Kong" remake: one of the crates coming back from Skull Island on the expedition ship is labeled "Sumatran Rat Monkey". And below that, the words "BEWARE THE BITE".
*** And the Paths of the Dead in Jackson's ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Filmfilm)|Lord of the Rings]]'' was the same location as this film's opening scene.
* [[Improvised Weapon]]: A lawnmower becomes a powerful weapon against zombies.
** Jackson has jokingly claimed that the lawnmower is the preferred murder instrument in New Zealand.
Line 44:
* [[It Got Worse]]: There's a reason {{spoiler|stimulants and poisons come labeled.}}
* [[Jerkass]]: Lionel's uncle, Les.
* [[Just Eat Gilligan]]: So much could have been solved if Lionel had just killed his mother after she fully turned into a zombie. Or killed the zombies that she created rather than keep them all sedated. Or, when he finally did decide to kill them, to use some more traditional methods (like chopping them up or [[Kill It Withwith Fire|cremating]] them), instead of using what he and Paquita thought was poison {{spoiler|(which was actually an animal stimulant)}}. But alas, otherwise, there'd be no plot, and nothing to laugh at.
** Although [[Return of the Living Dead|cremating a zombie isn't always the best idea]].
* [[Losing Your Head]]: A nurse who's taking care of Lionel's mother gets her head ripped off and it's only still attached by a flap of skin.
Line 54:
* [[Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner]]: "''The party's over!''"
** Also, "''I kick arse for the Lord!''"
* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: [[Bad Taste|Almost]] [[Meet the Feebles (Film)|everything]]. However, zombie nurse making love with zombie priest and then having a zombie baby is wrong on ''so many'' levels.
* [[Rule of Funny]]: Peter Jackson finished this film greatly under-budget and ahead of time. He used the extra resources to go back and extend the scene where Lionel takes Selwyn to the park, for the sake of this trope.
* [[Rule of Symbolism]]: {{spoiler|Lionel being dragged back to his mother's womb and fighting his way out}} ([[The Other Wiki]]'s plot summary even describes this as "an over-the-top Freudian 'rebirth'").
* [[Scare Chord]]: The music makes a noticeable jump when {{spoiler|Lionel accidentally injects the zombies with stimulant}}.
* [[Shallow Love Interest]]: Paquita's first boyfriend, Roger. Her relationship with Lionel starts like this as well, but then they both develop genuine interest for each other.
* [[Shout -Out]]: In addition to the reference to [[King Kong|Skull Island]], there's a [[Sherlock Holmes]] story that mentions "[[Noodle Incident|the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared]].
* [[Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror]]
* [[Stop Motion]]: the Sumatran Rat Monkey.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/910452"