Braindead (film)

Braindead
Theatrical release poster
Directed byPeter Jackson
Screenplay by
Story byStephen Sinclair
Produced byJim Booth
Starring
CinematographyMurray Milne
Edited byJamie Selkirk
Music byPeter Dasent
Production
companies
Distributed byTrimark Pictures
Release dates
  • 13 August 1992 (1992-08-13) (New Zealand)
  • 12 February 1993 (1993-02-12) (United States)
Running time
104 minutes[1]
CountryNew Zealand
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3 million[2]
Box office$242,623 (United States)[2]

Braindead (also known as Dead Alive in North America) is a 1992 New Zealand zombie comedy splatter film directed by Peter Jackson, produced by Jim Booth, and written by Stephen Sinclair, Fran Walsh, and Jackson based on an original story idea by Sinclair. It stars Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody and Ian Watkin. The plot follows Lionel, a young man living in South Wellington with his strict mother Vera. After Lionel becomes romantically entangled with a girl named Paquita, Vera is bitten by a hybrid rat-monkey creature and begins to transform into a zombie, while also infecting swathes of the city's populace.

Made on a budget of $3 million, Braindead was Jackson's most expensive film up to that point.[3] Although it received positive reviews from critics, it was a box office bomb. It has since received a cult following, and is now widely regarded as one of the goriest films of all time.[4][5]

  1. ^ "BRAINDEAD (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 10 November 1992. Archived from the original on 21 June 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2012.
  2. ^ a b "Braindead". The Numbers. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  3. ^ Hallenbeck, Bruce G. (2009). Comedy-Horror Films: A Chronological History, 1914-2008. McFarland & Company. pp. 187–188. ISBN 9780786453788.
  4. ^ "10 of the Goriest Horror Films Ever Made". Beyond The Void Horror Podcast. 19 June 2020. Archived from the original on 18 June 2021. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  5. ^ Bond, Nick (21 April 2019). "10 Goriest Horror Movies You Need to See From the Last Three Decades". Dark Universe: Horror Database. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021. Retrieved 19 June 2021.