17. Dead Alive (1993)

"Some things won't stay down...even after they die."

Dead Alive begins on the fictional island of Skull Island. After an explorer takes a rat-monkey from the island inside of a cage, he is soon seen with bites and scratches on his body. He is soon horribly murdered by the locals of the Island, and the film quickly cuts to New Zealand. Lionel Cosgrave lives with his mother in her home in New Zealand. While on a trip to the zoo with her, she is bitten by the rat-monkey and soon develops zombie like symptoms. And sooner than later, all hell breaks loose in the city of Wellington. What Dead Alive is mostly notorious for is its extremely bizarre and over the top violence. Even though it was considerably gruesome, it is what made the movie. The acting is cheesy, the story is so-so, but since the rest was so great and fun, so was the way the movie turned out. Peter Jackson, creator of the LotR Trilogy, directed this one about 15 years ago before even thinking of Hobbits, and he did a great job. It also has 2 iconic scenes in films, the "Zombie Landmower Scene" (cl@ssic) and the "Pus Custard Scene" which was completely sick. This was a great horror film IMO, and is indeed one of the cl@ssics of generation of zombies.

I have just started watching the entire 'Saw' series in order, in turn for seeing the 6th installment at the end of this month. I have just finished the first and here is the review on it, although it is the same for my top 20 Horror Movies. I actually found this one to be quite enjoyable and good.

SAW

A long while ago, the 'Saw' franchise began with a short film that came out in 2003 also called 'Saw'. Since then, the series has now become popular for a thing called 'torture porn', and is also known for already having 5 entrees in the series, along with a sixth coming out this month, and a seventh coming out next year, and it'll probably break it's promise of stopping, and go on from there. The 2 I found to be the best in the series were the original 'Saw' (above) and Saw III, which should of been the "last" one in the series. Anyways, the first is my favorite because of many reasons. The traps were great (reverse bear trap was awesome), the gore wasn't spontaneous and in-your-face kind of way like the sequels, the characters were believable and it actually felt like they were fighting for their lives. But what the original 'Saw' maintained was a balanced out sense of sane horror. Anyways, the plot here is actually pretty simple. Two men are trapped in a room, in chains, chained to pipes. A dead body lies in the middle of the floor, the two men don't know how or who got them there. All they know is that they have only a limited time to escape otherwise ones family will be murdered. This simultaneously happens in the plot while a distraught Detective Tapp (portrayed by Danny Glover) obsesses over finding the Jigsaw killer after losing his partner to the madman. This 'Saw' is indeed a cl@ssic as it maintains a good balance between sane horror and over the top horror. You grow so well with the 2 characters of Adam and Dr. Gordon, that at the end of the film you're about near to root them on at the climax, and then having that fail with complete and utter shock and a somewhat depressing resolution. James Wan's directing was top notch, and Leigh Whannell and Cary Elwes both did extremely talented performances as both Adam and Dr. Gordon, and they were both hugely believable. Yes, this movie is quite gruesome and dark, especially in the last final scenes, but it really doesn't go out of hand and out of its way to bring a slasher film, and instead brings a film that stays true to sane horror. This is the film that literally started the whole Torture phenomenon in films we've come to see, and also has a huge cliffhanger for an ending will most likely shock a first time viewer, or even still get at the fans who have seen it multiple times like myself. A great movie, that really doesn't go out of its way, and indeed a cl@ssic horror film.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I have also turned to Level 27 today, from Cyber-Lip to...Sheng Long.