See the problem is I havent seen any recent horror films, which believe me is a problem. So in the hope of beng somewhat useful for you all 3 people reading this I give my opinions on older films you may or may not have seen.
The second problem being, why review a old and mediocre film, when either extremely good or bad is more interesting. Hence my use of 'amazing', 'fantastic', 'ground-breaking' etc...
In this case when I say that Braindead (Aka Dead Alive) is remarkable, it is because it truly is. And will you believe me when I tell you that it was none other than Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings who directed it. You see before his move to more mainstream flicks, he was in New Zealand making low budget splatter films with his mates. In fact "Bad Taste", an extremely low budget (took years to complete) film about humans fending off aliens who have come to earth to harvest humans for their outerspace fast food joint, was very highly regarded.
Braindead was splatter at its finest and is the goriest film I think there is out there. But because its Peter Jackson, done with flair, competence, imagination and only he can seem to pull off under such constraints.
The story is simple enough. Nigel is a geeky character dominated by his tyrannical mother, who gets bitten by a rare weasel type rodent at the zoo. We know from the opening scene this is not good, and as parts of her body fall off into her food which she then proceeds to eat, we know something is up. Nigel tries his best to hide his now zombie mother from the outside world, but it is only a matter of time before more are infected. Nigel continues to care for the zombies utilizing potent tranquilizers, and even sits then to dinner etc.. However an encounter between a randy zombie priest and semi-decapitated nurse produces a zombie baby. Soon Nigel's bastard uncle finds out and decides to throw a party in the mansion. It is up to Nigel and his girl to fend off crowds of zombies with a lawnmower. Enough said
The special effects are wonderful. Things you would never thought possible rendered on screen. A man stripped of the flesh from his lower body revealing his quivvering skeleton. A zombie baby reaching around the face of a nurse, splitting her face open whilst coming through the back of her head to replace her face with his!!! Amourous entrails! As you can tell there is much comedy to this film which makes even the most revolting of scenes bearable. The scene where Nigel tries to take care of the zombie baby who he has named Selwyn is a gem of a peach of a rather good apple. Nigel takes Selwyn to the park in order to look at mothers to learn how to take care of a baby. Of course Selwyn is in a pram forfeited with barbed wire. Nigel's attempts at playing baby end up with ripped toy bears etc... until Selwyn finally escapes the pram leading Nigel to resort to extreme measures to prevent a major disaster as the flesh mongering toddler heads towards the unaware park goers. By the end Nigel is stuffing Selwyn into a bag and beating the hell out of it. When he peers up at the shocked onlookers, he exclaims in reference to the baby: "Hyperactive".
Now cult is not a word to do this film justice, because it is actually a wonderfully produced fil, which no doubt was a tool in landing Jackson directorial duties on 'Heavenly Creatures" and then 'Lord of the Rings'