Dead Alive

Oh how I love Dead Alive. It’s not for the spectacular gore that I love it, although I am a fan of gore, and I appreciate the possibly unprecedented levels this film achieves in sheer volume if not in art. The blood and violence are always played for laughs – I only feel genuinely moved by the gore once in the whole movie: the infamous custard scene (*shudder*). Knowing exactly nothing about film making, I feel a little arrogant (and a lot inarticulate) trying to talk about what I love about this movie, because I think what I love is sort of technical. I’ll comment anyway. I believe Dead Alive demonstrates a real artistry that is nearly unique among low-budget horror films. The playfulness of the camera work always seems to serve the story. Something about the intense color (saturated? is that what it is?) and uncomfortable angles makes every scene just overdone and chaotic and farcical enough to keep me entertained. I also think that the story is neatly constructed, again in a way that is very rare in low-budget horror movies. Finally, if you’re not convinced that Dead Alive is deeper than it looks, remember, an unattended baby carriage is always a reference to Eisenstein.