Kiwi horror | Doomed Moviethon

Death Warmed Up (1984)

In order to continue his morally questionable experiments on prolonging human life, Dr. Archer Howell (Gary Day) decides to eliminate his colleague Dr. Tucker (David Weatherley). Dr. Howell brainwashes Dr. Tucker’s son Michael (Michael Hurst) into killing his parents with a shotgun. Michael is put into an insane asylum and after his release, seven years later, is looking to kill the mad doctor. He travels with a couple of friends to Dr. Howell’s huge island medical facility. It is here where Michael discovers that the mad doctor’s test subjects have become violent mutants that only Dr. Howell can control.

Okay, so now I think New Zealand is the weirdest place on Earth. This wonderfully cheesy, oddly disjointed, and completely manic sci-fi horror flick comes from director David Blyth (Red-Blooded American Girl). Death Warmed Up is an action-packed and splatter-filled romp through Kiwi country with great stunts, lots of wet gore, and plenty of imagination. The cinematography by James Bartle (The Quiet Earth) is excellent and the synthesizer-infused soundtrack fits the film perfectly. I can’t help but dig on those wild sets and fierce lighting schemes.

On the down side, the script leaves much to be desired as the dialogue is very silly and there are way too many confusing moments in the film. The loose ends and logic lapses make it feel like the movie was a 2 hour epic that someone sliced up. I’m not saying the film would be better with more footage. After all, one of the highlights of Death Warmed Up is its dizzying pace.

Although actor Michael Hurst’s intensity is appreciated, it reaches comic proportions in some points. And yes, his character, Michael, is written rather poorly. From his declaration of love for Sandy (Margaret Umbers) to his nihilistic ramblings at the end of the film, I’m just friggin’ lost. Also, if he is on a quest for bloody revenge against Dr. Howell, why the hell did he bring his girlfriend and another young couple along? Thank God for Spider (David Letch), his mutant rival, who is clear, concise, and deadly.

When I told my friend Nafa about this New Zealand-born horror film, he said “Oh, is Bruno Lawrence in it?” I laughed because it seems like the superbly talented Lawrence (The Quiet Earth, Utu) was in every flick from New Zealand until his death in 1995. Then, while writing this review, I noticed that Bruno Lawrence is indeed in Death Warmed Up. He plays Tex, one of the original mutants in Dr. Howell’s experiments but is almost completely unrecognizable. Yep, awesome.

When all is said and done, I found Death Warmed Up to be a lot of fun despite its downer ending and confusing story. The film is visually arresting, surprisingly gory, and determined to get your attention with its outlandishness. Wait, was Dr. Howell trying to cure death or was he trying to create an army of mind-controlled mutants? Your guess is as good as mine. Just beware of the sexy and evil Kiwi nurses, okay?

“I’ll get you! I’ll get you, bastards!”

jackbenimble

Jack Be Nimble (1993)

Abandoned by their parents as children, Dora and Jack are put up for adoption. Dora (Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) goes to an upper class couple full of love for their new daughter and grows up stably yet unhappy. Jack (Alexis Arquette) is taken in by a couple of abusive country bumpkins with four evil daughters and he is constantly tormented. Both of their lives become unbearable when Dora is pushed off a cliff but a bully at school and Jack is whipped with barbed wire (!) by his adopted father.

When Dora wakes from a short coma, she discovers that she has developed psychic powers and her connection to Jack is even stronger than ever. With the help of her lover and fellow clairvoyant Teddy (Bruno Lawrence), Dora finds Jack but all is not well. In his spare time, Jack builds a machine that hypnotizes people which he uses to get his evil parents to kill themselves. The brother and sister track down their real parents to find out why they were sent to the orphanage. But this ain’t no episode of “The Locator” especially since Jack is now violently psychotic and his four evil sisters are hot on he and Dora’s trail.

Is it okay to be afraid of New Zealanders? The answer is yes. Once again I underestimated a flick from that distant and wonderful place and once again I was totally blown away. Director Garth Maxwell creates a dark and feverish fairy tale world where everyone is completely insane. Jack Be Nimble is both dreamy and nightmarish with exquisitely fluid camerawork and moments of surreal and bloody glory. My only complaint about the film is that the melodrama overtakes the story in some scenes and it gets a little embarrassing to watch as the actors scream and cry at each other.

The always reliable Bruno Lawrence (The Quiet Earth, Death Warmed Up) is in the cast and is very good as Teddy, Dora’s lover (and overly smug psychic) who probably shouldn’t have lent her his car. Alexis Arquette (Bride of Chucky) is awesome as Jack, the brooding, sexy (ooh, someone’s got a man-crush (on someone who used to be a man)) and frightening son of a bitch who has been pushed too close to the edge and can never come back. I really like Sarah Smuts-Kennedy. This odd actress puts everything into her performance of a woman haunted by her past and (as an added bonus) the voices of the dead and I couldn’t help but be fascinated.

While not a perfect film, Jack Be Nimble is a truly original and hypnotic masterpiece of New Zealand horror cinema and is easily one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen. Every character is suffering in his or her own way and either pain or death (or both) is always just around the corner. This film also contains that indescribably Kiwi thing. It’s an aura of quirky madness and total unpredictability even when you’re pretty sure you think you know what’s coming next.

“Do you hear me? You know me. I’m in your head. Drifting in the same sea, you and I, drowning together.”