Braindead
Braindead is a 1992 film from New Zealand, directed by Peter Jackson, running 104 minutes. reelscum files it under splatter.
- Year
- 1992 · 1990s films
- Country
- New Zealand
- Runtime
- 104 min
- Director
- Peter Jackson
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (14/100)
- Also known as
- Dead Alive
- Banned in
- Germany · Finland · Singapore · South Korea
Defined in the glossary: Splatter
Peter Jackson's splatter comedy remains banned uncut in Germany, and was banned outright in Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
Jackson before the trilogy. The lawnmower scene ends the argument.
Peter Jackson before the mountains, making the goriest film ever produced and one of the funniest. A Sumatran rat-monkey bite turns a milquetoast man's mother into a zombie, and the infection spreads until the finale, in which he clears a house full of the dead with a lawnmower strapped to his chest.
It is relentlessly, absurdly bloody, a gallon of fake blood a second by the end, and its splatter is so excessive it loops back into slapstick. Under it is a sweet story about a man escaping his monstrous mother.
The upper limit of gore as comedy. Nobody has gone further and stayed funny.
Trailer
The numbers
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Where to watch
Legal options in UK (nearest we have)
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Filed alongside
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Day of the Dead
The bleakest Romero. Bub is the only sympathetic character in it.
Dawn of the Dead
A shopping mall, four survivors, and Savini's finest hour.
The Return of the Living Dead
Punk soundtrack, running zombies, and the film that invented 'BRAINS'.
Bad Taste
Shot at weekends over four years by Jackson and his friends. Astonishing.
The Evil Dead II
Remake and sequel at once. Raimi discovers slapstick and never looks back.
The Toxic Avenger
Troma's only good film, and the head-crushing is still funny.
Ichi the Killer
Miike hands out sick bags at the premiere and earns every one of them.
Bride of Re-Animator
Herbert West builds a woman from parts. The sequel goes bigger, wetter and more demented.
From Beyond
Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs do Lovecraft again. A machine that lets you see what should stay unseen.
Inside
The French extremity wave stripped to one room, one night, and a pair of scissors.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Sixty-seven minutes of industrial nightmare. Nothing else looks like it.