Dead Heat
Featuring: Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo
Directed by: Mark Goldblatt
Detective Roger Mortis(Williams) is attempting to solve a string of robberies – and his own murder. Along with his partner Detective Bigelow(Piscopo), the newly reanimated Roger Mortis has to wade through daylight robberies, high technology and monsters seemingly spawned from Hell itself to solve his last case. Dead Heat is a comedy/horror/science-fiction/action/buddy-cop adventure where the thrills, the chills and the jokes are cheap and low.
Dead Heat is a brazen movie. Corpses are re-animated, bullets are fired and the officers keep cracking jokes in true buddy cop fashion. Zombies take the form of mutants, humanoids, animals, and a whole host of disturbing in-between creatures. Tropes from all of its borrowed genres are exploited without shame, and to great effect.
Once again I have to say that a wonderful movie’s worst trait is its own ambition. Quiet moments that push the story forward or create motivation for the character are more jarring than the mix of divergent genres. Those moments do tend to end with quite a payoff, for what it’s worth.
I can not watch this movie without wondering how they pulled this movie off, followed by why they were inspired to try. This is all in the best way, as I feel honest awe toward several purely outlandish scenes. One has to wonder if this is what it would look like if Hollywood attempted to make movies in the Troma style. I personally feel this is as close as they would ever come to the spirit and passion shown by Kaufman, Herz and company.
Final Score: 7.5/10
Best enjoyed with a very large bottle of sake and a large serving of orange duck.
Other thoughts:
- Robert Picardo (976-Evil) returns in another small part.
- Vincent Price (The Last Man on Earth) puts a wonderful science fiction touch into this already disjointed film – and makes it work.
- I seriously deliberated whether or not this counted as a true horror movie. The gore ultimately helped me decide that it was “far enough.”
- I loathe most horror comedies. Please consider the high mark for this in light of my attitude.
(I am currently reviewing every horror dvd in my collection, in alphabetical order. More Vincent Price will be coming soon. Please keep watching. Coming next: Evil Dead.)
