
Death Warmed Up
1984, 1080hd
IMDb calls this "Death Warmed Over,"
which would be the equivalent idiom in the USA.
Johnny's comments follow
This is one crazy movie, extremely violent and gory, and
incredibly nutty - making it one odd experience,
but then again, director David Blyth isn't
above something completely crazy. It's interesting. I just wish it
was better.
Death Warmed Up is a 1984 horror movie where
school boy Michael (Michael Hurst) is chemically
coerced by insane scientist Dr. Archer Howell (Gary
Day) into killing his parents including his father who
is the doctor's biggest critic. It seems that the
doctor has created a cure for death, but Michael's
father is morally against it. Well, Michael gets 7
years in a psychiatric facility for killing his
parents and the doctor gets his own facility to
practice his cure for death. Some time after he is
released, Michael convinces his girlfriend Sandy
(Margaret Umbers) and his best friend Lucas (William
Upjohn) as well as Lucas's girlfriend Jeannie (Norelle
Scott) to go to Waiheke Island where there are some
tunnels that were used during World War 2 and explore
them. Coincidentally, Dr. Howell's facility is also on
this island and some of his experiments are roaming
around freaking out or menacing the locals or dying in
the most horrific ways possible because the
experiments don't always work (including a welcome
cameo from Bruno Lawrence as the first experiment).
What Michael hasn't told his friends is that he's
there to get revenge on the doctor and plans to enter
the facility through the tunnels. Well, all hell
breaks loose and the doctor unleashes his army of
neverdead 'zombies' to cause complete mayhem. So, who
will survive the chaos?
Messy movie that pushes a lot of the right buttons but
has such a ridiculous plot that it stumbles around a
lot. I just wish it was more coherent in
regards as to why the doctor's doing what he's
doing. Maybe I'm missing something, I don't know.
It also has a very abrupt ending, suggesting either a
possible sequel that never came, or maybe lost footage
and heavy re-editing.
Norelle
Scott film clip (collage below)
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