|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Science-Fiction |
|
|
| Horror |
|
|
| Fantasy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DEAD HEAT
Rating: 
USA. 1988.
Director – Mark Goldblatt, Screenplay – Terry Black, Producers – David Helpern & Michael Melzer, Photography – Robert D. Yeoman, Music – Ernest Troost, Visual Effects Supervisor – Patrick Reed Johnson, Special Effects – Sabre Special Effects, Makeup Effects – Steve Johnson, Production Design – Craig Stearns. Production Company – New World Pictures.
Cast:
Treat Williams (Detective Roger Mortis), Joe Piscopo (Detective Doug Bigelow), Lindsay Frost (Randi James), Clare Kirkconnell (Dr Rebecca Smythers), Darren McGavin (Dr Ernest McNab), Vincent Price (Arthur P. Loudermilk), Keye Luke (Mr Thule)
Plot: Detectives Roger Mortis and Doug Bigelow are baffled by a spate of armed robberies – in each case, it requires massive firepower to bring the hoods down and in each case the hoods have been reported as dead at the morgue prior to their crime spree. The two of them uncover the existence of a crime syndicate that has invented a resurrection machine. But then Mortis is killed. So Bigelow places Mortis’s body in the machine and revives him – Bigelow now has 12 hours before his body starts to decompose in which to solve his own murder.
Dead Heat offers a unique slant on the then current spate of buddy cop films – it is construed as a Lethal Weapon (1987)-type buddy cop film in which one of the cops is a zombie. (Indeed, Dead Heat scriptwriter Terry Black is the brother of Lethal Weapon films’ scripter Shane Black, who also makes a cameo appearance as a cop). The concept is a nicely parodistic one – the entire film seems to have been constructed to lead up to an ending parodying Casablanca (1942) with the two corpses walking off together, saying “This could be the end of a beautiful relationship.”
Unfortunately, the film ends up as dead as most of the zombies that turn up in it. The one thing that kills most of the potential humour dead in the water is the unfunny smartass, motormouth performance from stand-up comic Joe Piscopo. He never stops cracking one-liners – unfortunately these come as crass and clumsily as Piscopo’s entire performance does and leaves the film limping like a wounded dog virtually from the word go.
The film does feature some fairly good effects sequences – best of all is the genuinely grotesque sequence set in the butcher’s shop, all lit by flickers of electricity, as the characters have to take on headless chickens, gutted bull carcasses and sausages all brought back to life. Dead Heat could have been a cult film – and director Mark Goldblatt’s one other film The Punisher (1990) is one that certainly shows great style – but instead it fails badly.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
|