Braindead (film)

Braindead (also known as Dead Alive in North America) is a 1992 New Zealand zombie comedy splatter film directed by Peter Jackson, produced by Jim Booth, and written by Stephen Sinclair, Fran Walsh, and Jackson based on an original story idea by Sinclair. It stars Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody and Ian Watkin. The plot follows Lionel, a young man living in South Wellington with his strict mother Vera. After Lionel becomes romantically entangled with a girl named Paquita, Vera is bitten by a hybrid rat-monkey creature and begins to transform into a zombie, while also infecting swathes of the city's populace.

Made on a budget of $3 million, Braindead was Jackson's most expensive film up to that point. Although it received positive reviews from critics, it was a box office bomb. It has since received a cult following, and is now widely regarded as one of the goriest films of all time.