Thursday, October 29, 2020

2020 October Horror Challenge #96: "Dead Heat (1988)"

 





How have I never heard of this movie?! It's a cop movie that's also a horror movie about zombies, with Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo, AND Vincent Price! Clearly I was meant to love this movie, and the cruel, harsh world was keeping us apart,  but now we can be together at last. I can't wait to watch it.

This movie is about two cops, partners, who are after a violent gang of robbers who are extremely reckless and hard to kill. One of the cops dies fighting the gang, but finds himself resurrected as a zombie. He and his partner try to track down the rest of the undead gang and solve the "hey who's making all these zombies" mystery before it's too late.

Treat Williams looks so young in this movie! It's adorable. Joe Piscopo is really young too. Their banter and antics are a lot of fun even before zombies enter the picture. I would totally watch a buddy cop movie with these two. They could still make one! Somebody needs to get to work on this project immediately, because I want to watch that movie. Until that movie happens, though, I'll be content to watch this movie. Vincent Price is also great as always. He stars as the "asshole scientist who wants to play God" and I loved every minute.

This movie has some great special effects for its time. There's a zombie transformation scene that has to be seen to be believed. It's cool to watch even as I'm sad for what's happening to the character involved. There's another sequence that takes place in a butcher shop where the animal corpses suddenly come to life, and it's disgusting but hilarious. We also get to see a zombie go from human-looking to rotted corpse as time passes and tissue deteriorates. There's some skin melting, a good stabbing, and lots of dead bodies in various stages of decay. There's also a zombie vs. zombie shootout that you won't want to miss, and a body exploding (because what movie is complete without THAT?)

There are some great twists in the plot, too. The movie sneaks in a love story of sorts, and there's a mystery surrounding who is behind the zombie scheme and the dozens of murders that pile up while the cops are doing their investigation. I feel like saying more would give too much away, and this movie is such a blast that I'd hate to ruin it. Suffice it to say that young little baby Treat Williams shows his action movie chops in such a fun way that the movie just ended and I already want to watch it again. 

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