Death Warmed Over

Trailer—Death Warmed Over

source: Death Warmed Over

Maddening variation on the zombie theme, from New Zealand, about "experimental mistakes"(..which evolve from humans into grotesque walking fiends which cause mindless violence), thanks in part to a deranged scientist's insane attempts to create a method for eternal life. Gary Day is Dr. Archer Howell, a determined, and just plain nuts, scientist who will stop at nothing to see his experiments become a success. He uses Michael Tucker(Michael Hurst)to kill his father, Howell's partner who threatened to expose his sick, dangerous experiments. Michael is injected in the butt while showering from behind by Howell, and forced against his will(..through a form of mind control, I gather, since Howell's expertise were in the brain and it's functions)to blow his parents away with a shot gun. Thrown into an asylum, the years Michael spent locked away Howell had moved to his own island to continue his experiments in relative peace..once a tourist destination, Howell's presence has caused the island to stagnate in popularity. Meanwhile, Michael prepares for revenge, with girlfriend Sandy(Margaret Umbers)and pals Lucas & Jeannie(William Upjohn & Norelle Scott)tagging along with him to Howell's island. What Michael and his gang were unprepared for was a duo of Howell's former patients, Spider(David Letch)and his very ill partner whose condition isn't responding well to heat. Spider plans to get Michael back for a scuffle they have on board the ferry. Spider becomes an even more intimidating antagonist that Howell, reacting negatively when the scientist rejects his plea to save his friend, seeking revenge after being considered obsolete, due for extermination, letting those locked away free. This, in turn, sets off a chain of events threatening life on the island. Even worse is that Howell seems to realize that those he had performed experiments on before will mutate into homicidal creatures causing potential global catastrophe! The movie is nutty as a fruitcake. The film has some wild camera-work to complement it's really bizarre story-line. Replete with violence and ugly characters, often shot in darkened buildings with the director effectively using small lights to not completely establish what the human monsters look like. David Letch as Spider, a real wacko, will probably walk away the most memorable face of the film, he's the reason everything falls apart(..along with Howell, that is)to begin with, unleashing a threat to the human race. Day, as Howell, is never seen as sane, walking around with a cane, his face carrying a look of crazed dedication to his own work, not caring the least little bit the consequences of his actions. Hurst, as Michael, never appears completely well;even in his scenes with Sandy early on, you can see he's not operating at full capacity. After entering the hospital and meeting his enemy once again, Michael goes over the edge, unstable, realizing that Howell has polluted the population with his "scientific breakthrough". I was never quite sure of Howell's motives regarding his experiments, and how he could succeed in actually continuing his work when it's obvious he's a lunatic. DEATH WARMED UP features Howell's handiwork, cutting into the skull's of human guinea pigs, blood squirting on his nurses faces, seeing the harmful side-effects of his experiments. We also see humans, who were experimented on, their foreheads bulging, vomiting puss/mucus, noticing how Howell's work has caused severe abnormalities, the body rejecting the wrongful tampering of the brain. The slaughter of the parents with a shotgun by Michael's hand, is rather shocking. Like in past movies featuring experiments-gone-awry, DEATH WARMED UP shows the chaos that ensues when a scientist attempts to tamper with life's cycle.

This New Zealand-made movie focuses on a mad scientist who is performing experiments on mental patients in an effort to defeat death. Unfortunately, his efforts spawn a dangerous collective of Mad Max extras, and even worse, he tends to plaster his island compound with gigantic photos of himself, a la Big Brother from 1984. The plot gets moving when a young man with a decade old grudge against the scientist shows up on the island to get revenge, for some reason bringing his young adult friends with him. What follows just goes to show that revenge and vacations just don't mix. This film is bad in so many ways that it is almost impossible to list them here. The dialogue is laughable, with the best line being "I'll get you-I'll get you all," which is repeated at least five times by the head Mad Max escapee. Furthermore, the mad scientist's headquarters looks like an ultra trendy 1980s night club, with punked out nurses to match. The film tries, lamely, to adopt a punk sensibility, with main titles and transitions that look like they were designed by the artist of a Sex Pistols album cover. On the plus side, the film's gore and overall approach foreshadow the early work that Australian director Peter Jackson would put out several years later. However, it's not really worth wasting your money on when you can just rent the real thing.

I was told about this site from a friend. I'm the guy who played SPIDER. As someone commented, no eyebrows. We did it way back when we were all in our twenties. It was a great amount of fun to do. The creative team came from both film and theatre industry. I'd just finished a pirate movie with Tommy Lee Jones, Michael O'Keefe and Jenny Seagrove and a lot of theatre. Michael (Hurst) was also a fellow theatre actor and we went on after this to do a couple of stage plays together. As was also noted, Michael went on to do 'Hercules'. At the time, Fangoria was the genre magazine of choice, and, with David (Blyth) and Murray (Newey - RIP) and the script by Michael Heath, with the 80's sex chic of the nurses, designed by Micahel Glock, we hit Auckland with all the energy that a 4 week shoot can muster. It's amazing to read comments from watchers/viewers some, what? 25 years later! Don't get too analytical....we just went for the jugular and hoped that somewhere along the line it'd all make sense! Along the way we shot stuff in a deserted and rather creepy abattoir, the tunnels on the island off Auckland city, and got right into ridged knives with back splatter.

This film was featured in a collection of 50 horror films, that most likely are in the public domain. I had never heard or seen this one before, so it was the third film I viewed. As I watched it, I couldn't help think to myself that this film is almost good. It has a nice idea, the acting is not bad and the settings are good too. Unfortunately, the editing is utterly loathsome, the story has huge gaping holes in it and they did not seem to know quite how to end the film. The bad outweighs the good and thus my score of 4. It is almost a shame, because I did think they had something going, but the editor was most likely Edward Scissorhands and he went to town on the film. Someone frantically tried gluing it back together, but just was not up to the task. The plot has a doctor who wishes to perform experiments to prolong life. A doctor opposes this idea, so the one doctor hypnotizes the son the doctor who is opposed and makes him kill not only his father, but also his mother. The son gets locked away and the doctor is now free to perform his bizarre experiments on an island. Years later, the son is let out of the mental institution and he and three friends go to the island so the son can exact his revenge upon the doctor. Strange people reside on this island as the friends encounter some strange people on the ferry going to it. Well, seems something is happening to those who have received the life prolonging procedure. Soon general mayhem ensues as the young man will stop at nothing to get to the doctor, though honestly the guy could have easily gotten to the doctor upon his arrival as he saw him going into a store. The problems with this movie is that it is hard to figure out what is going on at times, whether it is a bunch of shots sloppily edited in the dark or huge chunks of logic missing from the story. I was completely baffled if the man looking for revenge had told his friends that he was going for revenge. The man's girlfriend seemed to know, but I was not sure about the other couple. They go into some tunnels, but I have no idea why. Once again, getting to the doctor did not seem to require them doing this. Just a bit to jumbled, then a final showdown seems to be brewing between the son and this villain named Spider, but instead of showing this, they cut away to the son and his girlfriend driving away. The film almost had something, I enjoyed the idea behind the story. The film just lacked execution in certain areas. Not acting, the acting was pretty good for a low budget horror film. I really enjoyed the character named Spider, which is probably why I really did not enjoy that a final showdown was omitted. I was also kind of rooting for Spider at the end, because the son looking for revenge had done so much to put his friends into harm's way. Also, son and his friend kind of started the whole mess with Spider and his buddy anyway. So, while it was not a good horror film, it almost was.

It was an odd movie, and admittedly - the first two or three times I tried to watch some parts, I was gravely confused at... what was going on. Now that I understand what is going on a little better, I really like the idea... and I like the style the movie had, it just felt cozy. As for Spider, you were the best character in the whole movie in my sincere opinion. It takes a certain pallet, but it was really kind of an awesome style, and I admire that in a movie... it added to the overall surreal effect, like the whole world was kind of distorted. The irony is that the world IS distorted in both the movie and reality, lol. The style isn't for everyone, but I liked it! It was really quite gruesome and visceral at times, which was pretty well blended with the weird, dream-like subject matter. Like you're on the edge of sanity - again, more irony! It speaks a language that only few can understand, I suppose one could say. All in all though, I really liked it - not exactly your stereotypical b-movie about monsters, which was essentially what I was expecting.

OK, there is romantic sex in movies, and there's perversion, and when mixed into a horror movie, it just lengthens what is most likely mediocre in the first place. This is the type of already questionable story where the murder of one's own parents by a young man (caused by a shot he got in the butt by his father's scientist partner, and ends up seeking revenge when he gets out of the looney bin. The young man is seen blowing his parents away, twisting and squirming in a straight jacket in a rubber room, then all of a sudden is out joyriding with his girlfriend and friends when he recognizes the man who got him into that jam in the first place. So I don't expect the usual in a 1970's/80's science fiction/horror film, but I expect some cohesion and sense at least in the story telling. This is some nonsense about ending death as we know it and somehow bringing corpses back in some gory form or another. Real frights come from suspense, and understanding science fiction doesn't need to involve unnecessary gore or constant expulsion of bodily fluids. This had a basically decent idea that just went way too far, and ultimately I didn't give a darn about any of it. This seems like it was written by someone of the target age it was made for. Stupidity has never had such a vile and disgusting face.

Well it never ceases to amaze me how movie viewers get their kicks. There are a dozen reviews here already for "Death Warmed Up", and most are pretty thoughtful ones going into detail about the story and it's twisted characters. I learned a whole new bunch of terms here like 'Kiwi horror' and 'Jackson splatter', so I guess my time wasn't wasted in terms of rounding out my viewing experience. But the film - man, what a mess! The whole idea of trans-cranial applications (that would be brain transplants for the uninitiated) at the center of the story is just pretty much of an excuse to turn this thing into a zombie flick once it revs up into high gear. I won't go into detail because others have done a pretty good job of it already, but if exploding heads, brain surgery with a handy man's drill and claustrophobic motorcycle chases in a tunnel are your thing, this should be right up your alley. The best, and others have mentioned it, is the mad scientist Howell (Gary Day) conducting his experiments in an Eighties themed disco club. But why listen to me, there's a review on this board from one of the principals himself, David Letch the eyebrow challenged Spider guy. Just be warned, at the end of the flick you'll be asking yourself the same question as girlfriend Sandy - "Michael - Why?"

"A deranged scientist is on a remote island working on his experimental brain procedures on human test subjects. Unfortunately, many of the patients suffer side effects from the procedure that transforms them into murderous zombies. Arriving on the island is a group of youths that include the son of the scientist's chief rival. Years before, the mad doctor had hypnotized the youth and had him murder his own father, so the young man has come to track down the scientist and make him pay," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis... If he'd only added some exposition, director David Blyth might have had something with "Death Warmed Over". It has style and promise - like in, for example, the scene where Michael Hurst (as Michael Tucker) and his friends are pursued by a couple of motorcyclists in the underground Australian tunnels. The story is way too distant, though. Villainous doctor Gary Day (as Archer Howell) and the arousable young Hurst seem to have had some past sexual relationship ("You're all sweaty, let's get you cleaned up"). Perhaps, since he strokes his walking stick while watching kids at play, the mad doctor started early with Hurst? ***** Death Warmed Over (11/84) David Blyth ~ Michael Hurst, Margaret Umbers, Gary Day