Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Leofwine_draca Zombies are big on entertainment value. To be honest, it would be pretty difficult to make a zombie film that isn't entertaining. The subject is just so visual, so visceral, that it embodies the cinematic medium perfectly. So there aren't - or should I say weren't - many crappy zombie films in the history of cinema, and even those that are poor – like Bruno Mattei's efforts – still have an intrinsic entertainment value to them. Conversely, the genre holds lots of classics, and the excellent 1985 film RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD opened the floodgates for zombie-comedy hybrids.This is one of those films. Although it bears superficial similarities to the Dan O'Bannon movie (especially the reanimated creatures), this is closer in plot to the 1950s thriller classic, D. O. A., which was about a detective who took a slow-acting poison and then had a certain number of hours to solve his own murder before it killed him. Personally, I think that's one of the best plots ever, and DEAD HEAT goes for the obvious and takes it one further: a zombie cop has to solve his own murder before he rots away to nothingness.On the face of it, this is an extremely cheesy '80s movie, full of big hair, well-muscled guys and more comic one-liners than you can shake a stick at. All of these come courtesy of Saturday NIGHT LIVE comedian Joe Piscopo, here playing a tough, humorous partner to Treat Williams' more stoic police officer. Piscopo reminded me a little of Roddy McDowall in THEY LIVE: he embodies his larger-than-life character and shines at every opportunity. It helps that the script is also genuinely funny. Williams takes the lion's share of acting duties, and manages to humanise what could have been a lifeless (no pun intended) creation.The plot is action-focused throughout and there are plenty of set-pieces, from the arresting bank robbery opening to the OTT climax. Along the way there are multiple encounters with zombie henchmen and the spectacle of Williams actively rotting before our eyes as the storyline progresses. There are problems, too, like gaping plot holes and continuity issues, but these can be easily overlooked because the main thing is that the film's a great deal of fun. It flies past, funny and quirky, and never stops being enjoyable. As an added bonus, three old-timers join the cast list. These are Keye Luke, an Oriental presence in Hollywood since the 1930s and playing a villain for once; Darren McGavin (otherwise known as Kolchak) as a shady senior doctor and, last and best of all, Vincent Price as a mad scientist. This is one of Price's last movies and he certainly looks fragile, but he invests his dialogue with plenty of his usual aplomb.In the end, DEAD HEAT is all about the special effects. These range from bloody squib hits to zombie make-up, but there are a couple of stand-out set pieces that take this beyond the norm for '80s conventions. An intervention in a slaughterhouse full of the living dead becomes an incredible gross-out laugh riot as our heroes are attacked by joints of beef, severed duck heads and slaughtered chicken carcasses (the highlight is when Williams finds himself the victim...of a sentient liver!). Later, a supporting character has a surprise reveal and ends up literally rotting away to nothing courtesy of some very gross FX work. These moments are as insanely entertaining as the likes of RE-ANIMATOR and SOCIETY and so deserve special mention. They serve to add to the film's appeal no end, making DEAD HEAT a minor classic of the genre and a film that's endlessly rewatchable.

tavm After 25 years of hearing of this, I finally got to see Dead Heat on Netflix disc just now. Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo are cops investigating a jewel robbery. I'll stop there and just say that the plot gets weirder when it involves zombies. But Piscopo has some good funny lines, there are a couple of fine-looking women in Lindsay Frost and Clare Kirkconnell, and some nice villains portrayed by Keye Luke, Darren McGavin, and the legendary Vincent Price. Much of the makeups and special effects are a bit on the cheezy side but since none of it is meant to be taken too seriously, it's actually quite a hoot to watch. So on that note, I recommend Dead Heat. P.S. I also recommend listening to the commentary track involving the director, writer, and the two producers as well as watch the deleted scenes on the disc especially one that has Roger Corman/Joe Dante player Dick Miller as a guard who mentions a famous comedian once associated with one of the players!

Scott LeBrun Warning: if you can't stand deliberately cheesy low budget genre crossing movies completely aware of their nature and just having fun with their premise, stay clear! "Dead Heat" is admittedly nonsense, but who watches this sort of thing hoping for an intelligent and provocative screenplay? This viewer doesn't. "Dead Heat" is a high old time for those people looking for an action - comedy, a "buddy" cop movie, and a zombie horror film all rolled into one. Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo are an engaging odd couple as police detectives Roger Mortis (good one) and Doug Bigelow, pursuing the case of lowlife bad guys who won't stay dead and go about their ordinary business of robbing jewelry stores. Their search leads them to a pharmaceutical company named Dante that's developed a resurrection machine, meaning this thing can bring the dead back to "life". This leads to the biggest spin that "Dead Heat" puts on the buddy cop formula, as one of the buddies is dead! During a heated battle with a many faced monster, Roger gets locked in a decompression room until he expires. Now he's hellbent on getting revenge. Williams plays all of this straight for a while until he starts decomposing, then just really letting loose, while Piscopo is genuinely funny and comes up with some priceless quips. And get a load of this supporting cast: Darren "Kolchak" McGavin as the nefarious Dr. McNab, Keye Luke ("Gremlins") as the villainous Mr. Thule, and Vincent Price in the role of Arthur P. Loudermilk. Price is a delight; it's nice to see that he was still embracing the horror genre and working steadily late in his life and career. Robert Picardo also appears as ineffectual whiner Lt. Herzog, Mel Stewart fills out the clichéd role of the yelling police captain adequately, and lovely ladies Lindsay Frost and Clare Kirkconnell provide fine scenery attractions. Keep an eye out for the cameos by screenwriter and actor Shane Black, brother of this films' screenwriter, Terry Black, wrestler Professor Toru Tanaka as a butcher, and MTV VJ Martha Quinn as a newscaster. Quotable dialogue includes stuff like "You have the right to remain disgusting.", and the film does have a certain energy, coming in at a very reasonable running time of 84 minutes. Steve Johnson's makeup and creature effects are just great, especially when it comes to the ruckus in the butcher shop and the final scene for Frosts' character. As long as one doesn't take this seriously for one second, they can derive some solid entertainment out of this agreeably silly film, the feature directing debut for veteran editor Mark Goldblatt. Eight out of 10.

Paul Andrews Dead Heat is set in Los Angeles where detectives Roger Mortis (Treat Williams) & Doug Bigelow (Joe Piscopo) are investigating a spate of violent jewellery store robberies, during the latest one two suspects were eventually shot dead by the cops but they seemed almost invincible. At the LA morgue pathologist Rebecca Smythers (Clare Kirkconnell) says that the two dead thieves had already been autopsied before & she was sure that she had done them herself, Mortis & Bigelow are baffled & the only clue to the case is a large amount of a special drug in the thieves bodies. Mortis & Bigelow trace the drug to a pharmaceutical company & while there are attacked by a mutant zombie after finding a machine that can bring the dead back to life, Mortis is killed but Smythers & Bigelow use the machine to bring him back to life. The effects of the machine wear off as it cannot prevent the decay of human flesh so Mortis sets out to track those down responsible for killing him before his body decomposes...Directed by Mark Goldblatt this is a horror film that uses the basic then popular buddy buddy action cop flick scenario such as Lethal Weapon (1987) (in fact the script for Dead Heat was written by Terry Black who is the brother of Shane Black who wrote Lethal Weapon!) as it's central concept & injects various horror themes around it, like one of the cops being killed & brought back as a zombie who is then determined to solve his own murder & while Dead Heat isn't a cult classic it is an entertaining oddball mix of a film. Played mainly for laughs it's a shame that two better actor's with more on screen chemistry couldn't have been cast, Treat Williams is alright but comedian Joe Piscopo is awful & almost single handedly ruins the entire film. Every line he has he pulls faces, makes silly gestures & tries to get a laugh which kills any genuine drama between the two cops as he never once even tries to act like a normal human being. At only 80 odd minutes long Dead Heat is short & it moves along like a rocket, the script throw's in a couple of twists at the end but they aren't that great & the idea that a criminal masterminds plan is foiled by a code using telephone buttons feels lazy. The character's are alright but no-one seems that bothered whenever anyone else dies, Mortis when Smythers & his partner Bigelow die for instance seems to show no emotion at all. A few things are never explained like the rushed ending & the bad guy's aren't bad enough.There are some good effects sequences here with a scene set inside a butcher's particularly good as a bad guy uses the machine to resurrect all the dead animals & cuts of meat including dead Chicken's & an entire Cow's carcass. The film has a quite static & bland look which is a shame, it's well made with good effects work but there's not much visual style. There's a runaway ambulance which crashes & explodes to up the action a bit along with the fights & shoot-outs. Released a few weeks before big budget action film Red Heat (1988) the two titles are very similar & maybe Dead Heat would have done better business had it been released a weeks after Red Heat & cashed in on the similar sounding title & similar buddy buddy cop story.With a supposed budget of about $5,000,000 the production values are good & the effects are OK but maybe the lack of any recognisable stars in the cast hurt it. The does let Dead Heat down a bit, Williams is alright but Piscopo is awful while genre legend Vincent Price has a small role.Dead Heat is a strange mix of cop comedy thriller & zombie horror that is quite fun to watch, the choice of leads hurt the film & it's maybe not as funny, gory or scary as maybe it could have been but there's enough here to enjoy & for me to be able to recommend it.