Splatters

Gli Schizzacervelli

Splatters

As the film opens on Skull Island we see a New Zealand zoo official and his posse make their escape from some irate local natives with their captive rabid rat monkey prize. The team escape but the creature bites the zoo official not only in his arms but scratches his head also so his god fearing guides feel obliged to hack off said limbs before transporting the beast on for their much sought after cash reward.

The film then cuts to a small town in New Zealand where superstitious shop assistant Nikita misguidedly falls for the charms of local boy Lionel, who lives at home with his oppressive bullying mother. Our hapless couple head off on a date to the local zoo where the rat monkey is now a caged resident. Unknown to them they are being spied on by Lionel's spiteful mother, but when she slips and falls against a cage she is bitten by (you guessed it) the rabid rat monkey! Now normally you would think a rabies shot would do the trick here but this is a 'splatter' flick so the let the gory fun commence…Lionel's mum soon slips away and becomes one of the undead, a flesh eating zombie…and as is the way with any zombie movie worth their salt, the zombie contagion soon spreads with extreme gore relentlessly bombarding the screen with downright hysterical results!

Now I'm sure many of you will already have guessed, well the scene setting plot scenario should be very familiar to any horror fan, yes 'Splatters' is in fact the Italian release of Peter Jackson's seminal zombie classic 'Brain Dead' - perhaps the most hysterically wild, all out gore extravaganza to grace a horror fans screens to this day!

If you haven't seen 'Splatters'/'Brain Dead' then why the hell not? The first thing you must do is seek out a copy right now! Horror and comedy have always been strange bedfellows and sometimes don't work that well, but riding on the cult success of his low budget debut (Bad Taste) Peter Jackson convincingly showed the world that he could deliver the high end entertainment goods when it came to mixing extreme gore with gut chuckling laughter (though who would have believed that the same talented chap would one day be the man behind the multi million pound epic that is the Lord of the Rings trilogy!)

But what of this Italian variation release under the title of 'Splatters'? Well, welcomingly the film is fully uncut showcasing the endless barrage of gore as director Jackson meant us to see it! The print looks great too, a nice clean print of the Italian release which is presented in anamorphic widescreen (that does look overmatted but not problematic). Thankfully there is a number of welcome audio options too including not only Italian tracks in both surround sound and 5.1 but a clear English surround track too (as well as Italian and English subtitles making this open to our hard of hearing friends also). Extras wise, there's little of interest outside of some Italian text pages (bio/filmography etc) and while it would have been nice to have seen the trailer included the main features lovely presentation more satisfies.

I've seen 'Brain Dead' countless times since its release many years back but on revisiting it in this new uncut Italian 'Splatters' DVD release I rediscovered why I love this just so much. Splatter, gore and laughs galore - one of the wildest movie rides you're ever likely to see and hence an essential addition to any horror fans collection, buy it now!

Review by Alan Simpson

'Splatters' can be ordered direct from Horror Club/Raro by clicking here.


 
Released by Horror Club/Minerva
Region 2 - Pal
Rated 14 (uncut)
Audio - English or Italian (5.1, 2.0) with optional English or Italian subtitles
Extras :
Selection of Text pages
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