#124: Dead Heat
Release Date: May 6th, 1988
Format: Streaming (Tubi)
Written by: Terry Black
Directed by: Mark Goldblatt
3 Stars
I’m going to compare the 1988 film Dead Heat to a 1988 Ford Escort.
Read reviews for either from that time and you’ll read that they’re pieces of junk. In the case of Dead Heat, you’ll read about the scattershot plot, the lack of chemistry between the leads, the shlock, the bad dialogue, so on and so forth.
But it’s strange how time works. Watching Dead Heat tonight for the first time, 37 years after its theatrical release, I gotta say, it’s a blast. It’s no different than if I had the chance to drive a 1988 Ford Escort around LA for the evening. Sure it was a bad car when it came out, but now those manual window cranks and pleather seats have a lot of character. It’s fun, even though it’s clunky and poorly designed. And best of all, it sure doesn’t look like every other car on the road today, and that says a lot.
How can you hate on a movie with this plot?: A pair of detectives intercept and kill a couple jewelry store robbers, and when the bodies are brought in for autopsy, the doctor tells them that she’s seen these bodies before, and that they seem to be injected with an experimental preservative. So, zombie robbers? The detectives track down the source of this preservative, to a pharmaceutical developer, and they break into a secret room and discover a device that can bring the dead back to life. When one of the detectives is killed during a confrontation with the facility’s zombie security guards, the surviving detective decides to resurrect his buddy using the device so they can figure out what is going on and kick some ass.
On top of this fun, wild plot, there are some incredible practical effects. Some of the best that I’ve ever seen. And the makeup is amazing too. The movie is filled with mutant zombies in different stages of deterioration, a zombie pig, and best of all, a huge zombie butchered cow. It’s unbelievable the quality of these effects on a reported $5 million budget.
So, if you’re in need of a buddy-cop-zombie-comedy-action movie, look no further.
