Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Dead Heat (1988)

"Roger, maybe you ought to get yourself a change of clothes. Being dead isn't something you should advertise." - Doug

"God wants us to live forever. And even if he doesn't, you could always buy him off." - Arthur P. Loudermilk

"Personally rip his heart out with my bare hands, Roger. Hold the heart in the palm of my hand and we'll watch it stops beating together." - Doug

Over the last six months I've probably been suggested this movie about ten times. Boy you guys are some sick sick bastards. This is the equivalent of a HUGE HUGE turd that just won't come out. Its stuck and I believe that if I didn't personally ingest a bunch of fast food whilst watching this one, it may have never come out. Joe Piscopo's lines are SO fucking dry and shitty that you sometimes feel that the whole goddamned movie is a REALLY bad joke. Not one single line he utters is even somewhat believable. I mean it is fucking BAD. This feels like a huge "fuck you" and I'm pretty hurt that you guys would do this to me. HAHAHA. However, you all DO know that I love this shit, so if you think there was some way I wasn't gonna make it through you were "Dead" wrong. wow. So here we go- Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo, Darrin McNavin (the dad from A CHRISTMAS STORY) and one of the last performances by VINCENT PRICE! You'd think with all that you'd have something amazing. Well, you just might. Amazing enough to probably kill you. Handle with care, I present to you DEAD HEAT!!! 
 

Our story begins with Doug and Roger, two cops who sometimes get in trouble with their captain for using extreme measures. They are responding to what seems to be a jewelry heist. But for some reason, when the cops start shooting these guys who are using automatic weapons on them, the bullets don't work. They are filling these dudes full of lead yet, officer after officer goes down. Roger thinks fast, jumps in a nearby squad car and runs the thieves down. They then proceed to get chewed out by their captain. Typical. 
 

So Roger's ex girlfriend works down at the morgue and Doug & Roger head down there to find out what was up with those crooks. She is kind of a jerk in a "I know you need me" kind of way, but she gives them info that trips them out. She tells them that the crooks had been there before. She had pics of them from when they were there the first time. Somehow they had come back to life. Her boss is a jerk and they only kind of show him for a second, so you know he plays some kind of part later in the flick. She told them their was traces of some weird chemical in their body and so they go to the place in town where those chemicals are shipped. In that spot they meet this kind of hot chick who plays dumb and acts like she knows nothing, but they suspect she knows more right from the get go. While Roger distracts her, Doug fakes a piss break and snoops around. He finds this room where they kill animals they test on, and then finds a weird room in the back where something weird definitely happens. Out of nowhere this huge mutant biker jumps out and starts fighting Doug. It takes them both to kill it, but Roger gets locked in the asphyxiation room, "someone" turns on the "airsuck" and just like that- he dies. 
 

But Doug shows Roger's ex morgue girl the machine and they figure that they are using it to reanimate corpses. They don't even believe it themselves, but before they can fully doubt their thoughts they have Roger up on the machine and convulsing until poof- he's back alive. With no pulse and cold skin they figure he has about 12 hours to solve his own murder and find out why someone is bringing back the dead. So then we have a lot of back and forth. They go to the one chicks house and question her and then 2 more undead goons attack them. She tells them she is a rich dudes daughter who owned the company. Then they go try to find this one Chinese guy for some reason, but he gets a bunch of reanimated chicken wings and cow corpses to attack them. Then they go back to see Roger's ex. She says she can help him maybe live undead indefinitely but she needs him to hang around. He says no way, he's got to find his killer. He takes the other chick to her dad's grave and he finds a number on a lampshade. She admits she wasn't really his daughter. Then they go back to her house and Doug is dead in a fishtank. Then the chick tells him she's dead and right when she does, she starts to melt. 
 

So Roger goes to find his ex's dickhead boss and accuses him of being the mastermind behind the whole thing. He laughs and has undead goons grab Roger and strap him into an ambulance beside of his (now too) dead girlfriend. They lock him in there, and he uses his leg to knock it out of gear on the steep hill and the van rolls into a huge intersection, flips and explodes. Roger escapes looking like a burnt up maniac, goes into the place where The Coroner and the now resurrected Arthur Loudermilk are pitching a death sales scam to rich old people. He tries to bust them and they sic his reanimated dead partner Doug on him. But at the last minute he says, "Hey Doug its me" and SOMEHOW HE REMEMBERS WHO HE IS THAT FUCKING SIMPLY!! Incredible. Then they kill The Coroner and reanimate him and then reanimate him again causing his guts to explode everywhere. Then they destroy the machine. The End. But they didn't kill Loudermilk, and there were at LEAST 2 more of those machines in other places in town. I guess we are supposed to glean that they'll take care of it. I'm not sure if you actually made it this far, but if I had to listen to one more of Piscopo's lame jokes, someone may have had to reanimate me. Should you see this? Only if you are a real fuckin masochist. 

Thursday, November 1, 2012