Death Warmed Up (1984)

Death Warmed Over

Cast:

Michael "Iolaus from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" Hurst is Michael Tucker
Margaret Umbers is Sandy
William Upjohn is Lucas
Norelle Scott is Jeannie
David Letch is Spider

What the box says:

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 made him murder his own father, so the young man has come to track down the scientist and make him pay.

Plot:

Michael Tucker is jogging around a hospital. He checks on his dad and sees him fighting with Dr. Howell. Later Howell injects Michael and hypnotizes him. Later that night, Dr. Tucker and his wife are watching Howell on TV being questioned about his research when Michael sneaks into the house and shoots his parents.

I'm looking for Sarah Connor before the Terminator finds her...

Michael is placed in an asylum. 7 years later, he's released.

Howell is still working on his research.

Michael, Sandy, Lucas, and Jeannie are riding a ferry. Some creepy guys are watching them and follow them off the ferry. The protagonists drive down the road and are being chased by the creepy guys. They keep heading to the town and then the nearby beach.

Later, they sneak into a secret underground tunnel. They guys and girls get separated. Sandy and Jeannie run across a corpse and then find the guys again. Bikers chase them off.

Keep running. We're being chased by bikers and alligators in these tunnels... Michael is able to drive one off.

They head to a nearby pub and call for an ambulance. Sandy wants to take the injured Jeannie to the nearby hospital. Michael realizes the hospital is managed by Dr. Howell and doesn't want to go there. Suddenly, a number of crazy-patients attack the pub when the ambulance arrives. The crazed-patients attack the white-coats. Michael, Sandy, Lucas, and Jeannie are able to reach the institute.

At the institute, Michael heads off. The crazed-patients keep attacking. Jeannie accidentally sets herself on fire when trying to stop a crazed-patient.

This should teach you some fire safety... Lucas and Sandy search for Michael.

In a operating room, Howell cutting on brains. when he sees that Michael is brought to him. Howell proudly demonstrates his brilliant work about genetic mutation to stop some sort of zombie plague. Michael stabs him with a scalpel.

An axe-wielding patient swipes Lucas. Michael and Sandy run off from the crazed-patients.

Later, they drive away but are stopped by the wreckage of all the cars in the road. Michael examines some of the wreckage when a powerline falls on him. Sandy runs off as credits roll.

What I say:

1984 won't be known as the epic year of New Zealand's first horror movie, Death Warmed Up. In a way, it makes sense that Peter Jackson was able to make such low-budget movies like Bad Taste that got such critical attention just a couple of years later... However, 20+ years later, Death Warmed Up has the Sci-Fifffy debut taint of a Saturday night movie without all the sharks or snakes. If the 2 big movies you're known for are either Red-Blooded American Girl II or the classic movie My Grandpa is a Vampire with Al "Grandpa Munster" Lewis, what more can be said?

This movie looks like the kitchen sink movie just threw a few horror plot points together and mixed up. A mad doctor experimenting on stopping death manages to create a number of crazy-pseudo-zombies out of the guys he's been testing. Dr. Jeckyll had a better experiment when he turned into Mr. Hyde. Dr. Howell who is supposed to resemble Dr. Frankenstein or Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West's Re-Animator with test subjects that are the Romero-Zombie analogues.

Mad scientists love remote and tropical islands for human experiments: Island of Dr. Moreau. We have From Bela Lugosi's White Zombie to MDs (mad doctors) with their Teenager Zombies, however, some are not of this Earth to be Teenagers in Outer Space.

A brainwashed teenager is ordered to kill his parents by the movie's villain. Some of the characters that pop up in and out of the movie, I'm not sure how they really connect to the rest of the movie like Spider. Was it cut down? Seen other movies from New Zealand or Australia that had been horribly dubbed.

Quotable Dialogue
"You're all sweaty, let's get get you cleaned up."
"We are the generation of the end."
"If you ask me, he looks like death warmedup!"
"Buzz off, Creep!!!"
"A breakout of psycho patients!"
Morals of the Story
Doctors love to wear bow ties.
Surgeries require MD's and power drills.
Ferry pilots are peeping toms.
Dirt bikes are easy to ride in sewer tunnels.
Rebar is a cheap equivalent of a sword.