Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Dead Heat Blu-ray Movie Review

It's Alive! (And It's from Jersey)

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 30, 2011

A good horror comedy doesn't require a big budget or major stars. It just needs a reasonably inventive script, a solid supporting cast, decent effects work (CG today, practical in the old days), and leads who are either established comics that the audience will follow anywhere or who have the acting chops to create convincing characters. Dead Heat had almost everything on the list until it got to the leads. One of them, Treat Williams, is a genuine actor, who could play an effective straight man (and straight arrow) of a buddy cop team, even when saddled with a gag name like "Roger Mortis". But then they teamed him with Joe Piscopo.

I never understood Piscopo's popularity on Saturday Night Live, except that he probably looked good in comparison to the legendary disaster that befell the show during the season when he was hired. (If you think it's bad now, you weren't around for season 6.) With the possible exception of his "I'm from Joisey" guy, Piscopo couldn't create a memorable sketch character, couldn't act, and had zero chemistry with any other cast member. His Frank Sinatra "impression" was an ongoing embarrassment. Especially after the mugging fiasco he made of Brian De Palma's Wise Guys (the single worst film on the director's resumé) and his clownish but mercifully brief turn in Johnny Dangerously, who thought Piscopo could carry a movie?

But there he is, tied around Treat Williams' neck like some near-sighted albatross that mistook the L.A. freeway for the New Jersey Turnpike. It's a tribute to the rest of the talent behind Dead Heat (and to the power of schlock horror in general) that the film still works as well as it does.

Doug Bigelow (Piscopo) and Roger Mortis (Williams), whose name foreshadows his fate, are L.A. police detectives investigating a string of brazen robberies in which the thieves attack in broad daylight, apparently heedless of police intervention. The latest incident involves a high-end jeweler, where one of the employees trips the silent alarm, so that the two thieves are greeted by a phalanx of cops as they exit the premises. A massive shootout follows, in which dozens of police are shot and the thieves each take scores of hits without any apparent effect. Eventually, one of them gets blown up, and Mortis brings down the other using his lieutenant's car as a battering ram. Lt. Herzog (Robert Picardo) isn't pleased, and neither is their captain (Mel Stewart).

But the coroner, Dr. Rebecca Smythers (Clare Kirkconnell), finds something, now that she finally has remains to examine. It seems these crooks have been to the medical examiner before; they have autopsy sutures, and Smythers has previously certified them dead. The chief M.E., Dr. Ernest McNab (Darren McGavin), a jovial sort so devil-may-care that his license plate reads "BODY DOC", cheerfully dismisses the whole thing as clerical error, but Roger and Doug know better. Among other reasons, Roger and Smythers have history together, and Roger knows how seriously she takes her work.

An obscure chemical in the zombie crooks' tissue leads the detectives to Dante Pharmaceuticals, a company founded by the brilliant but eccentric Arthur P. Loudermilk (Vincent Price), who recently passed away. At company headquarters, Doug and Roger are given a tour by an attractive but disingenuous head of P.R., Randi James (Lindsay Frost). When Doug slips away to investigate a restricted area, he finds a strange device that looks like a modern-day Frankenstein table, with a modern-day monster lying on it. The monster immediately gets up to attack him, and Roger comes running when he hears Doug firing at it. During the struggle, Roger gets locked in a room used to exterminate lab animals, and the hand of an unseen person manipulates the controls. By the time Doug can come to his aid, Roger is dead.

Ah, but we already know the dead can be revived. When backup arrives, accompanied by the M.E., Doug and Smythers hoist Roger onto the mysterious device, and Smythers activates it. Before you can say, "It's alive!", Roger wakes up just like his old self -- but not quite. As Smythers further studies the documentation on the machine, she discovers that the resurrection process is only temporary. After twenty-four hours, Roger's body will decay into biological glop. The film has now become a variation on D.O.A., in which Roger has only a limited time to find out who killed him. Their best lead is the mysterious Randi James.

There's a lot to enjoy in Dead Heat. The script doesn't always make sense (it takes great pains to explain why resurrected bodies don't bleed, then shows the zombies bleeding profusely), but it has enough genuine plot to keep things interesting, even when you can see what's coming. The supporting cast is full of old pros who know just how far this zany material can be pushed without becoming ridiculous. Darren McGavin, the former Kolchak, handles this kind of thing with ease, as does Vincent Price, who appears primarily in videotapes left by the late Arthur Loudermilk. Several wonderful moments are supplied by the great Key Luke as Mr. Thule, a Chinatown member of the nefarious conspiracy behind the zombies, and Mr. Thule has a menacing henchman, played by professional wrestler Professor Toru Tanaka (who was Sub-Zero in The Running Game). They serve a mean Chinese dinner -- really, really mean, courtesy of Steve Johnson's super-disgusting effects shop.

Dr. Smythers and Randi James make interesting romantic distractions, but only temporarily. Buddy cop movies are, after all, fundamentally about bromance, and Dead Heat might have been a classic, if Treat Williams had been paired with a comic cut-up who could actually, you know, act. As it is, Williams is forced to carry the film on his own, but his task gets easier as Roger's condition worsens and he begins to feel the liberation that comes from knowing that the end is near and he'll never have to deal with the consequences of his actions. When the straight man is freed from his straitjacket, everyone should stand back. At a critical moment, Roger has to engineer a multi-car pile-up to free himself from a predicament. The wild yell of unrestrained joy that bursts out of Williams lets you know exactly how Roger feels.

Dead Heat Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

People who are too lazy to read past the star ratings may be baffled by my relatively high video rating for this feature, because they won't understand the reason for it. New World Entertainment, which produced and released Dead Heat, grew out of a company founded by Roger Corman (though he had left by 1988, when the film was released). It produced a few classics (including Heathers), but mostly it created Corman-style junk that was luridly marketed and received limited distribution.

Watching this Blu-ray was like stepping into a time machine back to 1988 and settling down into the kind of theater that used to show a New World film: older, slightly seedy, certainly not state-of- the-art. The multiplex building boom of the Nineties hadn't yet taken hold, and no one had heard of digital projection (or sound). You watched film projected on a screen, and a gritty image was part of the experience.

Image's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray brings this experience to the home theater, and people who think that every film committed to Blu-ray should look sharp and clear will be disappointed and possibly horrified. Dead Heat was a low-budget affair that looks as good as it can, considering the limitations imposed by financial constraints and the lighting requirements for Steve Johnson's make-up effects. (The cinematography was an early effort by Robert Yeoman, who would go on to create rich, painterly compositions in Wes Anderson's films and polished images in mainstream studio films like the recent Bridesmaids.) The image is grainy, but Blu- ray's resolution allows the grain to remain natural and undisturbed so that the essential detail represented by the grain is also visible. Black levels are somewhat inconsistent from scene to scene, as is contrast, which frequently appears to be too high, with white levels that occasionally seems on the verge of blowing out details. However, it's impossible to tell whether this is a fault in the transfer or inherent in the source. Certainly the blacks are never too crushed, and the contrast is never too high, that viewing enjoyment is impaired.

Colors are strong enough that the blood from wounds is appropriately vivid, as is the sporty outfit into which the strait-laced Roger is forced to change mid-story, to his chagrin. The various shadings in Thule's domain are well-rendered, even in dim lighting, as are the antiseptic rooms at Dante Pharmaceuticals.

There is some noticeable print damage during the beginning and end titles, where optical processing is most likely to lock in dust and speckles. Gate weave is occasionally observable during the main feature, as is an occasional "wobble" in the image, which usually indicates that the element has been stretched or otherwise damaged for a few frames. The problem is minor and probably won't be noticed by most viewers. I saw no compression, DNR or other transfer-induced artifacts.

Dead Heat Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The PCM 2.0 track has good fidelity and reproduces voices clearly, but this is not a mix of sophistication or subtlety. Neither gunshots nor explosions are pumped up in volume or bass, and the sound does not expand through the surround field. It's a serviceable track that delivers dialogue, essential sound effects and Ernest Troost's underscoring -- and that's it.

Dead Heat Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Apparently Image did not obtain the rights to any of the special features on Anchor Bay's 2004 DVD release of Dead Heat, which included a commentary with the director, writer and producers; deleted scenes; posters and stills gallery; press kit; and script.

• Theatrical Trailer (SD; 1.33:1; 1:07): The film's trailer caught its tone effectively.



• Additional Trailers (SD): At startup, the disc plays trailers in standard definition for Heathers, The Stuff and Vamp. These can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads. One point is worth noting: The trailer for Heathers still features an earlier title, which was "Lethal Attraction".

Dead Heat Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Not all of Dead Heat works, but for my money the good outweighs the bad. How can any lover of horror comedies turn down an opportunity to see Darren McGavin and Vincent Price, even with limited screen time? It helps that, as the film moves forwards, there's more Treat Williams and less Joe Piscopo. It's as if the director, Mark Goldblatt (who's directed only a few films but is one of the top editors in Hollywood), realized midway through the shoot that Piscopo was a dud and decided to concentrate on the half of his lead duo who knew what he was doing. If you're already a fan of the film, then this Blu-ray is an honest representation, just as long as you're not one of those unfortunate souls who expects that anything transferred to Blu-ray will suddenly be transformed into something that looks like, well, Transformers. If you don't already know the film, you should probably rent first. It may be an acquired taste.