Peter Jackson’s 1992 film “Braindead,” called “Dead Alive” in North America, is easily one of the goriest films of all time. It features buckets and buckets of gooey, blood and guts, and boasts scenes of people’s heads being knocked off, bodies being impaled, and human lips being eaten right off their faces. A human head is fed into a food processor, and a baby is punted (don’t worry, it’s only a zombie baby). The remnants of a dog corpse are pulled from a human gullet, and a living, slithering human colon crawls around on the floor like a great bloody worm. Oh yes, and the film climaxes with its hero, Lionel (Timothy Balme), upending a lawnmower and walking through the living room, crowded with zombie attackers. Limbs go flying everywhere. 

Jackson, back when he had a sense of humor, presented all his zombie gore with a slapstick sensibility, ensuring that his film was as funny as it was gory. Jackson was, early in his career, content to dwell on the fringe. When he did make dramas like “Heavenly Creatures,” they were hard-edged, weirdly romantic, and refreshingly queer. Jackson became a much less interesting filmmaker when he moved into adapting Tolkien novels. The fun-loving, gross-out king — the man behind “Bad Taste” and “Meet the Feebles” — went legit. How boring. 

The original cut of “Braindead” runs 104 minutes of viscera-splattered fun. In England, the film’s light tone almost allowed it to be presented with a 15 certificate, meaning it was okay for 15-year-olds to watch. It was eventually given an 18, though, for all the blood. In the United States, it was cut down to 97 minutes for its unrated home video release. The R-rated version was sliced down even further, only running about 85 minutes. The original 104-minute cut of “Braindead” remains unavailable in most parts of the world.

The full version of “Braindead” played in England, Australia, and Jackson’s native New Zealand uncut, and it was actually pretty well-received. For however gross it is, many critics liked its bonkers, adolescent qualities. Even the (unrated) American cut was beloved, with the Los Angeles Times review saying that it made “Re-Animator” look like a UNESCO documentary about Mother Teresa. At midnight screenings in North America, exhibitors typically found unrated prints, with most of the gore left intact. That, at least, was the version I saw on that fateful night in 1997 when I witnessed a “Dead Alive”https://www.slashfilm.com/”Cemetery Man”https://www.slashfilm.com/”Evil Dead 2” triple feature. That was a fun night. 

One might be able to find a 104-minute cut online, but only as a fan-edit or an archiving exercise. If you’ve seen a version of “Braindead” with Japanese subtitles, you likely saw an illegal dub of the Japanese LaserDisc version. 

The full version, sadly, still eludes Americans, although the 97-minute cut was made available on Blu-ray in 2011. Meanwhile, every version of “Braindead” eludes German audiences, where it remains illegal to present to the public. The film has also been banned in Singapore and South Korea, and was illegal for nearly a decade in Finland, before the Finnish government unbanned it in 2001. 

Back in 2018, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter, Peter claimed that he wanted to remaster “Braindead,” “Feebles,” and “Bad Taste” for 4K presentation. He even said he tested some of his old footage and said it looked great. Sadly, no further movement has been made on the project, and Jackson hasn’t released an uncut “Braindead” to the world. Fingers crossed that he can step away from his documentary projects and get back into the gooey part of his career once again. We weirdo guts-lovers demand it.