Every country gets the horror film it deserves. America got The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Italy got Suspiria. New Zealand got Death Warmed Up—a movie that plays like a garage sale of discarded splatter clichés, held together with chewing gum, sheep’s wool, and an almost heroic disregard for coherence.
A Premise with Potential (That Immediately Trips Over Itself)
On paper, Death Warmed Up sounds like a gnarly little B-movie gem: mad scientist, zombie mind-control experiments, a protagonist who accidentally murders his parents under hypnosis and comes back years later for revenge. That could be pulpy fun. Instead, what we get is a script that looks like it was scribbled on the back of a beer coaster and then repeatedly dunked in a pint of warm lager.
The film opens with young Michael being drugged by the villainous Dr. Howell. Under the influence, he butchers his parents with all the conviction of a kid half-asleep at a high school play. Cue time jump: seven years later, Michael is free from the asylum, ready for revenge, and flanked by his girlfriend Sandy and two doomed friends who are less characters than walking body bags.
What follows is 82 minutes of running, screaming, splattering, and the kind of dialogue that makes you wish everyone had stayed locked in the asylum.
Acting That Redefines “Phoning It In”
Michael Hurst, later beloved for Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, does his best, but he’s stranded in a film that treats acting as optional. His performance is half anguished avenger, half guy who just lost his car keys. Margaret Umbers, as Sandy, mostly stares, screams, and proves once again that girlfriends in ’80s horror exist primarily to weep attractively.
The supporting cast? Imagine the lineup from a local community theater after a night of heavy drinking, told to “just go with it.” William Upjohn and Norelle Scott as Michael’s friends seem confused about whether they’re in a zombie movie or a tourism commercial for the New Zealand coast. Gary Day as Dr. Howell, the mad scientist, wears his evil like a polyester suit—ill-fitting, sweaty, and desperately in need of dry cleaning.
Zombies by Way of Discount Latex
Let’s talk monsters. The zombies in Death Warmed Up are not terrifying, grotesque visions of decay. They are men in masks that look like they were borrowed from a high school drama department staging Night of the Living Dead: The Musical. Half the time you’re not sure if they’re supposed to be mind-controlled slaves, mutated lab rejects, or just rugby players with skin conditions.
And the gore? Oh, it splatters. It drips. It sprays. But it never convinces. Watching these “special effects” is like watching tomato soup hurled at the wall of a student flat. You’re not horrified—you’re just worried about the cleaning bill.
Pacing: Zombie Shuffle Edition
If you thought 82 minutes was mercifully short, you’d be wrong. Death Warmed Up somehow manages to feel twice as long. The pacing lurches from frantic chase scenes to long stretches of nothing, like a zombie trying to remember where it left its shoes. Scenes drag on, dialogue circles itself into oblivion, and every edit feels like it was made by someone who sneezed mid-cut.
The climax should be cathartic: Michael finally faces Dr. Howell. Instead, it’s like watching two drunks fight over the last meat pie. Michael stabs the doctor repeatedly, the way a child pokes at a baked potato, and then—it’s over. Roll credits? Not yet. We still need the random electrocution ending, in which Michael, our tortured hero, dies by tripping into a live wire. Not poetic justice. Not irony. Just stupidity.
Themes? Don’t Make Me Laugh
The film flirts with big ideas: science run amok, trauma, revenge, the fragility of sanity. Then it slaps them aside like empty beer cans. Any notion of depth is drowned in fake blood and incoherent plotting. What remains is a hollow, joyless exercise in “splatter for splatter’s sake.”
Even the title is a joke that writes itself. Death Warmed Up suggests a corpse reheated in a microwave, which is appropriate because that’s exactly how this movie feels: leftovers. Cold, rubbery, tasteless leftovers.
The Cinematic Equivalent of Food Poisoning
Some horror movies are so bad they’re fun. This one is just bad. You don’t laugh, you don’t scream—you sit there, wondering if you’ve been cursed. Every frame oozes missed opportunity. Every scream feels hollow. Every zombie stumble reminds you of better films you could be watching instead.
The cinematography, handled with all the grace of a drunken tourist fumbling a camcorder, can’t decide if it wants to be gritty or arty. The music drones like an elevator stuck between floors. The editing chops scenes into incoherent chunks, as if trying to escape its own embarrassment.
Cult Classic? Only If the Cult Has No Standards
Some call Death Warmed Up a cult film. That’s technically true—if the cult in question is composed of masochists who enjoy cinematic punishment. Yes, it won Best Film at the 1984 Paris International Festival of Fantastic and Science-Fiction Films, but so did The Man Who Saves the World (aka Turkish Star Wars). Awards don’t always mean quality. Sometimes they just mean the jury ran out of coffee.
The Final Autopsy
Death Warmed Up wants to be New Zealand’s contribution to the splatter canon, a Kiwi calling card to stand beside Peter Jackson’s later Bad Taste or Braindead. Instead, it’s a limp handshake, a half-baked experiment that leaves you yearning for bleach to scrub your brain clean.
If you want zombies, watch Romero. If you want mad scientists, watch Re-Animator. If you want revenge, watch Kill Bill. And if you want to suffer through 82 minutes of nonsense that feels like 182, by all means, queue up Death Warmed Up.
But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Final Word: This isn’t Death Warmed Up. It’s cinema cold and congealed, the kind of movie you scrape off your shoe and vow never to step in again.
