Braindead

Braindead is a 1992 New Zealand horror comedy directed by Peter Jackson, who wrote the screenplay with Fran Walsh and Stephen Sinclair. It was Jackson's third feature as director, following Meet the Feebles and preceding Heavenly Creatures. The film stars Timothy Balme as Lionel, a young man living under the thumb of his domineering mother, played by Elizabeth Moody. When Lionel begins a shy romance with Paquita, a shopkeeper's daughter played by Diana Peñalver, his mother disapproves and secretly follows the couple to the zoo. There she is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey, a rare and highly contagious creature, and gradually transforms into a flesh-eating zombie. As the infection spreads through the town, Lionel and Paquita find themselves facing a growing horde of the undead, while Lionel struggles to keep his increasingly monstrous mother hidden at home. The supporting cast includes Ian Watkin as Uncle Les, Brenda Kendall as Nurse McTavish and Stuart Devenie as Father McGruder. With a budget of about 3 million USD, the film was produced by Jim Booth through WingNut Films with backing from the New Zealand Film Commission, Trimark Pictures and Avalon/NFU Studios, running 103 minutes and mixing comedy and horror.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.4 from around 109,000 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 7.4, based on roughly 1,900 votes. A critics' rating of 7.5 from 45 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores. These numbers indicate a film with a durable following that is rated favorably by both viewers and critics, even though its two audience ratings come from very different sample sizes.