Horror Movie Review: Dead Heat (1988)

 Dead Heat is a 1988 American buddy cop action zombie comedy film directed by Mark Goldblatt.

Detectives Roger Mortis and Doug Bigelow are called to the scene of a rather violent jewellery store robbery. The robbers take on a squadron of police in a messy shootout, but neither seems affected when they are riddled with bullets. Thanks to the combined, albeit extreme measures of Mortis and Bigelow, they are able to take out the criminals. Narrowly avoiding termination their captain assigns them to the investigation. Meanwhile, a coroner friend of Roger’s, Rebecca informs the detectives that the two bodies they had brought in had previously been to the morgue. Not only do they have autopsy scars, but she herself clearly remembers performing the autopsy. Sheas pictures to prove it, suggesting they simply got up and left the morgue of their own volition.

There is a preservative chemical compound found in the bodies that connect the pair of detectives to a company that had ordered a great amount of it recently. Mortis and Bigelow investigate and meet the company’s head public relations person, Randi James. She gives them a tour of the facility. When Doug wanders off to investigate a suspicious room, he encounters the reanimated corpse of a biker on a strange machine. A fight ensues, Roger comes to aid his partner, and in the fray, he is knocked into a decompression room. This is used to humanely kill failed test animals. He is asphyxiated to death when an unknown person activates the room.

Encountering the strange machine, and realizing it is capable of bringing people back from the dead. Rebecca and Doug successfully bring Roger back. He says he feels fine, yet he has no heart beat and his skin is cold to the touch. Rebecca surmises he has about twelve hours before the reanimation process ends and he dissolves into a puddle of mush. Roger decides to take this time to find and exact his vengeance on the person who killed him, as well as solve the case he and Doug are working on.

Can Roger and Doug make sense of all this? Or is the case about to get even deadlier? Watch and find out.

This movie perfectly sums up why I love horror comedy in every way. A film that can make you feel a multitude of things is truly a gift. You’re laughing, you’re cringing, you’re overwhelmed, you’re contemplating mortality and morality and the fabric of existence. That’s Dead Heat.

It starts out like any old, regular buddy cop movie. You don’t know what you’re in for. Then suddenly, it goes from 0 to 100 with a huge zombie bursting off the table, and a reanimated butcher shop with a zombie duck quacking inside a soup.

The practical effects are incredible. Faces melting off, a reanimated headless cow carcass and more. The part I love is that they look nasty and don’t shy away from the gruesome and disgusting nature.

Despite how nuts this film goes though, the storyline is cohesive and easy to follow. There are a few small editing blips that don’t make sense, such as Doug’s very sudden and random death. But overall, it flows well.

The acting is brilliant. We don’t learn a damn thing about Roger and Doug but damn do they have some snappy lines. The dialogue had me howling, for sure. Vincent Price also has a fun cameo with the best line of the movie aimed at him.

Overall, Dead Heat goes against the adversity and fights through the shit to make pure gold. That’s the epitome of a great horror comedy movie. An underrated 80’s horror that will live on long and be watched repeatedly down the line in this household.