Dead Heat

Released: 1988
Starring: Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo, Darren McGavin, Lindsay Frost, Vincent Price
Director: Mark Goldblatt
Produced by: Helpern/Meltzer
Distributed by: New World Pictures

“You can’t keep a good cop dead.”

A fun buddy cop movie with the added bonus that the dead are being resurrected and that includes one of our heroes. If you like action, comedy, undead, and machismo then Dead Heat may be a film you could enjoy.

After a gunfight with thieves who are able to shrug off a lot of gunshot wounds, Detectives Roger Mortis (Treat Williams; Once Upon a Time in America, The Phantom) and Doug Bigelow (Joe Piscopo; Sidekicks, Johnny Dangerously) discover that the thieves had already been dead, autopsied by the police, and then resurrected before they robbed the store. As the detectives investigate how this is possible, they stumble upon a machine for the very purpose of resurrecting the dead. During a scuffle with a resurrected creature, Roger is killed. Distraught, Doug and police coroner Rebecca (Clare Kirkconnell; Playmaker, The Loner) use the machine to bring Roger back, but there is a problem. He exhibits no signs of life other than moving and talking. To make things worse, he is still decomposing and at an accelerated rate. He will be reduced to goo in less than a day. Now Roger and Doug want to find the people who made the machine, killed Roger, and have been staging the robberies. All before Roger is nothing more than a puddle.

While my short synopsis may sound confusing, the story of Dead Heat is not. Roger is essentially a “zombie” (lacking the need for eating flesh or the diminished intelligence) and investigating the criminals behind his own death. Dead Heat is an interesting mix of action, comedy, horror, sci-fi, and mystery. Does it all work together though? Well, kind of. Each genre is touched upon with action being the strongest and comedy a close second. The horror and science-fiction elements are limited to the decomposing dead, one jump scare, and the machine used to resurrect the dead. There are plenty of plot holes and leaps that the main characters take to progress the story to the end while cramming in everything they can to keep it together and coherent. However, regardless of that, the film does entertain.

Dead Heat has a combination of veteran actors and actors in the earlier parts of their careers. The performances are a bit all over the place from actor to actor. Treat Williams as Roger Mortis, a cop whose job is his life (an afterlife) spends most of the film stiff in persona and flat in expression. His character is intelligent and dedicated, but has a hint of arrogance and shares a bit of his humor with his partner. There are a few moments that he does display anger or sadness at events in the film, but they are almost too quickly forgotten as he reverts to his wooden performance. Perhaps the performance reflects the script or direction, but I feel that Treat Williams is capable of more than what this film shows. Joe Piscopo’s portrayal as the wisecracking, machismo partner of Roger was spot on. Nearly every line was a joke or put-down and each line was delivered with the attitude of a stereotypical recently high school jock. Is everything he says funny? Absolutely not, but he does have a few good quotable lines here and there.

Darren Mcgavin (The Night Stalker, A Christmas Story) makes his presence key each time he was on screen with his distinctive, boisterous voice and fast, almost nervous gestures as he talked. Because of this style of performing, it made the moments when he was quiet and still more pronounced. Other actors such as Lindsay Frost (The Ring), Keye Luke (Gremlins), and Clare Kirkconnell (Playmaker) gave performances that were mostly humdrum. Lastly, Vincent Price (House of Wax, The Last Man on Earth), who was 77 while acting in this film, has only a small role, but still gives a solid performance with the little he was on screen. It is a treat to see him performing so late in life in a genre he is well known for (horror).

As far as special effects go in Dead Heat, I enjoyed them. While not overly gory, there were plenty of blood packs used in gunfights. There is a fast decomposing moment that was very fun to watch and used some good makeup and practical effects as the person’s body melted away. Aside from Treat Williams, the other resurrected characters were a bit more grotesque (assuming they were more decomposed) and this look was accomplished via a lot of makeup. While apparent, it wasn’t distracting enough to pull you out of the movie. Treat Williams makeup progressed throughout the film from subtle to almost making him unrecognizable and he looked great by the end of Dead Heat. There was a dead body hung upside down in a fish tank that was a bit too fake to get past, but other than that the effects are pretty good.

Speaking of special effects, there is a fun scene about halfway through Dead Heat involving a Chinese butcher shop. [SPOILER] While investigating, information takes Roger and Doug to a Chinese shop where they confront some suspects. In this scene, the animals and animal parts that had been carved up for someone’s dinner are all resurrected and attack the detectives. The puppetry and effects of the scene combined with the dialogue make this an entertaining scene in the film. [END OF SPOILER]

The movie has been released a couple of different times. If you want this on DVD I have heard that the best version is the Divimax Special Edition which contains some special features including audio commentary, deleted scenes, still gallery, original storyboard art and more. Unlike the Midnight Madness Series from Image Entertainment which has nothing. I actually got a copy on Blu-Ray and guess who produced it? Image. Guess what special features it has. The trailer for the film. That is it. When you pop the Blu-Ray into your player, it will play some trailers from the era of the movie including Heathers (called Lethal Attraction here), The Stuff, and Vamp. The picture quality of the Blu-Ray was average. There was some speckling that I think must be from the source footage and not able to be corrected, but the colors are pretty rich. Unless you care about the special features, I would recommend the Blu-Ray over the DVD.

I think that Dead Heat tried to do too much and has a hard time focusing on doing one thing well. It picked a little bit from a variety of genres and that did give it a bit of a muddling effect. At one point in the movie, I almost forgot that Roger was dead. However, Dead Heat is definitely entertaining on a B-movie level. If you go in not expecting something akin to Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, or Beverly Hills Cop, then you will have a fun time watching. So pop it into your player, check that you still have a pulse, relax on your couch, and save me some popcorn!

Rating:

Jack Savage:

Of the short list of movies I think could be improved with a remake, this is up towards the top.

“You remember when we were in training? They always told us, ‘You can’t be a good cop if you’re a dead cop.’ Here’s your chance to prove them wrong. You’re good and you’re dead.”