MAY 19, 2007
I somehow never got around to seeing Dead Heat as a kid. It seems like the type of movie that Cinemax would have aired every night at 10 or so, but somehow it always eluded me. I am ashamed.
Here’s a film that SHOULD be remade. Williams is fine, but Piscopo is pretty goddamn annoying. Maybe in 1988 his endless string of puns and mugging was amusing, but today it’s kick-in-the-face-worthy. A remake, with Nathan Fillion in the Williams role (fitting, since Fillion basically played Williams’ Deep Rising character on Firefly) and someone actually funny, maybe from Apatow/McKay’s crew (Rogen?) in the Piscopo role, would be one of the best horror comedies in ages.
Till then we have this, which despite the painfully 80s décor and characterizations (best: the police chief who yells at our heroes’ penchant for parking tickets and doesn’t seem at all concerned that about 30 cops were killed just hours before) still works. Any movie with Vincent Price is automatically at least somewhat awesome (Dick Miller was in it too for extra points, but the scene was cut), and the butcher shop sequence alone is worth the price of Netflixing the movie.
Bizarrely, Shane Black (who appears in the film, which his brother wrote) took whole elements from this film for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. There’s a scene near the end of KKBB with Downey Jr, Kilmer, Corbin Bernsen and a few of his goons that is lifted almost verbatim from this movie. Very weird.
Joe Picardo is also in it.
What say you?
this movie was GREAT..
ReplyDeleteI watched it over and over when I was younger.
My wife was a fan of that WB TV show Treat Williams was on, so I started throwing her older movies he was in, like HAIR, and Dead Heat.
Its a fun movie!
and you are right, Piscopo's comedy back then wasnt really that funny, but fit for the time..now it sucks.
still fun movie though!