How do you fight undead robbers?  With undead cops, of course!

Treat Williams plays L.A. police detective Roger Mortis (No, really, that’s his name) with partner Doug Bigelow (Joe Piscopo!) as they investigate why they can’t seem to kill the bad guys as effectively as they used to.  These investigations lead them to Dante Laboratories, which has developed a process for resurrecting the dead for twelve hours.  After a losing fight with the fattest zombie this side of Zombieland, Mortis is killed.  But, then brought back to life by his coroner ex-girlfriend (Clare Kirkconnell) and the most user-friendly resurrection machine ever.  Now, Mortis has twelve hours to solve the case and avenge his own death in a Hawaiian shirt.

Written by Terry Black , Shane’s brother, Dead Heat has a similar action/comedy feel to his brother’s Lethal Weapon, but with zombies.  And such zombies they are!  The opening jewelry store heist features two punk zombie robbers wearing BDSM leather masks!  (Their safe word is “Braaaaaaiiiiinnnnnssssss.”)

But this is nothing compared to the undead hijinks that occur at a Chinese restaurant.  You know all the dead ducks that are hanging in the window?  Or the pigs?  Or the sides of beef?  Yeah.  Good times.  Wait, no, I mean gross times.  Very, very gross.  How do you kill zombie animals with no heads?

Throughout, Williams grounds the whole movie with the ability to take anything that is thrown at him seriously.  The man is not phased by anything.  This is a valuable skill when Joe Piscopo (with an 80s mullet) is delivering some of the best wise-ass remarks in the history of motion pictures.  Watching this film, it’s hard to understand why Piscopo did not fare better in Hollywood.  The man is a scream.  Especially during an exchange with Williams that shows the deep, profundity of cross-dressing jokes between two partners.  Police partners, I mean.  Heterosexual police partners, I mean.  You get the idea.

Added into the mix are performances by the always entertaining Vincent Price(!), Darren McGavin, Keye Luke , and Robert Picardo.  These appearances are almost cameos but they’re all memorable.

In fairness, the movie does play more like it was made for TV, as opposed to a big budget feature but I think this adds to its charm.  Similar to Creepshow .  Dead Heat is a great little horror flick to enjoy on a Saturday afternoon.

The title alone should clue you in. This movie knows exactly what it is, and has no shame about it.

It all starts with an outbreak of the Zombie plague in Africa, and cockroach from there makes its merry way to Thailand,  finally biting a Caucasian business man. We take a break from these shenanigans to look in on some totally different shenanigans involving kidnapping, where several thugs take a page out of the Warner Bros. cartoon playbook to nab some rich guy’s daughter who, as it turns out, is quite the kicker of ass herself.

Said rich guy-in turn-hires the local warrior mercenary ninja, Master Thep (Suthep Po-ngam), to retrieve his daughter. He, being a master of management as well as the way of the ninja, delegates the task to our hero, Khun Krabii (Supakorn Kitsuwon). Khun, using the secret arts of ninja blacksmiths, hammers a wok into some armor and gets on with it.

Meanwhile, the Caucasian Zombie is spreading the plague.

Krabii goes to the local dance club…because, oh who the hell cares? Like every dance club in movies, it’s way cooler than any dance club you can ever hope go to in real life.

Meanwhile, the Caucasian Zombie continues to spread the plague.

The movie goes on like this, with the characters cracking more jokes than the audience can. Then the outbreak hits the dance club and it gets exponential, following the accepted statistical paradigms of a zombie invasion. The Thai military shows up, isolates the outbreak to the condominium/dance club, and then promptly gets eaten faster than a Krispy Kreme doughnut at a Weight Watchers convention.

Master Thep hears of this nonsense and gets into his zombie fighting gear, which includes a battery-powered laser sword (no seriously, it’s powered by D Batteries!), hauling master ninja ass to the scene.

What’s completely great about this movie is that, despite the heavy doses of gore and violence, it has a very light tone.  It pokes fun at everyone and everything: Zombie movies, the Thai government, Gangsters, Kung-fu movies, Transsexuals (Hey, it’s Thailand), and even those terrible Asian pop-songs they always seem to play at Pho restaurants.

This alone would make the movie worthy of a Cavalcade,  but the silly special effects and cartoonish characters send it right over the top into the rarified category of Wild Zero and Godzilla: Final Wars. Combine this with another Cavalcade favorite, Bio Zombie, and you recipe for a great Asian Zombie night.