Synopsis: Violent criminals who can’t be killed are shooting up Los Angeles, and the investigation leads LAPD detectives Roger Mortis (Treat Williams) and Doug Bigelow (Joe Piscopo) to a mysterious pharmaceutical firm. But when Mortis is suddenly murdered, his coroner girlfriend and loose cannon partner discover the company’s “resurrection machine” that turns Roger into the walking dead. Now the department’s most unstoppable cops must battle zombie hit men, a butcher shop gone berserk and the deceased industrialist (the legendary Vincent Price in one of his final film roles) who may hold the key to it all. But can Mortis solve his own homicide case before he completely decomposes?

Darren McGavin (The Night Stalker), Lindsay Frost (The Ring) and Keye Luke (Gremlins) co-star in this wild combination of explosive action thriller and gory zombie comedy directed by Mark Goldblatt (The Punisher) and featuring grisly make-up effects and monsters by Steve Johnson (Species).
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Dead Heat 3.0

Ouch. I knew this movie wouldn’t be a classic, but Vincent Price has a small role in it (one of his last, sadly) and, as a pretty big fan, I just had to see this anyway.

Sadly, his career must have been in a sorry state for him to squander his time on such fare as this. But it was the ’80s, and his heydays were long behind him at this point – and one still has to pay the bill, I suppose.

‘Dead Heat’ is amongst the worst of the ’80s type of buddy cop movies one can find: its one-liners are as unfunny as they come (they’re mercifully not painful, thank goodness!), the action is stilted and unconvincing, the acting is mediocre at best and the production is cheap as heck. Oh, and the director must of been blind – or, at the very least, away from the set for most of the film.

And, to make matters worse, it’s a fusion film: it’s also stitched together with horror-film elements.

Sigh… you read right!

In this film, the villains are re-animated criminals that are used by an “evil genius” to rob banks. Our buddy cops can’t quite figure out why the bad guys can’t be stopped, of course, but one of them eventually gets his own personal share of rigor mortis – only to be revived himself. And now, armed with some insighful information and a new lease on (after)life, he and his pal can finally start catching up to the madmen causing havoc around town.

Sounds stinky enough for you?

Well, it gets worse: when one sees all the mistakes that were left onscreen, one has to wonder who was at the wheel of this car wreck. After all, when the “magic” behind the stunts and special effects is clearly seen, there’s a serious problem (for instance, we can easily see squibs planted in walls and so forth). It’s not called “movie magic” for nothing: if the spectator can see the tricks of the trade, then the veil has been lifted and we are only left with disillusionment that no amount of suspension of disbelief can fix.

In this case, the wizard is asleep at the controls – and that’s no fun.

The worst thing is that I didn’t actually dislike watching it; it was alright. But this film is a walking dead and it can’t be denied. Sure, it won’t kill you to watch it, but it will leave you colder than a corpse (reanimated or not!).

But what could you expect from a film called ‘Dead Heat’, anyway? At best, it would have been a highly-forgettable Don Johnson flick. At best. As it stands, though, it will only be remembered as one of the crappiest films I’ve seen this year.