The Best Movie You Never Saw: Dead Heat

Welcome to The Best Movie You NEVER Saw, a column dedicated to examining films that have flown under the radar or gained traction throughout the years, earning them a place as a cult classic or underrated gem that was either before it’s time and/or has aged like a fine wine.

This week we’ll be looking at DEAD HEAT!

THE STORY: An undead zombie cop (Treat Williams) tries to solve his own murder with the help of his wisecracking partner (Joe Piscopo).

THE PLAYERS: Starring: Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo, Vincent Price and Darren McGavin.

THE HISTORY: Anyone who knows their eighties action movies can tell you, buddy cop flicks were all the rage in this era. Black cop/white cop was the classic pairing – as in LETHAL WEAPON- while on TV male cop/ female cop ruled (“Hunter”, “TJ Hooker”, etc) but, on the big screen, you also had alien cop/ human cop (ALIEN NATION), human cop/ dog cop (K-9, TURNER & HOOCH), and – in DEAD HEAD – live cop/ zombie cop.

This one comes from New World Pictures, an exploitation outfit from the seventies (formerly run by Roger Corman) that attempted to break into the mainstream with some modestly priced mainstream films, including BLACK MOON RISING, C.H.U.D, HOUSE, SOUL MAN, WANTED: DEAD OF ALIVE, HEATHERS, and this one – DEAD HEAT. Most of their films were genre-focused, with their TV work arguably of a higher caliber (they did “The Wonder Years” and the underrated “Tour of Duty”) and most of their movies did poorly at the box office, including (sadly) this one.

To be sure, DEAD HEAT seems a little offbeat, even for the eighties. Genre mash-ups have always been dicey, and this mashes up four separate genres into one eighty-five minute movie, being a mix of action, comedy, horror, and sci-fi. It never takes itself seriously for a second, which might have alienated eighties audiences, but at the same time, it was probably too gory and violent to be accepted as a comedy.

It’s eccentrically cast, with Treat Williams at the time best known for his intense work in PRINCE OF THE CITY. Pairing him with Joe Piscopo, then coming off of “Saturday Night Live”, makes it seem like literally two names were picked at random out of a hat, and audiences stayed away in droves, with it making a scant $3.8 million at the box office. In the years since it’s all but been forgotten.

An, uh, interesting experiment. [Laughs.] Joe Piscopo. First-time director. Great editor. But, you know, we tried something that I don’t think quite hit the mark. But we had fun. You know, you’ve got to do everything once. I think that’s a film one, uh, rebuilds from a little bit. [Laughs.] But it has this cult following! It’s bizarre. Great special effects, though. Very cool. All the Chinese food coming alive? One of the funniest sequences. Very, very funny. So there’s some fun stuff in it. And I’ve got to say that I did laugh a lot with Joe Piscopo. He’s a very, very funny man, and I was a big fan of his from Saturday Night Live. So there were fond memories to be had. – Treat Williams – Random Roles

WHY IT’S GREAT: Zombie cop. This is a concept that fascinated me when I first laid eyes on the VHS cover for DEAD HEAT as a kid. Of course, being forced to rely on my folks to rent movies, there was no way they were going to spend four bucks on this stupid-looking thing, and given how low rent it was, it was largely absent from cable in my youth, which would have likely been the way I would have seen it. I only saw DEAD HEAT years later after some friends told me it was worth checking out, and sure enough, DEAD HEAT ranks as a lost gem from the heyday of eighties action – with some crossover horror appeal to boot.

There are a lot of things to love about DEAD HEAT. For one thing, at just a shade over eighty minutes, it moves like lightning. The guts of the premise, which involves killing Treat Williams and then bringing him back, happens before fifteen minutes have passed, and by that point we’ve already gotten a car chase/gunfight, a Robert Picardo cameo, Joe Piscopo cracking wise, and a weird fight with a random monster – boasting some nifty practical effects. Director Mark Goldblatt, who cut his teeth as an editor on RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, ROBOCOP, COMMANDO and THE TERMINATOR, knows pace and that’s evident from the first frame. The tight script by Terry Black (brother of Shane Black) helps – I mean, zombie cop – it’s a cool premise, right?

The other thing that’s mostly awesome about DEAD HEAT is the cast. While Treat Williams isn’t ever gonna be anyone’s first choice when it comes to leading silly genre movies, it has to be said, between this and DEEP RISING, when he gets the opportunity he really rises to the occasion. He’s actually hilarious as the undead cop Roger Mortis (haha- get it?) especially once his decay starts to kick in. Once he starts losing body parts and inhaling bullets all bets are off, and Treat seems to be having a blast here. I kinda love him in the part, with this having one of my favorite action movie moments of the eighties, when the undead Roger and another zombie get into a machine gun fight but, rather than take cover, they just let themselves take the bullets, because why not? It’s not like a few bullets are gonna make them any deader, right?

My one caveat here is Joe Piscopo. Now, I get it that people like to beat up on him, as his eighties shtick hasn’t aged well, but I gotta say, he’s a bit grating for an action movie. His wisecracks are never as funny as he seems to think they are, and in fact Williams is much funnier, despite arguably playing the straight man. That said, in a weird way this kinda adds to the charm and thoroughly eighties vibe of the flick. One of the most hilarious things about Piscopo is how jacked he is, to the point that he’s so stiff whenever he’s in a t-shirt that it looks like he was obsessively pumping iron off-camera to get super jacked by the time they would call action- leaving him…swollen.

The supporting cast is pretty delicious in this, with the three big baddies all played by iconic horror actors, Darren McGavin (“The Night Stalker”), Keye Luke (GREMLINS) and the one and only Vincent Price! It’s shame this did so poorly as apparently New World was eager to turn this into a franchise somehow (thanks to having a trusty resurrection machine as an integral part of the plot), but Williams and Piscopo only got this one ride – although it’s a great one.

BEST SCENE: If people talk about DEAD HEAT, inevitably the one scene everyone remembers is the butcher shop sequence, where Chinese food comes to life and tries to take out our heroes. This is demented, beautifully designed stuff for a low budget movie, with second unit work by Patrick Read Johnson, who went on to direct his share of cult classics, including SPACED INVADERS and the underrated ANGUS.

SEE IT: DEAD HEAT is currently streaming on the free (and legal) site Tubi TV, as well as Amazon Prime in many territories.

PARTING SHOT: I bet that if DEAD HEAT were remade today it would be a hit. Zombies are a much larger piece of the zeitgeist now than they were back then, and genre mashups are all the rage now. While a product of its time, this is a hidden gem from the heyday of eighties action and well worth checking out if you’re looking for something a little more obscure for this year’s Halloween viewing.