Warning: if you can't stand deliberately cheesy low budget genre crossing movies completely aware of their nature and just having fun with their premise, stay clear! "Dead Heat" is admittedly nonsense, but who watches this sort of thing hoping for an intelligent and provocative screenplay? This viewer doesn't. "Dead Heat" is a high old time for those people looking for an action - comedy, a "buddy" cop movie, and a zombie horror film all rolled into one. Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo are an engaging odd couple as police detectives Roger Mortis (good one) and Doug Bigelow, pursuing the case of lowlife bad guys who won't stay dead and go about their ordinary business of robbing jewelry stores. Their search leads them to a pharmaceutical company named Dante that's developed a resurrection machine, meaning this thing can bring the dead back to "life". This leads to the biggest spin that "Dead Heat" puts on the buddy cop formula, as one of the buddies is dead! During a heated battle with a many faced monster, Roger gets locked in a decompression room until he expires. Now he's hellbent on getting revenge. Williams plays all of this straight for a while until he starts decomposing, then just really letting loose, while Piscopo is genuinely funny and comes up with some priceless quips. And get a load of this supporting cast: Darren "Kolchak" McGavin as the nefarious Dr. McNab, Keye Luke ("Gremlins") as the villainous Mr. Thule, and Vincent Price in the role of Arthur P. Loudermilk. Price is a delight; it's nice to see that he was still embracing the horror genre and working steadily late in his life and career. Robert Picardo also appears as ineffectual whiner Lt. Herzog, Mel Stewart fills out the clichéd role of the yelling police captain adequately, and lovely ladies Lindsay Frost and Clare Kirkconnell provide fine scenery attractions. Keep an eye out for the cameos by screenwriter and actor Shane Black, brother of this films' screenwriter, Terry Black, wrestler Professor Toru Tanaka as a butcher, and MTV VJ Martha Quinn as a newscaster. Quotable dialogue includes stuff like "You have the right to remain disgusting.", and the film does have a certain energy, coming in at a very reasonable running time of 84 minutes. Steve Johnson's makeup and creature effects are just great, especially when it comes to the ruckus in the butcher shop and the final scene for Frosts' character. As long as one doesn't take this seriously for one second, they can derive some solid entertainment out of this agreeably silly film, the feature directing debut for veteran editor Mark Goldblatt. Eight out of 10.

If there was ever a successful way to blend the drastically different genres of comedy and horror this film proves it. Dead Heat is an enjoyable genre hybrid that has enough scares for the horror label, enough laughs for the comedic name, and enough high speed moments to be branded an action film. It mixes these genres in hope to create not a great film, but an enjoyable zombie film with plenty of wit and fun.Treat Williams is a fantastic detective in films. No wonder he was typecast in the field of crime in many roles. Here, he plays Detective Roger Mortis (Williams) who's partner is the incompetent yet looser Doug Bigelow (Piscopo). When called to the scene of a robbery, the detectives notices that when the robbers are bombarded with blows to the legs torso they don't die. A quick trip to the lab shows that the robbers were once dead but somehow came back to life.When investigating the chemical compound plant that apparently stitched these two zombies together, Bigelow and Mortis discover that the plant is up to no good, housing odd, deformed creatures of an indescribable nature. After a run in with one of those mutants, Mortis is locked in the asphyxiation room and is supposedly dead on sight. However, he is revived with a beam and...I give up. Have I lost you? I feel I've lost myself trying to write such madness. This is truly a mindless zombie flick, not meant for heavy criticism of plausibility. With zombie films, you must suspend disbelief. With Dead Heat, you must completely escape reality. Normally, I criticize horror films for lack of plausibility. Hell, I criticize movies in general for that flaw. But sometimes, you really have to forego the idea of believability. Here, it's almost vital.Piscopo and Williams are excellent, and it's so rare for horror films to allow their actors to form good chemistry. Usually, they're just running around screaming and swearing at each other. The talent here, from all actors, is true to their names and above average for any prior expectations.The effects are also of high quality. All practical, of course. All in glorious bright colors. The mutations look lifelike, and the zombie makeup on Treat Williams is exquisite while remaining subtle until necessary.I'm done trying to critique a film that doesn't even want to be. Dead Heat knows what it is, which can be a battle for horror films. It doesn't need to be reminded of more successful pictures of the same genre, and doesn't need to scan the blueprint of a certain famous George Romero zombie film. It's original, quick, witty, jumpy, and fun. I thought movies weren't allowed to possess all those traits.Starring: Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo. Directed by: Mark Goldblatt.

Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo are two, now get his, mismatched cops. Joe Piscopo is Bigelow, a macho, insensitive lug who only cares about himself...maybe. Treat Williams is Mortis, a kind, intuitive detective with a promising career ahead of him...until his latest case lands him on a slab. Fortunately, the case provides them with a means to bring Mortis back. Now, Bigelow and an undead Mortis race to find Mortis' killer before it's too late...(or perhaps it already is) The film tries hard to be funny, and it is, in certain moments. The two lead actors have a kind of chemistry and the cast of character actors are dynamite (including Darren McGavin, Vincent Price, Robert Picardo, and Key Luke) but it is the genre-mixing which steals the show. The butcher shop scene is hilarious and sick, a good indication of where the movie would have went if more freedom had been extended toward the filmmakers. But it remains a neat little flick for the horror lovers and the action buffs everywhere.Hopefully more and more people will discover this title, but until then, it has a small cult audience. Don't let that stop ya, seek it out. It won't change your life, but it ought to give you a diverting way to spend an hour and a half.

Plot Synopsis: L.A. Detectives Roger Mortis & Doug Bigelow are investigating a series of robberies where the criminals appear to be impervious to bullets. They discover that the robbers are zombies & locate the device used to bring them back. Mortis is then killed in a shootout. Reanimated by the machine, Mortis has 12 hours to find his killer before he decomposes into mush.This would have to be the strangest cop buddy film ever made. Designed to be a parody of "Lethal Weapon", the film's concept involves a zombie police officer & his human partner. The film starts off quite well, with a shootout that amazingly resembles the real-life North Hollywood shootout that occurred ten years later (you know, the one where two bank robbers unleash hell on the cops, not to mention being almost invulnerable to police weapons. But in that case they are wearing body armour). But the film goes downhill right after, thanks to Joe Piscopo's smartass performance. He never stops cracking one-liners. Some of them are good but most are very bad. As a result, the film suffers. The end scene is nicely done though, being a parody of "Casablanca".