YMMV / Dead Heat

• Awesome Music The awesomely 80s theme song.
• Complete Monster: Dr. Ernest McNab is a coroner hired to assist Arthur P. Loudermilk in his experiments to bring back the dead. To fund this, he had various wealthy people experimented on and then Buried Alive and left to rot so he could take their money, aside from his boss, whom he simply killed a random person to provide the corpse for him to fake his death. To test his resurrection process and acquire more cash for himself, McNab resurrected criminals and had them rob jewelry stores in what was considered the most violent crime spree in recent history. When Detectives Roger Mortis and Doug Bigelow investigate the crimes, the doctor has Mortis suffocated in a decompression chamber. After learning Mortis has been resurrected, McNab has his undead goons try and kill the two cops, eventually succeeding in taking out Bigelow. Soon after, it's revealed that he promised the PR agent for his boss's company that he'd figure out a way to stop her from decaying if she helped him, but he lets her rot away. Mortis goes to confront him, and McNab first chains him in an ambulance to decay while staring at his girlfriend, whom McNab killed, then resurrects Bigelow as a braindead zombie to kill his partner.
• Moral Event Horizon: McNab leaving Mortis to decay in the same spot as his dead girlfriend.
• Nightmare Fuel: The sequence where Randi James rots away is uncharacteristically disturbing for such an otherwise light-hearted movie, despite the Special Effects Failure.
• So Bad, It's Good: Dead Heat is the best 80s zombie buddy cop action horror comedy you will ever see. A cop investigating jewelry store heists (performed by zombies) is killed and brought back from the dead and has 12 hours before he melts into goo. His partner is Joe Piscopo whose entire existence is dedicated to terrible one-liners. It also includes bad acting, obvious continuity errors, a plot that makes little sense and reanimated Chinese food.

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