What is the name of the creature that causes the zombie outbreak in Braindead?

The creature that causes the zombie outbreak in Braindead is the Sumatran rat-monkey. In Peter Jackson's 1992 New Zealand horror comedy, it is presented as a bizarre hybrid creature carrying the cause of the film's zombie infection.

The story begins in 1957 on the fictional Skull Island, where a zoo official tries to smuggle the animal away from its native islanders. After the creature bites him, it is captured and shipped to Wellington Zoo. Later, Lionel Cosgrove's mother Vera is bitten while spying on Lionel and Paquita during their visit to the zoo. Vera dies, reanimates, and begins infecting others.

The infection spreads through bites and turns the film's domestic problem into a full-scale outbreak involving a basement of zombies, a disastrous housewarming party, and an exceptionally gory lawn-mower fight. Braindead was released in the United States as Dead Alive. The alternatives are misleading: the creature is not a Sumatran tiger, and “rat monkey” alone omits the character's distinctive canonical name.