Brain Dead (Review)

Brain Dead

Brain Dead (2007)

Directed by Kevin Tenney

No its not that Brain Dead.

If you're like me, that title goes with one film and one film only and that's Peter Jackson's zombie classic. But let's not judge the film based on title alone. Because if you know horror, you know who Kevin Tenney is. The man has quite a directorial horror resume which includes Witchboard and the classic Night of the Demons.

So I kinda knew what I'd be in for when I watched Brain Dead. But could Tenney bring back all that was fun about mutant zombie 80s gorefests?

Great cerebral cortexes! Yes he can.

Brain Dead is an assembly line produced throwback 80s splatter flick that hits all on all the cliches that make the genre so great to watch. Gratuitous nudity, gratuitous gore, gratuitous over the top makeup and gratuitous snarky characters spewing curse words a mile a minute. It took a director from the 80s to actually make a good, solid 80s throwback splatterfest.

Sure it's a low budget, been there, done that premise, but sometimes you just gotta go with the ridiculousness and try to shut off your brain like the zombies in this film.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

What do a pair of escaped convicts, a preacher and his assistant, and a pair of pretty hikers have in common? They’re all delicious.

After an extraterrestrial parasite crash-lands in a backwoods American town – landing squarely on the head of a local fisherman – it sparks a fast spreading zombie infestation. As the brain hungry monsters multiply, three pairs of unlucky misfits convene on a fishing lodge for shelter. With zombies pounding at the door, the stranded, mismatched travelers must band together to stop the invasion – or serve themselves up as a main course. The problem is, they may lose their minds to each other before losing their brains to the zombies.

Full of ingenious gore effects, nudity and witty banter, “Brain Dead” is just as much a parody of classic zombie films as it is a clever update to the beloved genre.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Let's review a movie by breaking it out by cliches. It's got em all and I felt like I time traveled and was watching a movie through my VCR. the only thing that was different was I didn't have to fix the tracking....and I have an awesome TV. So let's start off with the most important shit first.

Gratuitous NUDITY!!!!!!

In the first 30 minutes, we get to see not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4...YES! Count em 4 sets of boobs in this movie. And I'm not talking about icky fat-ish actresses. Nope we got some hotties showing off their assets.

Names are not important but grades are. Without a doubt, Cristina Tiberia gets an A, Sarah Grant Brendecke gets a B+, Michelle Tomlinson gets a B- and some other chick gets a C.

Yes you will see boobs and they're real and they're spectacular.

Gratuitous Cliched Plot!!!!!!

Some space creature that looks like black ooze crash lands and it's actually a parasitic organism that when it takes over a human body, craves for brains so it can reproduce. Enter zombie mutant puppets.

You've seen this in Night of the Demons and the movie takes elements of Evil Dead, Slither, Evil Aliens and countless others.

Gratuitous Stereotypical Characters!!!!!!

So who do we get to watch for an hour and a half?

• A smart ass Sawyer like guy named Clarence
• A convicted felon dumb hick named Bob
• A lesbian, man hating hottuie named Claudia
• A vegan, commune with nature med student named Sherry
  
• A hypocritial lusty preacher named Farnsworth
• A God fearing, Tea Party belle named Amy
• A few other locals that make for good death fodder

Gratuitous Gore and Splatter!!!!!!

All these people come together and meet in a cabin in the woods (I did mention were in clicheworld right?) where our zombie aliens are looking for fresh BRAAAAAAAAAAINNNNNS!!

The best part of Brain Dead is the non CGI gore. It's old school here with shotgun head blasts, quick edit watermelon blasts (its suppose to be a human head) and decapitations and arm rippage. It's like they DeLoreaned into the past and made this movie in the 80s.

Tons of blood, tons of gore and tons of black ooze vomiting from our zombies to infect other people. Shit was coming out of every orifice dude. And it was fuckin awesome.

Gratuitous Gripes and Negatives!!!!!!

Brain Dead won't be for everyone. Noobs won't understand why us "old timers" think is a big deal about some boobs and gore. But here's a message to you noobs. Boobs and gore were not as easily accessible back in the day. If you saw boobs in a movie, you couldn't believe your eyes. If you saw somebody's heart gets ripped out, you applauded. So we have a special place in our hearts for these movies. You noobs are lucky with your free porn and YouTube.

Brain Dead kinda gets ZZZZZZZZs with some badly written dialogue and goofy makeup effects. But Clarence's snarky one liners had me laughing a few times. His zingers zinged and I have to admit, I chuckled a few times.

But being low budget, you can smell the cheese and it's extra velveetay. What can ya do right?

Brain Dead ain't the best throwback but it's done with fun and care and Kevin Tenney knows what us gorehounds and breasthounds want. All of this is packaged into Brain Dead and I had fun nostalgia-ing to my VHS days. What more can you ask?

Well more boobs would have been nice.

WTF moment

One of the characters get an untimely demise I didn't see coming. Holey moley.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Brain Dead was just released on DVD via Breaking Glass Pictures. You can buy it via Amazon.com.

For more info, head over to Breaking Glass Pictures or the Facebook page.

Rating:


Check out the trailer below!