Brain Dead

A sleepy fishing port town is consumed with terror when a small crater crash-lands nearby and releases a slimy parasitic agent that transforms the residents into brain-eating zombies. Cornered in an abandoned fishing lodge, six strangers are forced to band together to stave off the blood-sucking monsters clawing the walls outside.

I get a little worried when you have a horror film from a known director (Kevin Tenney, "Witchboard" and "Night of the Demons") and it takes three years to go from film festival to DVD. I get the impression that it must be pretty bad if companies are not willing to take a chance on a man who is known to have a winning streak in his past. Does my apprehension have basis in reality?

Well, the film is great at what it does, let us say that. Cheesy? Oh, yes. But the gore is amazing, very much in the splatter tradition of Lamberto Bava's "Demons". This film does not take itself seriously, but I think that is its strength, because the low budget does not give it the ability to be too serious. Tenney approached this the right way.

Amy is very, very sexy with a cute face and the seductive hairstyle that lures dirty old men. Her breasts are a bit large for my liking, but I am probably in the minority and I really probably should not complain at all -- what is a horror film without topless women? And there are topless and bottomless women... and the big breasts just keep bouncing (and floating).

One cheesiness that could have been cleaned up was the tattoo on the convict... just not believable at all. No tattoo is that dark. But then, you get lines like, "My phone bill is higher than Whitney Houston", and it all seems okay.

I would feel like I failed in my duty if I neglected to say this film has an obvious connection to "The Blob", with its villain being of a meteor origin. But the connection is weak, and it is neither an homage nor a ripoff.

I watched Brain Dead late one evening on the Horror Channel, not expecting to much. The film helped kill a few hours and that was about it, it clearly comes under the category of it's so bad its 'good' I use the word 'good' loosely.

Plot:

We see three couples, two prisoners, two women with a weird lesbian undertone and the Reverend Farnsworth and his young disciple 'Candy' who all end up in a cabin together, where they are attacked by Alien Zombies and a Weird black blob.

Hot or Not:

The film is clearly made on a low budget and there is nothing wrong with that, 'if' the film is made correctly. The problem here is that Brain Dead tries too hard at being funny and although on occasions it did bring a smile to my face, it seemed I the majority of the time I was laughing at how bad the film was rather than the scripted jokes. The set throughout the whole film was so obviously fake, even down to the walls within the cabin. This is no Evil Dead although it would like to be. On a positive note there is some good nude scenes for people who like that and the special effects are quite good for the budget of the film, maybe they should have toned down on the money spent on effects in order to improve the set design.

Birds and the Bees:

Loads of breasts and Bums on display here but nothing for the gals here.

Acting:

The acting in this film is very poor, although I have seen worse. Sometimes it comes across deliberate. Joshua Benton as clarence and Sarah Grant Brendecke as Sherry Morgan did OK as leads.

Overall:

I would only watch this film if you really have nothing else to watch or if you are a fan of low budget films as Brain Dead is better than most. However I think they showed too much interest in making it funny rather than scary, there was little balance, this is no Evil Dead!

It's a B-series Zombies' flick which mixes gore with humor, like it uses to be common in the genre.

Some of the jokes are funny and some of the gore scenes too!

In fact the type of gore used is not to shock you but to make you laugh.

It also has some beautiful and nude girls who definitely help to sustain this movie interesting...

I might say it's enjoyable and nice for gore fun but it's not a reference, not even in the genre.

I score it 6/10.

It takes balls to use the name Brain Dead for a horror flick. There are two other horror flicks out there that use Brain and Dead in their title, and they both have their own followings....especially one of them....the one that matters. Does this one live up to it's awesome word combo of Brain and Dead? Yep. It does. Yay!

The story revolves around an asteroid ripping through space to only land in a dude's head. From there the ooze from the asteroid transforms the guy into a brain-feeding, zombie/monster/guy. From that moment it's only goal is to eat brains, brains, brains so it can....you'll see. Eventually the story becomes a trapped and survive type situation, and for me, and thanks to Evil Dead 2, I love that setting.

The film has a good amount of characters that tend to be pretty entertaining as well. Our lead character, who is also our main source of humor, was consistently telling jokes or using smart alec remarks. It kinda got old, but fortunately his acting was good enough to make his persona likable, which made you not really care about the failing funnies. With 4 out of the 5 girls showing boobs and bush, the movie also succeeds in the nudity department. But once you see one girl nude, that's it, they don't shed any more for the rest of the movie. So don't expect anymore nudity later on. And of course we are watching a movie called Brain Dead and expecting some red stuff. Praise the lord because we get a decent amount of gory fun. Head splitting open, shotgun to the face and torso explosions....and even some good ole fashion puke gore.

Brain Dead was a cool horror/comedy that delivered everything that I hoped. Though I do have to say I was hoping for some more nudity later on, because a couple of these girls were stacked. The humor worked enough, the acting was inspired, the gore creative and plentiful and did I mention the nudity? Definitely check it out if you get the chance. Brain Dead lives up to the name, and was a bloody fun flick.

I saw this at the GoreZone magazine Gore-Fest this weekend- in London (it was the UK premier-) i was looking forward to seeing this film- and although the title is ludicrously unoriginal - (most people will think it's Dead Alive/Brain Dead let's be honest!!) it didn't disappoint.

Packed full of excellent splatter gore and comedic situations- and not taking itself too seriously- A breath of (not so) fresh air - and more than holds it's own in it's genre. Some great comedic acting from the felon reluctantly on the run handcuffed to a dim witted trigger happy psycho- and the eye candy cliché babes in distress also did well with tongue firmly in cheeks and totally self aware of their stereotype! I recommend this to anyone who enjoyed Bad Taste, Brain Dead, Undead- and Kevin S. Tenneys previous works 'Night of the Demons' & 'Witchboard'. Enjoy.