Brain Dead (2007)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Blistering performances.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I gave it a bad rating and turned this movie off before because of the CGI gun fire a personal pet-peeve of mine. But I don't know why because before it got to the shoot-out there were lots of boobies (and bush), gore and one-liners to keep me interested. This is a campy 1950's horror movie crossed with an 80's T&A. no sooner do they introduce a female character then she gets topless int-regal to the story-line of course. The male characters are all jerks but different jerks they are the paint by numbers characters found in the 50's horror. Fat lazy sloppy cops, over the top criminals....and of course Joshua Benton with his snarky one liners. he's playing the bad boy iconoclast who's too cool for school. It was fun to watch him crack wise through the tragedy.

Let's face it...some movies merely exist as a vehicle to turn your brain off for an hour and a half or so. They are not for thinkers, hipsters, or people who don't know a joke when they see one. That is precisely why movies like Brain Dead get made and sometimes they'll make you happy that they do get made. Unlike a good number of big budget blockbusters who are just as goofy but take themselves way too seriously, a fair amount of movies (especially in the horror genre) plant their tongue firmly in cheek and keep winking at the camera.There's nothing terribly original here...a bunch of people from different walks of life and about as different as they could possibly be wind up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere under assault by the undead. Yes, you've seen it before...but there's not a ton of fertile ground for new zombie stories. Be my guest and try, but I'm betting a fair number of zombie purists will cry and whine. On the whole this movie looks like it had a bit of a budget but it certainly won't have you checking to see why did the special effects. It kind of looks like a Sci-Fi Channel movie that way...not low budget but certainly watching what it spends.None of the actors are particularly stand out but they all do their jobs just fine. And, as a man, I have no problem with clearly gratuitous amounts of nudity. Complain if you want, but boobs just belong in horror movies. Period. Now previously I mentioned the special effects...that only goes for the CGI. All of the practical effects and gore are actually done pretty well and usually with hilarious consequences. Bottom line is that if every movie you watch simply MUST have some thought provoking subtext, steer clear of this movie and stay the hell away from me as well. You're far too self serious and need to be kept away from society. If you can, on the other hand, agree to turn your brain off for a bit of time, maybe crack open a beer or two and have a couple laughs this may be worth a look. That's more than I can say for a lot of horror movies being made these days.

Brain Dead starts as a small meteorite crashes to Earth from outer space & lands directly on fisherman Bill's (Dennis Michael Tenney) head & lodges inside his brain where a parasitic alien black slime attaches itself & takes control of Bill turning him into a brain eating zombie. Two convicts the mild mannered Clarence (Joshua Benton) & the psychotic Bob (David Crane) can't believe their luck when their prison transport van gets a flat, Bob uses the situation to kill the guard & make his escape into the isolated woods where handcuffed together Clarence & Bob find a seemingly abandoned log cabin. Then two female hikers & a preacher & his assistant turn up seeking shelter, then the cabin comes under attack from various alien controlled zombies...Produced & directed by Kevin Tenney who has had some degree of success in the low budget horror genre with the likes of Witchboard (1986), Night of the Demons (1988), Witchtrap (1989) & Endangered Species (2002) although he's not exactly a well known name, his latest effort is this rather unsubtle horror gore comedy alien zombie flick which has a certain tacky entertainment value but I am definitely not as impressed as the other IMDb user's who have written comments for it here. I would say Brain Dead steals it's title from the brilliant Peter Jackson horror gore comedy of the same name but lift's it's story straight from The Thing (1982) & The Evil Dead (1982) with it's body controlling alien & it's central concept of various teenage character's trapped in a log cabin in the woods terrorised by possessed (by aliens rather than evil spirits but still possessed all the same) zombies who try to pick them off one-by-one. In this review I have now mention three other horror films, Braindead (1992), The Thing & The Evil Dead & I have to say Brain Dead isn't anywhere near as good as any of them & while there are one or two fun moments I don't think it's that good a film. The script tries to be clever & funny which is fine if you find this moronic playground style humour amusing but I didn't, in fact I found it all rather predictable, stale & the timing just isn't right either. Almost all of the gags & humour fell flat for me, I didn't laugh once during this & the humour is so low brow that it feels like it was written by a five year old. There are big pacing problems too, the first half of the film is really slow going with all these character's meeting up & arguing & trying to be funny, the character's are really obvious stereotypes that are poor & feel like they belong in some cheap TV comedy sketch show. There's a man hating lesbian, a perverted preacher, a smooth wise-cracking hero & a comedy Sheriff. The twist at the end was obviously inspired (or ripped-off) from The Thing & overall while it has a few fun moments I can't get that excited about it.There's some reasonable gore effects here, I say reasonable because they are played for laughs & bouncing rubber joke shop brains covered in slime lessen the impact. A guy has his head ripped in two & his brain falls out, a guy has his head shot off, a zombie smashes his fist through a woman's face & grabs her brain & she is seen staggering around with a hole in her face, someones arm is blown off, someone is shot in two, there are various decapitations & severed heads too. Quite brightly lit & shot Brain Dead isn't scary & is played for laughs more than suspense. All of the female leads get naked at some point or other whether it's skinny dipping or a needless shower scene Tenney always manages to find a reason. There's an unbelievably tacky shot in which the camera travels up a woman's skirt & a close-up of her vagina is seen & then the black alien slime spurts out of it onto the camera, that about sums up the level of sophistication in Brain Dead & the audience it's aiming for.Filmed in California the production values are alright but it does look a bit cheap at times, it's well made enough I suppose but there's no particular stand-out feature. The acting is alright, some are worse than other's but they at least try. One of the worst filmmakers working in the horror genre today Jim Wynorski has a small cameo as the Sheriff but thankfully doesn't seem to have contributed anything behind the camera.Brain Dead is a stupid horror comedy with added cheesy gore effects, I personally didn't find it funny at all but then maybe I just find this lowest common denominator type humour a little beneath my intelligence. It has one or two decent moments but the pacing is poor & the story is just a rip-off of better films.

I saw this film at Nevermore Film Festival on Feb 24th. It was the film I was looking forward to the most and I must admit that it did not disappoint. It was my favorite of the 9 I saw that weekend.My favorite things about horror films are the gore and the cheese and this film was full of both! This film had some of the best gore I had seen in a long time. Not best as in most realistic, but best as in most entertaining. One of the best scenes is with in the first 5-10 mins of the movie. It was a great way to start it off! This film def didn't take itself too seriously which made it so much fun to watch. It had some great one liners and some ridiculous situations that kept you laughing through most of the film.If this film is showing in a festival near you, or if you happen to see it on DVD, do yourself a favor and SEE IT. You will not be disappointed.