Kevin Tenney Strikes!

Brain Dead (2007)

Directed By: Kevin S. Tenney

Review Written By: Horse
Mondo Film & Video Guide Contributor
IMDb.com Link

How many movies does this make that share the title Brain Dead? I see at least five on IMDB, although not all are titled Brain Dead in all countries. I’ll forgive another one, especially when this one seems to deserve the title most of all (sorry, but somehow I missed the Corman one). The title works on multiple levels here. The dead are eating brains, but the living are semi-retarded as well. What it all boils down to is a fun flick in the tradition of Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Creeps, a near perfect mix of horror, gore, humor and nudity. According to the press kit I got with the screener, “Brain Dead is just as much a parody of classic zombie films as it is a clever update to the beloved genre.” That sounds like big shoes to fill, let’s see how big this movie’s feet are.

I’m inclined to like this off the bat. Kevin S. Tenney, director of classics Witchboard and Night of the Demons returns!  This also stars another favorite director, and the most mentioned name in my reviews, Jim Wynorski. We start in a video monitor, where some guy is being interviewed about something horrible. Not sure what it is, but he claims he’s innocent of everything, “except maybe the moving violation”. Cut to the titles, we follow a meteor through space and to Earth. The meteor ends up landing in fisherman Bill’s head. His fishing buddy must not see the fucking hole in his forehead as he keeps saying “Bill, wake up, come on”, while we see some black goo attaching itself to Bill’s brain, turning him into the first zombie. He grabs his buddy’s head and pokes out his eyes while ripping his head open in a great Gabe Bartalos effect. He then picks up the brain to eat it and we cut to the sheriff’s office. Here we meet a few of the characters we will grow to love, including Wynorski’s Sheriff Bodine, and lead dudes Clarence (Joshua Benton) and Bob (David Crane). Bob and Clarence are cuffed together and on the way to the pen, but won’t make it there. Every deputy is Jimmy something, Jimmy Bob, Jimmy Ray, etc., so you know we are in hick country!

Along a deserted country road we find Reverend Farnsworth and his sexy assistant Amy. Rev is putting on the moves, saying something about “I love my wife but ever since the Lord saw fit to extend her from a size six to a size twelve, I’ve had great difficulty expressing my physical love”. She whips out her huge tits and confesses she was sent by the Lord to “relieve your throbbing!” His bullshit macking is about to work until the car, accidentally put in gear, rolls away and crashes into a tree spoiling the mood.

Somewhere in the woods, by the lake, we meet the next couple of characters, Sherry and Claudia (Sarah Grant Brendecke and Michelle Tomlinson respectively). They are out hiking and separated from a larger group when Sherry decides to do some “communing with nature” by stripping naked and jumping in the lake… Gratuitous nudity at it’s finest!  Claudia is the classic man-hating lesbian and soon can’t resist getting naked and jumping in too, as anyone who likes girls would since Sherry is pretty damn fine. So far we’ve met five girls, and already seen three (very nice) racks, two bushes and two butts! Good ratio!

Meanwhile, the cop van blows a tire and the cuffed odd couple escape with a shotgun. Another fully nude park ranger (Tess McVicker) rounds out the cast, and is sent to check in on the missing fishermen/drunks. Soon all parties converge on the fishermen’s vacant cabin, with most of the windows already conveniently boarded up. Of course no one knows about the threat, so Bob basically takes everyone hostage. Even when a zombie outside punches a hole through the head of the park ranger (during a shoot-out with Bob), some of those inside believe it was the shotgun that killed her.

While all this is going down, the zombie is slowly making other zombies by puking the black slime onto them. It’s really an alien parasite which makes the host zombieish while eating the brains inside out, just keeping motor functions going. This is very reminiscent of Night of the Creeps with slug-like things crawling around and entering hosts orally. The cabin harkens back to Evil Dead, the woods to Friday the 13th. It’s like a bunch of old favorites thrown into a blender, this is what came out, and I love it!

Dale Gelineau has written a great script. Plenty of humor, some very tense sequences and even a few action scenes. Plus a new term I hadn’t heard before, and I’ve heard many a colorful phrase or term, but “cuntbiscut” is new to my vocabulary (and most welcome)! Tenney’s direction is also top notch, some great connections and never boring. During my first viewing of this, I was on mushrooms and laughed so much it hurt. A second sober viewing finds a great film still, just not quite as funny, but nothing is. So I’ll leave you now with some shit unmentioned and my highest possible recommendation. I just don’t see why it took 3 years since this played film festivals to finally land on DVD, but thank you Breaking Glass Pictures for finally bringing it. Oh yeah, final stats and some great lines:

7 dead, 6 heads opened up or removed, 3 zombies, 4 pairs of tits, 3 asses and 3 bushes.

“My phone bill is higher than Whitney Houston; I can’t even get a signal.”

“If you blow their brains out, they won’t be around to clean up the mess afterwards.”

“Is there anything else from our backpacks you want to offer us?”

“There is every type of human depravity and degradation in this room tonight. Atheists, fornicators, murders…”
“Um, lesbians”

“Lick me cuntbiscut!”

“The buffet is closed you slimy little fuck!”

“He was no picnic when he was a human, and I doubt being a mutant-parasite-zombie-puppet has improved his mood any.”

“You’re the one who believes in all this after-life crap. Me, I’m an atheist, if that thing gets my ass it’s forever.”

“Adios you fucking meat puppet!”

“Alright asshole, you want us, come and get us. But the joke’s on you cuz I already lost most of my brain cells to hard drinking.”

“If stupid was a sport, well that boy, he’d have a room full of trophies.”

“He blew a hole straight through my baby sister’s face, and that ain’t right… even if she wasn’t the pretty one.”

Horse is one of the latest contributors to the Mondo Film & Video Guide.  For more information on him, please visit the Mondo “About Us” section.

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