This is not strictly a ‘zombie’ movie. They keep calling them that, but technically, they’re aliens. Whatever the case, they need to eat brains, so I suppose that they qualify in the ‘zombie’ genre. That said Brain Dead’s got lots of gore, gratuitous nudity and more than enough completely preposterous kills to make this movie a cool genre flick.
The story follows our protagonist, Clarence (Joshua Benton), who has been arrested for a moving violation by a local small town sheriff who believes that because Clarence’s older brother gets in trouble, so will Clarence and follows him around waiting for him to do something. While Clarence is being transported to a more ‘secure’ facility (presumably some place larger) with an actual, hardened criminal, Bob (David Crane), they are in an accident and Bob gets free. Since Clarence is handcuffed to Bob he has no choice but to follow him around on a murderous rampage and, hopefully, keep him from killing anyone else. In the meantime, an asteroid has landed and found two fishermen turning one into a zombie and eating the other. Bob, Clarence, two very busty girls (both of whom we’ve seen completely naked by now), a lecherous Reverend and his secretary (also seen topless) in a cabin attempting to keep anyone from being killed by either Bob OR the zombies, a test of wits in either case.
The movie is certainly entertaining, campy though it is. The most masterful choice that Mr. Tenny made while he was casting was to make the main character a completely normal guy. Everyone else in this movie is a complete caricature. From the Reverend who believes that the zombies are Satan to the molecular biologist lesbian and pin up girl (both in the same fraternity) no one in this movie is believeable, except for the main character, and becasue we can idetify with him almost completely, we’re willing to make the journey.
The production values are of excellent calibre here as well, which they should be, because Mr. Tenney got some brilliant deals on the talent in this movie. Gabe Bartalos did the makeup for him for cost (which meant he had to do all the work himself) and a guy (who was not named and I will not guess and credit him incorrectly) who normally works for Disney jumped at the opportunity to do something so non-Disney and did all the CGI himself as well.
This movie is a throw back to the horror movies of the 70s in a really true, really pure way. When asked about the nudity, Mr. Tenney indicated that the entire time he conceinved this movie, it never occurred to him that women would want to see this movie, however, he’s received such overwhelming response from the women in the audience, when he makes a sequel (of course there’s a sequel) he’ll make sure that Josh bulks up to be naked too. Definitely make this a part of your next zombie movie night. You won’t regret it.
