BRAIN BITES

  DEAD SNOW 2: RED Vs DEAD (DØD SNØ 2) (2014) Norway/Iceland/USA/UK 1hr 40mins Director: Tommy Wirkola "I know it sounds like a cliche but that's what happened" - Martin "I have two kittens... don't hurt me!!!" - Glenn Inventive and entertaining director Tommy Wirkola is back, still channeling his inner Sam Raimi and with a bigger budget to bring us DEAD SNOW 2: RED Vs DEAD!! After a quick recap of the previous movie DEAD SNOW (2009) the sole survivor Martin (Vegar Hoel) escapes Herzog following a vicious fight in the car where Martin manages to sever Herzogs right arm letting it fall into the foot well of said car. Falling asleep at the wheel he crashes and wakes up in hospital. The recap shows the fact that in the first movie Martin was forced (in true Ash Williams style) to cut off his own right arm with a chainsaw. When he comes round in hospital the doctors inform him that they were able to reattach his arm after the crash, revealing to Martin that they...

 DEAD SNOW (DØD SNØ) (2009) Norway 1hr 32mins Director: Tommy Wirkola "How many films start with a group of friends on a trip to a cabin with no phone signal??" - Erlend "We should have gone to Sunny Beach, like I told you!!" - Roy A group of medical students head to a cabin high up in the snowy mountains of Øksfjord for a little rest and relaxation before their exams. The cabin belongs to Vegard (Lasse Valdal),  his friends Roy (Stig Frode Henriksen), Erlend (Jeppe Beck Laursen), couple Martin (Vegar Hoel) and Hanna (Charlotte Frogner), Liv (Evy Kasseth Røsten) and Chris (Jenny Skaulan) leave the car and walk to the cabin. Vegard goes ahead on his snowmobile to get the cabin ready. Vegards girlfriend Sara (Ane Dahl Torp) left the day before on ski's and is supposed to be meeting them there. On arrival the guys quickly settle into messing about in the snow and drinking. They answer a knock at the door thinking it is Sara (who has still not turned up yet) but fin...

 This is it undead fiends... month 2 of my SEND MORE PARAMEDICS reviews and we are onto the album that cemented the band firmly into peoples minds. To many it was the album that brought them forward to a wider audience and due to the anthemic nature of some of the tracks got them on the bill with US touring bands THE OFFSPRING and AVENGED SEVENFOLD on the UK/European legs of their tours. Without further ado I bring you the mighty... THE HALLOWED AND THE HEATHEN (2004) 1. The Hallowed (0:53) 2. Bokor (2:03) 3. Driven To Destruction (2:35) 4. Desert Of Skulls (3:50) 5. Zombie Crew (3:46) 6. No Fucking Joke (2:52) 7. Half Life (2:56) 8. I Can Feel Myself Rotting (0:29) 9. Burning The Body (3:30) 10. A Necklace Made Of Teeth (3:33) 11. The Time Before I Turn (4:07) 12. Cranial Blowout (1:56) 13. Easy Meat (3:20) 14. The Heathen (1:05) Released on IN AT THE DEEP END RECORDS in February 2004. THE HALLOWED AND THE HEATHEN begins and ends with haunting instrumentals, the tracks inbetween b...

 DANCE OF THE DEAD (2008) USA 1hr 27mins Dir: Gregg Bishop "Ah Hell!" - Gravedigger "But I don't know how to shoot a machete"- Gwen The students of Cosa-Rosa High are preparing for their Prom night but things are going to get messy as the nuclear power plant right next to the cemetery is chucking out some weird fumes. The graveyard comes alive and a group of dateless nerds, losers, cheerleaders and a bully band together to save the day! Main loser Jimmy Dunn (Jared Kusnitz) almost loses his girlfriend Lindsey (Grayson Chadwick) after getting detention from the truly obnoxious science teacher Mr. Hammond (Johnathan Spencer) purely for the fact that he cannot take anything seriously, he soon proves him wrong. Lindsey goes to the prom with someone else but doesn't quite make it there as a jaunt with her horny date takes her to the cemetery just as the dead rise and what a glorious sight to behold it is. The group of unlikely heroes team up at a funeral home and...

 PLANET TERROR (2007) USA/Mexico 1hr 45mins Dir: Robert Rodriguez "I'm gonna eat your brains and gain your knowledge" Tony Block "I was gonna be a stand up comedian... who's gonna laugh now?!" Cherry Darling A bio chemical outbreak and test subjects are unleashed at a military base in a remote part of Texas. Chemical engineer and allround dodgy guy with a penchant for collecting his enemies testicles, Abby (Naveen Andrews) was working with a team of corrupt soldiers led by Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis)  and had made a transaction to create a bio chemical agent known as DC2 but Muldoon soon found out Abby had a secret stash and was looking to sell it on the black market. So they take him hostage, in the ensuing carnage the deadly gas and test subjects are released on the unsuspecting townsfolk. Meanwhile, Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) quits her job as a go-go dancer and grabs a ride out of town with her ex, El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez). Swerving to avoid something...

 Over the next few months I will be doing reviews of SEND MORE PARAMEDICS three (soon to be four) main albums with a brief overview of their other EPs and musical career. Ending with a bite by bite account of their reunion shows celebrating 20 years since their reanimation happening in Leeds and London on the run up to Halloween this year. This is incredibly exciting for me, being zombie obsessed since childhood the discovery of this band as a young adult made my life complete. Even after they crawled back into their graves in 2007 (returning briefly in 2014), we the fans have never forgotten them. So before I really start to choke up with nostalgia... for those of you that do not know about this band let me introduce you to... SEND MORE PARAMEDICS B'Hellmouth - Vocals Medico - Guitar X. Undead - Bass El Diablo - Drums Formed in Leeds, England as a side project from members of the band AND NONE OF THEM KNEW THEY WERE ROBOTS these 80's zombie B movie fanatics named themselves SE...

 Hello to all you beautiful rotting corpses! Welcome to the August installments of BRAIN BITES! I hope you enjoyed July's Romero month reviews of the later trio in the DEAD franchise. These and the more popular earlier movies will always hold a special place in my unbeating heart and I had loads of fun revisiting them. If you missed them then please take a quick look back and see if you agree with my thoughts on these fun and inventive later offerings. The zombie movie rumour mill has been rife these last few weeks with some interesting news flying around like the eyeballs and entrails in a feeding frenzy. The juiciest of all being the new series coming to the SyFy channel in October entitled DAY OF THE DEAD. A ten episode series which seems to have nothing to do with Romero's original tells the tale of 6 strangers surviving the first 24 hours of a zombie apocalypse and is written by Jed Elinof and Scott Thomas writers of The Banana Splits Movie (2019). Understandably on the fi...