BRAIN BITES

  RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD: NECROPOLIS (2005) USA/Romania 1hr 28mins Director: Ellory Elkayem "Whenever there is an outbreak of zombie reanimation we lead the charge in containment" - Hybra Tech advertisement. "Lead, follow... or get out of the way." - Julian "Send more security guards" - Zombie. The first three RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD movies are true classics, yes... even part two, but unfortunately they fall outside of my review catchment being made before the year 2000 so luckily for them, they escape my pitiful scribblings of which I am sure they are grateful for. However, twelve years later writers William Butler and Adam Strongoni decided to resurrect the franchise. They enlisted the help of EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS (2002) director Ellory Elkayem and created two more RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD movies but the question here is did they do them justice and did we really need them in the first place? RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD: NECROPOLIS (2005) is set 10 ye...

  DETENTION OF THE DEAD (2012) USA 1hr 27mins Director: Alex Craig Mann "It looks like Rob Zombie raped the entire cast of Gossip Girl and this is their angry love child" - Willow It's a normal day at Lincoln High and the school is business as usual with the exception of the odd severly ill, groaning and shuffling student hanging around. Despite this the students go about their day oblivious to the virus spreading around them. A group of oddball students ranging from the schools head cheerleader Janet (Christa B. Allen), her jock boyfriend Brad (Jayson Blair) and his meathead friend Jimmy (Max Adler) to the lowest of the low with nerd Eddie (Jacob Zacher), goth chick Willow (Alexa Nikolas) and school weed dealer Ash (Justin Chon) all ending up in detention with teacher Mrs. Rumblethorp (Michele Messmer) just as the mystery illness sweeping the school turns into a full blown zombie apocalypse. Will Eddie, who before all of this was too shy to admit his true feelings for Ja...

  WARM BODIES (2013) USA/Canada 1hr 38mins Director: Jonathan Levine. "What's wrong with me? I just want to connect. Why can't I connect with people?" - R "They are not becoming vegans!" - Grigio "Don't be creepy, don't be creepy, don't be creepy." - R Sweet zombie Jesus! If the world wasn't saturated enough with an endless supply of dodgy horror movies we also have to deal with the fact that Hollywood insists on sexualising every genre there is. No genre is safe and here we have a movie that would go on to spur on a spate of cringe worthy Rom Zom movies. Aimed at teens desperate for an undead heart throb to swoon over in the aftermath of the TWLIGHT movies I guess. WARM BODIES was originally a novel by Isaac Marion published in 2010 and is a romantic comedy based on Shakespeares' Romeo & Juliet but with a modern zombie twist. Adapted for film in 2013 and directed by Jonathan Levine, it features some young, up and coming ac...

  A NIGHT OF THE UNDEAD (2022) USA 1hr 20mins Directors: Kenny Scott Guffey and Jake C. Young "The deceased are not returning as they once were but are seeking out and consuming human flesh." President of the USA "They're coming to get you Piper!!!" - Adam In a world where the events documented by George A. Romero in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) were real and remembered by a handful of residents in rural Pennsylvania, culminates in a combination of vague memories and rumours that have come together over the years causing a divide in the community today of people that believe the zombie infection was real and those that think it was all a hoax. In a bid to prove to their viewers that there is some truth to the events, three podcasters head to Evans City to find the fated farmhouse where Barbara, Ben, Tom, Judy and the Cooper family took refuge from the ghouls and (spoiler alert) where they all perished. They hope to find real evidence of the phenomena that ha...

 BRAIN FREEZE (2021) Canada 1hr 31mins Director: Julien Knafo "Winter is here... but not for the rich who want golf all year round!" - Patrick Nault "We're the victims here... not the bad guys" - Dan The rich, gated community peninsula of Peacock Island, is home to wealthy business men who love to play golf, their families and normal working class people who work for the golf clubs. In order to provide year round golfing a chemical is engineered to melt the snow in the winter season making sure that the grass will grow all year round. This chemical gets into the islands water system turning all the residents who drink the water into frenzied, green eyed zombies with a craving for human flesh. Andrè (Iani Bèdard), a young teenager who seems to only drink coke saves his baby sister from their mum when she turns and ends up teaming up with a security guard called Dan (Roy Dupuis) who is a closet survivalist and super protective of his twenty-something daughter Patr...

  UNDEAD (2003) Australia 1hr 44mins Directors: Michael and Peter Spierig "Aunt Aggie has the keys (to the truck) but she doesn't have a brain." - Wayne. "When I was a kid we respected our parents...we didn't fuckin' eat them!" - Harrison. "Jesus Christ...can I get a cup of tea with this fruit cake??!!!" - Wayne. Before the sibling directorial duo brought us movies like DAYBREAKERS (2009), JIGSAW (2017) and WINCHESTER (2018), the Spierig brothers gave us supernatural, splattery zombiness with UNDEAD (2003). The quaint fishing town of Berkley, Australia gets hit by a meteor shower, all those exposed to the space rocks turn into flesh eating zombies. Only a few survivors make it and take refuge in the local town crazies farm house to make a stand. Town beauty queen (known as the Fish Queen) Rènè Chaplin (Felicity Mason), Wayne (Rob Jenkins), his pregnant girlfriend Sallyanne (Lisa Cunningham) and two of the town cops, Harrison (Dirk Hunter) and M...

  ZOMBEAVERS (2014) USA 1hr 17mins Director: Jordan Rubin "Hey man... you see that deer there?"-Luke (passenger) "Yeah, I see it..."-Joseph (driver) whilst on his phone, "I don't think you do"-Luke after Joseph hits the deer. "Those things out there, they're not beavers" - Jenn Three girlfriends; Jenn (Lexi Atkins), Zoe (Cortney Palm) and Mary (Rachel Melvin) go on a weekend getaway to Marys cousins cabin to get a break away from their boyfriends and civilisation. Little do they know that their goof ball boyfriends have followed them anyway. It's looking like the weekend could be a great party if it wasn't for the fact that earlier two bumbling employees from Mamaroneck Medical Facility lose a barrel of toxic chemicals off their truck which goes bobbing down the river stopping and springing a leak right in front of a beaver dam in Ashwood at the cabin the girls are staying at. The beavers get covered in toxic chemicals, die and r...