BRAIN BITES

  COOTIES (2014) USA 1hr 28mins Directors: Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion "Oh look... CARNAGE!!!" - Doug "A line has been crossed. You can't eat the teachers man!!" - Wade "Water won't hold them off!"- Clint "It ain't water... nap time motherfuckers!!"- Wade In the small town of Fort Chicken, Illinois the Happy Poultry Co makes a dodgy batch of chicken nuggets. The nuggets in question are cooked up in the cafeteria of Fort Chickens elementary school where one unfortunate child tucks into it. In the meantime, Clint Hadson (Elijah Wood) returns to his parents house at Fort Chicken, as he struggles to finish his novel he takes on a substitute teacher role at Fort Chicken elementary, his old school. He meets up with Lucy (Alison Pill) also a former student (and crush of Clints) who is now teaching at the school. The student that ate the infected nugget is in Clints first class and not looking great and it's not long before she atta...

  BLACK FRIDAY! (2021) USA 1hr 24mins Director: Casey Tebo "This is the biggest night of the year!" - Jonathan Wexler "What was wrong with that lady?? Am I going to be okay????" - Emmett "I got your discount right here." - Ken Bates Employees of the We Love Toys store are all gearing up for their big Black Friday event. Foregoing family thanksgiving meals to work this sale hoping for the big bonuses they were promised. Staff hit the stores early but hungry shoppers have been camping out since before they arrive. A freak meteor shower rains down on the store and strange fleshy, pink blobs make their way on to the shops shelves. The first casualties are shop employees who are attacked and infected via a floppy proboscis type thing that turns them into flesh craving zombies. The infection soon spreads to the shoppers, who after being hell bent on turning others start to work together to build something bigger than anything humanity has ever seen before. Leav...

 DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)  USA/Canada/Japan/France 1hr 41mins Director: Zack Snyder "What are they?" - Michael "I dunno... why are they coming here?"- Anna "Memory, maybe ... instinct? Maybe they're coming for us." - Kenneth Taking on the remake of a movie that has been revered for many decades by zombie fans and classic horror fans alike is not something just anyone can pull off. George A. Romeros DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) has three main versions that fans are familiar with; the theatrical cut, the extended Cannes film festival cut and Dario Argentos cut ZOMBI. The ideas and values that Romero brought to the genre have been copied a million times over but no one directly made a remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD until 2004. Producers Eric Newman and Marc Abraham are the people responsible for "re-evisioning" DAWN for a modern audience. Between them they put together a team which included James Gunn to write the screenplay and Zack Snyder to direct. At ...

 Film Review: DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) - The Argento Cut (ZOMBI) Daniel Phillips  “When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.” A cut specifically for the European market (apart from the UK) handled expertly – by ‘Maestro’ Dario Argento, famed for his direct but oftentimes over-complicated tracking shots, plus a plethora of fantastic Giallo, horror and thriller movies throughout the 1970’s to the present day! This cut of the movie can be described in this brief summation – near unbearable tension throughout, a work of zombie film-making genius. With its blend of horror, tension, and action DAWN OF THE DEAD stands on its own as the only true Zombie epic of all time.  “It was a beautiful relationship built on mutual respect and the final film is a classic.”  George A. Romero and Argento spent some time in Rome working together on the screenplay after an initial meeting in New York, as Argento had expressed great interest in seeing this sequel to a m...

  THE IMPORTANCE OF LOVING ‘DAWN’ Steven West “Instinct…memory…what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives…” For horror fans – or, indeed, movie fans – of a certain age and disposition, George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead has long held an important place in their lives. It doesn’t matter which version – the longest “Cannes Cut”, the more action-driven “Argento Cut” or Romero’s preferred U.S. theatrical version – because, in any form, it’s something to which we return out of instinct, (fond) memory and with (in theory) an older, wiser perspective on something we have appreciated at different life stages. It was once the subject of washed-out, censored, “Video Nasty”-era VHS tapes that were still thrilling because it’s all we had. Or late-night BBC showings that were snuck under the radar when Mary Whitehouse (of the Dead) wasn’t looking and were censored differently, possibly just for shits and giggles. It was the subject of much playground banter amongst those ...

 PONTYPOOL (2008) Canada 1hr 33mins Director: Bruce McDonald  "It's not the end of the world folks... it's just the end of the day." - Grant Mazzy "Oh God, you're gonna eat me soon aren't you?? It's ok... you be the killer. I don't wanna be the killer." - a very drunk Sydney Briar. "I've seen things today that are going to ruin the rest of my natural life!"- Ken Loney Canadian born director Bruce McDonald and author, screenplay writer and fellow Canadian Tony Burgess have teamed up to bring us PONTYPOOL. Adapted from Burgess' novel "PONTYPOOL CHANGES EVERYTHING" (1998), it is a movie creation that brings the viewer a totally new zombie concept. This quiet and eerie movie takes place almost entirely in the basement of a radio station and is an all out attack on your senses. Incorporating very little on screen violence, with a claustrophobic setting and evidence that the world is on the brink of destruction, going c...

  THE BATTERY (2012) USA 1hr 41mins Director: Jeremy Gardner "I always have to be present and aware coz you don't wanna deal with shit! You're always hiding behind headphones Mickey." - Ben "But we just go and go man ... where are we going?" - Mickey "If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck it's probably a fucking zombie!" - Ben Two former baseball players are wandering the rural back roads of New England during a zombie apocalypse. They have been surviving for months but it has not been easy and tempers are wearing thin. Mickey (Adam Cronheim) misses the way things were and really isn't equipped for the survival game (he cant even bring himself to say the "Z" word!). He spends most of his time moping about with his headphones on listening to music and using up all the batteries. Whereas, Ben (Jeremy Gardner) has taken to life on the road like a duck to water. He is practical and takes a hands on approach to coping with the und...