Night of the Punks is a 19 minute short that is in the vain of Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Demons. Here be the plot:
Small town punk rockers THE BRAIN DEADS have their first out of town gig. But there are a few problems: The venue is deserted, the promoter is a creep, their bass player has gone missing, and the only kids in the audience appear to be bloodthirsty monsters from hell. It's gonna take a lot more than a few power chords and teenage angst to survive this night.
NIGHT OF THE PUNKS is a horror-comedy short film in the vein of fun 80's classics like "The Return of the Living Dead" and "Night of the Demons." The trailer is styled after classic Grindhouse style trailers of the 70's and 80's.
So did this short rock out?
the jaded viewer says: I'll admit the punk rock in this rock and roll short is actually catchy and I was rockin out. The band is a little stereotypically "band-ish" concerned about gigs and merchandise. But that's all forgiven in the B-movie horror show as the film plays out. Seems like the band is playing to a nonexistent crowd and the motivation to play their first out of town gig was misleading.
Now our band is on the run battling some rock and roll demons. Aside from ROTLD and NOTD, it kinda of reminded me of a Misfits music video. You get your standard music jokes and your standard horror jokes. Like everybody makes fun of the bassist and the hot "merch girl". As we turn to the horror, the band unleashes ultra violence with tons of straight forward, non CGI gore with lots of oozing and gushing which is always a plus in my book.
A lot of stuff is crammed into Night of the Punks and the jokes, gore and romance come a mile a minute. Overall, it's an entertaining romp filled with 80s style rock and roll horror nostalgia. The performances are silly and over the top and the ending keeps that same tone.
If you get a chance to catch this short, its well worth your time. Now let me put on some Misfits and let punk rock keyboard cat play me out.
If you're like me, that title goes with one film and one film only and that's Peter Jackson's zombie classic. But let's not judge the film based on title alone. Because if you know horror, you know who Kevin Tenney is. The man has quite a directorial horror resume which includes Witchboard and the classic Night of the Demons.
So I kinda knew what I'd be in for when I watched Brain Dead. But could Tenney bring back all that was fun about mutant zombie 80s gorefests?
Great cerebral cortexes! Yes he can.
Brain Dead is an assembly line produced throwback 80s splatter flick that hits all on all the cliches that make the genre so great to watch. Gratuitous nudity, gratuitous gore, gratuitous over the top makeup and gratuitous snarky characters spewing curse words a mile a minute. It took a director from the 80s to actually make a good, solid 80s throwback splatterfest.
Sure it's a low budget, been there, done that premise, but sometimes you just gotta go with the ridiculousness and try to shut off your brain like the zombies in this film.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
What do a pair of escaped convicts, a preacher and his assistant, and a pair of pretty hikers have in common? They’re all delicious.
After an extraterrestrial parasite crash-lands in a backwoods American town – landing squarely on the head of a local fisherman – it sparks a fast spreading zombie infestation. As the brain hungry monsters multiply, three pairs of unlucky misfits convene on a fishing lodge for shelter. With zombies pounding at the door, the stranded, mismatched travelers must band together to stop the invasion – or serve themselves up as a main course. The problem is, they may lose their minds to each other before losing their brains to the zombies.
Full of ingenious gore effects, nudity and witty banter, “Brain Dead” is just as much a parody of classic zombie films as it is a clever update to the beloved genre.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Let's review a movie by breaking it out by cliches. It's got em all and I felt like I time traveled and was watching a movie through my VCR. the only thing that was different was I didn't have to fix the tracking....and I have an awesome TV. So let's start off with the most important shit first.
Gratuitous NUDITY!!!!!!
In the first 30 minutes, we get to see not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4...YES! Count em 4 sets of boobs in this movie. And I'm not talking about icky fat-ish actresses. Nope we got some hotties showing off their assets.
Names are not important but grades are. Without a doubt, Cristina Tiberia gets an A, Sarah Grant Brendecke gets a B+, Michelle Tomlinson gets a B- and some other chick gets a C.
Yes you will see boobs and they're real and they're spectacular.
Gratuitous Cliched Plot!!!!!!
Some space creature that looks like black ooze crash lands and it's actually a parasitic organism that when it takes over a human body, craves for brains so it can reproduce. Enter zombie mutant puppets.
You've seen this in Night of the Demons and the movie takes elements of Evil Dead, Slither, Evil Aliens and countless others.
Gratuitous Stereotypical Characters!!!!!!
So who do we get to watch for an hour and a half?
A smart ass Sawyer like guy named Clarence
A convicted felon dumb hick named Bob
A lesbian, man hating hottuie named Claudia
A vegan, commune with nature med student named Sherry
A hypocritial lusty preacher named Farnsworth
A God fearing, Tea Party belle named Amy
A few other locals that make for good death fodder
Gratuitous Gore and Splatter!!!!!!
All these people come together and meet in a cabin in the woods (I did mention were in clicheworld right?) where our zombie aliens are looking for fresh BRAAAAAAAAAAINNNNNS!!
The best part of Brain Dead is the non CGI gore. It's old school here with shotgun head blasts, quick edit watermelon blasts (its suppose to be a human head) and decapitations and arm rippage. It's like they DeLoreaned into the past and made this movie in the 80s.
Tons of blood, tons of gore and tons of black ooze vomiting from our zombies to infect other people. Shit was coming out of every orifice dude. And it was fuckin awesome.
Gratuitous Gripes and Negatives!!!!!!
Brain Dead won't be for everyone. Noobs won't understand why us "old timers" think is a big deal about some boobs and gore. But here's a message to you noobs. Boobs and gore were not as easily accessible back in the day. If you saw boobs in a movie, you couldn't believe your eyes. If you saw somebody's heart gets ripped out, you applauded. So we have a special place in our hearts for these movies. You noobs are lucky with your free porn and YouTube.
Brain Dead kinda gets ZZZZZZZZs with some badly written dialogue and goofy makeup effects. But Clarence's snarky one liners had me laughing a few times. His zingers zinged and I have to admit, I chuckled a few times.
But being low budget, you can smell the cheese and it's extra velveetay. What can ya do right?
Brain Dead ain't the best throwback but it's done with fun and care and Kevin Tenney knows what us gorehounds and breasthounds want. All of this is packaged into Brain Dead and I had fun nostalgia-ing to my VHS days. What more can you ask?
Well more boobs would have been nice.
WTF moment
One of the characters get an untimely demise I didn't see coming. Holey moley.
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
Brain Dead was just released on DVD via Breaking Glass Pictures. You can buy it via Amazon.com.
It's funny that after I dropped my post about Fear of a Punk Planet, I got dropped a line from Dan Riesser, director for a short that combines punk rock and horror called Night of the Punks.
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