BRAIN BLOCKERS (2007)
Tagline: Nope.
(Horror, Comedy, Starring At the Sun Made Us Crazy) [R]
Note: This film did not get an MPAA rating, but it definitely would have been an [R].
In this one a professor is testing some new drug he affectionately calls “Brain Blocker” that his colleagues say isn’t ever going to hit store shelves. After his lab assistant is bitten by one of his lab mice and survives, he decides to put the drug in some punch and test it on the rest of his students without them knowing. It doesn’t take long before the students start displaying bizarre behaviors, the ones that don’t die right away anyway.
First off, this is an extremely low-budget film from all appearances, and the CGI is laughable. So my advice is to walk into this expecting an independent film, not a major horror production. BRAIN BLOCKERS covers all the tropes you would expect out of a low-budget horror flick. Everyone is oddly turned on all the time. Everyone is trying to sleep with everyone and everyone is just really stupid or bent out of shape about something. So yeah – I am not sure if the drug is the problem for these students, or if that’s just what college did to them and they were going to act like this anyway?
What I liked about this movie was the opening song. It’s sort of 80’s synth-pop sounding. Almost like a remake of “Weird Science” by Oingo Boingo, but not quite them if that makes any sense. I also like that Rebecca Wood got a pretty good-looking cast. If you are going to make full cheese horror, then you definitely want to at least get a decent-looking cast. They accomplished that here. This thing also has a bit of a moral lesson like all great horror should. The lesson in this is that if you are attractive it doesn’t mean that chicks are just suddenly going to be all over you for no reason.
Acting wise Timmi Cragg takes the lead as Jenny Wayne. She isn’t mind-blowing, but she is fine for this type of film and I actually liked her character. Timmi was only in 2 films and appears to have stopped acting in 2014. This is a rough one for Matt Shevin who plays Joe. He’s basically a superficial jerk in this and he does a decent enough job at that I guess. Matt has actually gone on to carve out a lot of projects over the years, so I am sure he is better in other things. A couple other standouts are Crystal Day who plays Becky. She is still getting roles and Diora Baird is as well. Her biggest claim to fame is likely her role as Shannon on the TV series Cobra Kai. Director Lincoln Kupchak has been at the director’s chair for 17 films now and has done effects work for over 70 movies and TV projects including GEOSTORM, CLASH OF THE TITANS, and DEEP BLUE SEA among others. So I have to believe that if this thing had a bigger budget the CGI would have been better. Where the film does succeed is in the practical effects, so I don’t have any complaints about that.
This script starts out pretty damn rough, I am not going to lie. Over time this thing does start to get better and better, but it is plagued by choppy editing. This film kind of comes across as something that the kids in the movie SUPER 8 would have made. In fact, the movie they made called “The Case” has nearly the same exact plot but this movie beat that one to the punch. This flick comes across as very ZOMBIE HIGH-ish which isn’t exactly bad because a lot of 80's horror is epic.
Any humor in this movie seems to be unintentional and if it is, it’s really not that funny. Having said that for an independent film, it’s pretty watchable, which is more than I can say for a lot of low-budget horror.
In one scene this kid has blue glowing eyes when he attacks someone with a knife, but for some reason, that concept of the eyes glowing is completely abandoned for the rest of the movie. That and a few other critiques I mentioned knocked this thing down to a 3 out of 7. I think the acting is going to bug a lot of people out, but it did keep my attention throughout.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF BENTO BOX ATLANTA AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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