Brain Freeze
It’s business as usual whatever the weather at the exclusive golf course on Peacock Island just across the guarded bridge from Montreal, the frustrating unpredictability of nature and the winter snows held back by chemical intervention, the course sprayed with a green vapour courtesy of Biotech M, but the residue seeps into the ground and into the water system.
Spreading fast, first in the water then through the bites of those who are infected, Peacock Island is rapidly quarantined to stop the spread of the unknown agent, the only holdouts teenage André Boisbriand, addicted to soda and now in charge of his bottle-fed baby sister Annie and survivalist security guard Dan Gingras, hiding his infected daughter Patricia, though the board of Biotech M realise the cause and hold a counteragent.
A French language Canadian zombie horror satire of misguided attempts to circumvent nature and manipulate the environment, Brain Freeze is directed by Julien Knafo from a script co-written with Jean Barbe, starring Rumours’ Roy Dupuis as Dan, Iani Bédard as André and Marianne Fortier as Patricia with Simon Olivier Fecteau as confrontational radio host Patrick Nault whose ranting provides caustic commentary on the crisis, making assumptions and broadcasting them as fact.
With no sympathy for the uninfected caught behind the gates, regarding them as disposable in order to keep the mainland safe, the arguments presented feel one-sided, anyone who calls to challenge Nault shouted down and belittled before being allowed to present an alternative, while government intervention is limited to calling an air strike on the bridge, leaving it to Biotech M to send in “the Protocol” (Mylène Mackay) to clean up the evidence leaving no witnesses.
The situation thinly drawn, Knafo presumes that audiences will know the premise and progression of a viral zombie outbreak and so wisely make little attempt to draw out the predictable opening stages, but nor does he use this time to make the characters interesting or follow up with a new angle or innovative twists, settling for a generic and bland tale where the horror is minimal and the scant attempts at comedy are flat.
With no counterpoint to push against the official narrative and no real voice given to the survivors, the characters beyond Dan and André at most functions to move the minimal plot forwards, where Night of the Living Dead and The Crazies were shocking when innocents who fought to survive were treated as disposable Brain Freeze plays the same scenes with indifference, not even trying to make a point; for an example of how brilliantly unique Canadian zombie horror can be, instead pay a visit to Pontypool.
Brain Freeze will be streaming on the Arrow platform from Friday 17th January
