‘First Episodes, Can’t Believe They Cancelled It’… ‘Brain Dead’ (2016)



So, even when I find something that I really enjoy, Amazon Prime finds a way to mess with me. A quick look at Wikipedia told me that ‘Brain Dead’ was cancelled after just one season, I wish I’d seen this before really getting into the first three episodes… Dammit.
I’m going to post about it anyway. Amazon are touting it as an Amazon Prime exclusive so I thought I’d give ‘Brain Dead’ a shot after wasting a large chunk of yesterday evening looking for a half decent monster/zombie movie to watch. Apparently, there’s no such thing as a half decent monster/zombie movie to watch on Amazon Prime. My search continues…
So ‘Brain Dead’ it was then and I blew through the first three episodes before I knew where I was. I’m going to finish the series as I’m pretty confident that the rest of the episodes will be as good, even though there won’t be any more after that. This had better not end on a big cliffhanger…

A US government employee discovers that the cause of the tensions between the two political parties is a race of extra-terrestrial insects eating the brains of the politicians and their staff. The 2016 election is just round the corner though and with some of the rhetoric coming from a certain candidate, will anyone even notice the really weird stuff going on…?

Normally, a post like this would come off the back of one episode, of whatever I’m watching, the fact that I’ve gone through three episodes pretty much speaks for itself in terms of how I’ve found the show so far…
If there’s one thing that I would say against ‘Brain Dead’ though is that it really needs to decide whether it’s a comedy, horror or political thriller and then balance that out so the show has a bit more of an identity as it’s trying to be everything at once. Of course, I say that now…

It’s a small quibble though as what I’ve seen of ‘Brain Dead’ so far all points to a show that is very clever in its satire of American politics as well as being pretty damn chilling when it needs to be. And the fact that seemingly every decision made comes off the back of misdirection (purposeful and otherwise) keeps the main thrust of the plot fresh and relatively unpredictable.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Laurel Healy is the perfect window for us to look through and see the madness of US politics as well as the unearthly terror of brain eating insects. There’s a lot to love here and not an awful lot to complain about really, other than that it’s been cancelled and there will be only be the one season.

‘Brain Dead’ is a lot of fun then and if you haven’t seen it already, I’d catch it while it’s on Amazon Prime. I don’t have a lot more to say than that really (although there will hopefully be a longer post once I’m done with the series).


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