Director/Story/Music – Julien Knafo, Screenplay – Jean Barbe & Julien Knafo, Producer – Barbara Shrier, Photography – Marc Simpson-Threlfold, Visual Effects – Alchimie 24 (Supervisor – Sebastian Chartier), Phenom/FX & Real By Fake (Supervisor – Marc Cote), Special Effects – Intrigue (Supervisor – Denis Lavigne), Makeup Effects – Erik Gosselin, Makeup Design – Erik Gosselin & Edwina Voda, Production Design – David Pelletier. Production Company – Wazabi Films/Palomar/Sodec Quebec/Telefilm Canada.
The placid community of Peacock Island off the coast of Quebec has its peace abruptly disrupted as people start to turn into zombies. This is due to the water having become infected by an experimental fertiliser that is used to maintain perfect grass all year around at the local golf course. André Boisbriand, a teenager left with the responsibility of his infant sister after his mother becomes infected, teams with local law enforcement officer Dan Gingras to survive as the infected rise all around them.
Brain Freeze is a Zombie Film. It has been made in Quebec, the French-speaking area of Canada, which is a first as far as I am aware. The zombie film has become massive since its revival in the early 2000s with films like Resident Evil (2002), 28 Days Later (2002) and the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004). These led to a massive output of mostly low-budget zombie films, while Shaun of the Dead (2004) led the way to a series of comedy takes.
However, Brain Freeze does nothing much more than rehash the tropes and clichés of the genre. There is an outbreak in a small community, all due to the experimental fertiliser. There are the assorted crosscut of characters – mainly the island’s security chief, a teenager with responsibility for his infant sister (where the baby does get infected at one point) – who try to escape throughout the outbreak and make it to safety.
(l to r) (rear) Roy Dupuis and Iani Bedard and (front) a zombified Marianne Fortier
There is little of this that Brain Freeze serves up with any originality. It is just the same old familiar and nothing more with no creative or original spins placed on it any more than that. What director-writer Julien Knafo does not seem to have realised is that by 2021, the zombie genre had become so overmined that it had turned to self-parody and mixing zombies with the most ridiculous things, while by the 2020s even that seems to have run its course. Knafo makes his film seemingly unaware of this. In the end credits, the cast are listed as ‘comedians’, which suggests a comedy take on the zombie film, although there is nothing present in the film’s tone that would indicate such.
There is a certain political angle to the film about how the zombies invade and take over an isolated community of privilege. In particular, there is a reasonable amount of time given over to Simon-Olivier Fecteau as a right wing radio shock jock, although quite what points the film was trying to make with this left me unclear.
The film comes from Julien Knafo who has been working as a film composer since the 1990s. Knafo was previously one of the co-directors on the youth drama Transparent Lucidity (2009). Brain Freeze was his feature-film debut.
