Eat Brains Love review: A zombie film with a sex drive

If you have ever wished for a teen comedy with lots of blood and eating of brains, then maybe you should check out “Eat Brains Love.”

I would say that films like the 2008 comedy Sex Drive are a guilty pleasure. The horny teenager type of movie can be really entertaining if you are in the right mood. Have you ever asked yourself what would a teenage comedy film be like if you added zombies to it? Well, now you don’t have to wonder because Eat Brains Love based on the book by Jeff Hart, is hitting the festival circuit and it will fill that void.

Directed by Rodman Flender and written by Mike Herro and David Strauss, the film stars Jake Cannavale as Jake (well, that’s easy enough), Angelique Rivera as Amanda, Sarah Yarkin as Cass, Mason Beauchamp as Johhny and Patrick Fabian.

Jake, a teenager with eyes for Amanda, has a one night stand with a random girl behind a dumpster that will change his life forever. There is a sexually transmitted zombie virus going around. One day at lunch, both Jake and Amanda aren’t feeling so great.

Suddenly, they are eating the entirety of their lunchroom and on the run. In comes Johnny and Cass, a soldier and a teenage psychic respectively. Cass is a girl with the ability to get into the minds of zombies by touching their belongings.

More from 1428 Elm

When she gets into Jake’s mind, she notices there’s something different about him. Because of that, she fights against the powers that be as they try to locate Jake either to destroy him or to turn him into a zombie pet/ultimate weapon. What ensues is a cat and mouse road trip. This is a zombie love story often compared to Warm Bodies.

I will be honest and say that I did not like Warm Bodies, so the comparison had me a little concerned for Eat Brains Love. I have said before that I am a total sucker for the zombie genre so even my skepticism couldn’t keep me away and I’m pretty glad that it didn’t.

Eat Brains Love has its issues. The acting is pretty stiff out of everyone besides Beauchamp and Cannavale and there is blatant sexuality even where it really isn’t needed just so it would fit the genre but it does have several good qualities. Aside from the sometimes overly teenage humor, it is really funny. I like that the sometimes dry, sarcastic humor had me laughing out loud several times during the film.

Not only that, the zombie concept is actually original and that never happens in zombie movies anymore. The virus (although it did have the cop out “we don’t know where the virus came from or why” reason to not explain it) is transmitted sexually and can phase in and out.