"Yeah, well, you're not my friend. You're a parasite." When desk jockey Simon tells this to his newfound companion, Brian, there's more truth to it than you might imagine. Blending dark comedy with creeping horror and palpable practical effects, brothers Peter and Luke McCoubrey's new short film, The Grey Matter, is a delightfully bizarre head trip, and we have it for Daily Dead visitors to watch.

From co-director Peter McCoubrey: "The film is a dark horror comedy starring Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Girls, John Adams) as an office stiff who, after suffering a mysterious injury, finds himself stumbling through a courtship with a coworker played by Lucy Walters (Shame, Power)… but something strange is afoot. With the romantic guidance of a creature unearthed from his head wound, he finds himself stumbling through an absurd, increasingly unorthodox, and potentially fatal attraction.

I work with my brother Luke who’s my DP as well as co-director and what started with two music videos for a college friend’s band, grew into a half way decent career making music videos and TV commercials. The short arose from our desire to delve a bit deeper into character and story than the parameters of music video or commercial ever could allow.

Having a soft spot for the genre movies of the 80s, we’ve always loved way they often bounced around from horror — to comedy — to enigmatic — to just flat out weird… as well as their inventive use of practical FX. Films like An American Werewolf in London, Return of the Living Dead, Big Trouble in Little China,The Fly, Brain Damage and Brazil all had a level of influence over the film’s initial conception. We wanted to honor the wild, inventive, and playful spirit of those films but at the same time create a film that felt modern, cinematic, and hopefully leave the audience wanting more."

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  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.

    When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.