For a brief shining moment, Michael Adams was co-host of The Movie Show. Many of the foolish moments seen above are recounted in Showgirls, Teen Wolves And Astro Zombies.

Not that he’s a total Gen X cliché, but Michael Adams was first blown away by the power of movies when the rebel ship and its Imperial pursuer blasted over his head in 1977’s Star Wars. After staging hundreds of action-figure re-enactments, Michael incorporated his love of Princess Leia, writing stories and obsessing over movies into a newfound career goal – namely, creating screenplays for Carrie Fisher that he could direct. He was, after all, seven years old at the time.

Soon after, exposed to films way beyond his pay grade, he became a keen fan of The Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver, along with the likes of The Evil Dead, Basket Case, The Thing and Pink Flamingos. After briefly absconding from the parental home for a Kerouac-ian road trip at age 16, he scored a job at a film distributor – and used their facilities to publish Night Creatures, a short-lived fanzine about cult films. At which point followed a brief foray into journalism school. Other CV highlights include stints as a kitchen hand, local newspaper hack, telemarketing asshole, video store clerk, nervous Third World war-zone correspondent, hardware store jockey, pool boy, schlock movie actor and ice cream scooper.

Michael eventually glommed into magazine writing, using two years at FHM as his springboard into Empire magazine. Eight years and thousands of films later he’s happy to be a movie reviewer.

In addition to Empire, Michael contributes still to FHM and Men’s Style, along with m/X and Rolling Stone, and websites Movieline, Rottentomatoes, and TheWrap

In 2006, his screenplay A Flash Exclusive was one of 14 chosen by Bryan Brown from 2600 entries to form the basis of his thriller TV series Two Twisted. Michael’s episode starred La Femme Nikita’s Peta Wilson. (A sexy scene from the show has clocked up 50,000 hits on YouTube, although Michael is quite certain it has more to do with Peta Wilson in lingerie than the quality of the dialogue.)

Michael’s adventures in TV continued in 2007 and 2008, this time in front of the camera as co-host (with the lovely Lisa Hensley) of the national TV review program The Movie Show. Sadly, the powers that be cancelled the program in mid-2008 and Michael returned to his native face-for-radio environment, occasionally chiming in on Richard Glover’s Drive program on ABC in NSW.

But he will be glimpsed in George A. Romero’s upcoming Survival Of The Dead, “playing” – what else? – a zombie.

Here’s the trailer – serious warning: it’s not safe for work, unless you work in a morgue or abattoir. If you have a sensitive stomach, please don’t click play.

Even though he was shot in the head in Survival Of The Dead, Michael continues to live in Sydney with Clare and their daughter Ava. They have two cats, Asta and Spencer – both named on movie whims.