|
MARCH 17 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : THE BRAIN (1987)
Crazy Canadian tax shelter horror flick that plays like an even more absurd 80's remake of THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS (1957), with slightly better special effects and a more skewed sense of humor. Dr. Anthony Blake (David Gale: RE-ANIMATOR - 1985) is the head of the Psychological Research Institute and also hosts a popular local morning TV talk show in the town of Meadowvale called "Independent Thinking". The subject of this morning's show is teenage alienation and how modern science can cure teenage alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide (Hey, don't adults suffer from these things, too?). While her mother is watching Dr. Blake on TV, Becky (Susannah Hoffman), a patient of Dr. Blake, is in her bedroom, when the walls begin to shake, her teddy bear bleeds from its eyes and monster hands and tentacles bursts through her door, walls and TV. Mom runs upstairs to see what all the screaming is about and Becky stabs her in the chest with scissors (she believes she is stabbing tentacles), killing her. A giant brain then smashes through her mirror and tosses Becky out of her bedroom window, killing her instantly, as we then watch as Dr. Blake announces that his local TV show will soon be going national. Call me naïve, but this can't be a good thing. There have been a rash of murder/suicides in Meadowvale for the past several weeks, usually involving teens and their parents. Local high school prankster and intelligent student Jim Majelewski (Tom Breznahan; TWICE DEAD - 1988) gets caught dumping a bar of pure sodium down a toilet, causing the pipes to explode and soaking the school's principal. He brings Jim's parents in for a meeting and tells them that if Jim hopes to graduate this year, he will have to be a patient at Dr. Blake's Psychological Research Institute for "behavior modification" (Since when can a high school principal force a student to go to an institute for behavior modification? What makes him an expert? These are just some of the questions you will be asking yourself if you don't turn off your thinking function in your own brain and just go along for the ride.). Jim's parents reluctantly agree (as a going away present, Jim superglue's the principal's ass to his chair!) and Jim tells his virgin girlfriend, Janet (Cindy Preston; PROM NIGHT III: THE LAST KISS - 1990), that he will soon be Dr. Blake's patient. Janet warns him to be careful, because she was a friend of Becky's and knows she was never the same once she became a patient of Dr. Blake. Once at the Institute, an apparently crazy patient tells Jim that Dr. Blake is an alien before brutish orderly Varna (George Buza) takes the patient away. Jim is subjected to some weird video therapy where he has electrodes attached to his head and the giant brain (which also has two eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth) sends Jim "hypnotic waves". Jim is able to resist the giant brain's hypnotic waves, but begins to suffer from hallucinations, so Dr, Blake deems Jim unfit for more "treatments". When it turns out that Dr. Blake has the giant brain broadcasting its hypnotic waves through his TV show in order to reprogram the ways teenagers think (those immune to the brain's waves are the ones causing the murder/suicides, an unfortunate side effect), serious shit begins to happen. Dr. Blake's nurse threatens to spill the beans to the authorities, so the brain swallows her whole (Dr. Blake retorts, "That's food for thought!). The brain (which is getting larger) tries to kill Jim by forcing him to get into a car accident (Jim hallucinates that the steering wheel falls off and is replaced by tentacles). When that doesn't work the brain freaks-out Jim while he is at the diner where Janet and best friend Willie (Brett Pearson) work, scaring the shit out of the employees and customers and Varna shows up with the police, injects him with a tranquilizer and brings him back to the Institute, throwing him into a rubber room. Jim discovers the truth about the brain and, with the help of Janet and Willie, breaks out of the Institute (unfortunately, in the process, Willie is eaten by the brain). Can Jim and Janet keep one-step ahead of the police and Dr. Blake long enough to expose what is going on before Dr. Blake transmits his show nationwide? Silly and nonsensical to the extreme, THE BRAIN is nothing more than a popcorn movie about mass mind control that not only bears similarities to AROUS, but also to John Carpenter's THEY LIVE (1987). Director Edward Hunt (STARSHIP INVASIONS - 1977; PLAGUE - 1978; ALIEN WARRIOR - 1985) and screenwriter Barry Pearson (Hunt's BLOODY BIRTHDAY - 1980) offer no explanation of the brain's origins or why Dr. Blake is helping it take over the world, other than a quick remark that Dr. Blake is not human (David Gale, who passed away in 1991, looks rail-thin and sickly here, which may be why he disappears through much of the film). The Brain itself is a supremely goofy creation that somehow gets around by moving it's large brain stem, which Varna calls a "tail", but is quickly corrected by Dr. Blake (If you look close enough in one scene, you can plainly see that the giant brain is being pushed around on a wheeled platform!). There are plenty of deaths on view, but precious little gore, including a real dry beheading by axe and one of the most bloodless chainsaw vivisections ever committed to film. Sure, it's stupid, cheap and makes no sense at all, but THE BRAIN contains enough entertaining idiocy (including David Gale losing his head once again) to make for a pleasant night's viewing. Also starring Christine Kossak, Bernice Quiggan, Ken McGregor, Robert King and Vinetta Strombergs. Originally available on VHS by I.V.E. Home Video and not available on DVD. Rated R. { text from critcononline.com }
|
|
