Brain Damage |
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 • USA • 1988 • 84m •    • Directed by: Frank Henenlotter. • Starring: Rick Hearst, Gordon MacDonald, Jennifer Lowry, Theo Barnes, Lucille Saint-Peter, Vicki Darnell, Joseph Gonzalez, Bradlee Rhodes, Michael Bishop, Beverly Bonner, Ari M. Roussimoff, Michael Rubenstein, Angel Figueroa. • Music by: Clutch Reiser, Gus Russo.     A normal, average guy who lives in New York City becomes dependent on an evil, disembodied brain. The brain feeds the guy a narcotic substance in exchange for his unwilling assistance in obtaining the brains of innocent victims for sustenance. This turns into a tour of circa-1980s underground NYC clubs, backlots, and other seedy locations.
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Review:
Co-edited, written & directed by Frank Henenlotter this was his belated second directorial feature film after the cult hit success of the memorable low budget gory horror film Basket Case (1982) & it's clear to see that Henenlotter set out to make a low budget exploitation horror film with a strong central message about the perils of drug abuse & addiction. The entire film is more or less a warning against drugs, the film is filled with parallels & metaphors like the initial high before the uncontrollable craving for the next hit when it wears off, the user whose life falls apart around themselves because of their addiction, the people around the user who also suffer because of it & the determination to get another fix no matter what that becomes paramount to the exclusion of just about everything else. You might think that sounds rather heavy handed & a bit too deep but Brain Damage works surprisingly well on a number of levels, from a gross out splatter film with some good gore scenes to anti drug film as the script is set-up so we end up sympathising with Brian & the attempts to mirror the obviously fantastical goings-on in the film with real life drug abuse & addiction comes off rather well. The pace is good, the character's & dialogue are as well although the ending is rather sudden & abrupt. An off-beat, unusual 80's horror film with a strong social message, who'd have thought it?
Director Henenlotter throw's in a cheeky little reference to his previous film Basket Case as while on a subway train Brian sees a man carry a wicker basket with a lock on it, obviously the lead character Duane from Basket Case & to give it a bit more authenticity the original actor Kevin Van Hentenryck reprises the role in a small cameo. Aymer the parasite looks like a large slug with a face & funny posh sounding voice, despite this the image actually works in a bizarrely funny sort of way. The special effects are alright, there's some stop-motion animation & simple puppet shots which are probably still better than any modern low budget CGI computer effect. There are some neat sequences here including the infamous scene in which a woman goes down on Brian to give him a blow-job only to open his flies & have Aylmer shoot out & eat her brains through her mouth so the side-on view looks like she is give Brian a blow-job who has a horrible slimy mutant deformed penis, a nice if somewhat crude little visual gag & one of the films most memorable moments. There's some decent gore here too, there are some brain eating scenes, some blood splatter, there's pulsating brains & foreheads & a dream sequence in which someone pulls some stringy bloody stuff out of their ear before it falls off & a spray of blood spurts out. There's a sex scene & a bit of nudity as well but nothing that graphic.
The production values are pretty good & the film is well made, it's certainly a lot more professional & polished than Basket Case ever was. The acting is pretty good from a fairly unknown cast, TV horror host John Zacherle provided the voice of Aylmer uncredited.
Brain Damage is an unusual & somewhat oddball little late 80's exploitation horror film that works surprisingly well although probably isn't for everyone. Well worth a look if your a fan of the genre or are after something that bit different.
Review by poolandrews from the Internet Movie Database.
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