Folks, it's been far too long since our last killer brain attack, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so let's grab that screwdriver, thrust it into our ear and churn the evil doer into mush before it takes on a life of it's own. If that seems a bit extreme, you can always do the next best thing: subject it to movies about killer brains! Well how about just brains in jars and brain shaped monsters? Oh, and let's not forget severed head movies that feature the word brain in their titles, those are important... I think.
In case you don't know where to start, Cinescape has come up with half a dozen "brain" movies - available on glorious DVD - for you to gel out on. Trust me, your mind will hate you for this. Brain movie enthusiasts may find the list lacking some of their favorite titles THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS and THE BRAIN come to mind but be warned, knowledge of such things shows your brain's independent evolution is too great and unless you want it breaking out of your cranium and scaring the local children, it's screwdriver time for you, buddy.
Note: For your convenience, we've included a handy Brain-o-meter grading system to help distinguish between the good, the bad and the grey.
THE CURIOUS DR. THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN © 2000 Rhino VideoHUMPP
Brain-o-meter: Shock Treatment
Human life needs to evolve to the next level and the only thing that can speed it up is the essence of copulating couples, got that? Dr. Humpp, who like all "mad" scientists lives in a mist-enshrouded, secluded mansion, has his monster squad go out and capture sexual deviants for use in his nefarious activities. It seems by capturing their essence he can prevent himself from becoming a hideous monster - on the outside that is and more importantly find a cure for mortality. As it turns out, Dr. Humpp is just a stooge for the angriest talking-brain-in-a-jar in cinema history. Boy, does that lump of tissue need a cup of coffee or what? Throw in ineffectual cops and a Casanova reporter and you've got yourself a B movie. But is that enough? Not for American distribution! A pick-up from Argentina, originally called LA VENGANZA DEL SEXO, the distributor decided extra flesh never hurts and added a bunch of New York waiters and waitresses, uh, I mean actors, simulating the nasty in a series of rather competently included footage. Mix this with an already ludicrous story quick, name one other film that has a monster going to a pharmacy to buy aphrodisiacs and you've got a first rate jaw dropper. Released on DVD on the Something Weird Video line, this film boasts a first-rate print that's so clear you can see every bead of sweat dripping of the more than enthusiastic food servers. An excellent choice when mom and dad are out of town.
THE BRAIN THAT THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE © 2000 Synapse VideoWOULDN'T DIE
Brain-o-meter: Lobotomy
How's this for tragedy? You're just an average "mad" doctor with a cute fiancé, whom you're just dying to show your latest medical discovery to, but when you take her to your lab you wreck your car and decapitate her! Sounds pretty hopeless, right? Not so if your new discovery is adrenoserum which can revitalize dead tissue. So after injecting your poor spouse with this adrenoserum you take her to your lair and put her head in a photo developer tray nice and go out looking for the perfect body to attach to her severed head. What better place to look than a strip club? Alas, your fiancé will have nothing to do with this and uses her newly developed extrasensory powers to not only taunt your lab assistant but also befriend your monster/botched experiment. Geesh, what an ingrate. Featuring a creature that looks like a tall guy wearing a badly constructed papier-mâché mask and a girl crouching under a table with a hole in it, this is pretty bargain basement fare. For years this has only been available in a truncated print, but now thanks to the folks at Synapse Video not only does the DVD re-issue look better than ever, it's 20 minutes longer. While that 20 minutes includes some gore footage, the bottom line remains: that's 20 extra minutes you have to spend watching THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. Never an easy sled to begin with, this is the equivalent of covering the path with less snow and more rocks. (Note: RE-ANIMATOR fans might enjoy the parallels between this film and their beloved classic.
DONOVAN'S BRAIN
Brain-o-meter: Attention-Deficit THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS © 1999 Warner Home VideoDisorder
Upsetting P.E.T.A. members everywhere, Dr. Cory has been trying for quite some time to keep a monkey's brain alive outside of its body, with less than stellar results. Then one day, eureka, the kindly, and exceptionally cruel, doctor succeeds marking a major blow to simian/human relations. This very same day a plane crashes near his laboratory and onboard is Mr. Donovan. Before you can say "mellow yellow" Mr. Donovan is in Dr. Cory's lab, where his body dies - but does his mind? Well, no. Against the wishes of his wife and his assistant, Dr. Cory puts the brain in a fish tank where he manages to keep it alive. Dr. Cory then figures what good's a disembodied living brain if you can't talk to it and tries communicating with it via telepathy. This manages to work, but a little too well, for Donovan's brain is now taking over Dr. Cory's body. Mischief/murder results and that's never good. Based on horror legend Curt Siodmak's (writer of THE WOLF MAN and THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS) novel of the same name, DONOVAN'S BRAIN is an interesting, if dull, little number about the perils of meddling where man was not meant to. A good time killer during a stay in prison or when you're supposed to be doing something else, the film provides both a brain in a jar and a young Nancy Reagan (credited as Nancy Davis then). It is quite a hoot to see Nancy Davis filling the generic sexless housewife role a role she was born to play and fans of the former First Lady will wonder if perhaps that's not her brain in the fish tank. MGM's Midnight Movies line has released this number on a modestly priced DVD that boasts a rather clean print and a theatrical trailer. Wow.
THEY SAVED HITLER'S FIEND WITHOUT A FACE © 2001 Criterion CollectionBRAIN
Brain-o-meter: Shock Treatment
Yeah they did, inside his severed head, which is kept alive by what looks like a transistor radio perhaps they were out of adrenoserum. After a prominent scientist disappears, his daughter and her husband go looking for him in Mandoras, where a group of Nazis reside. These Nazis are planning on unleashing nerve gas in a plan so diabolical that it could only be the work of Movie Nazis Nazis who seem to have forgotten how to draw their own swastika (or maybe they're just dyslexic). Well, surprise, surprise, the ringleader of the whole thing is none other than Hitler himself, albeit in severed head form. Hitler is less the man he used to be for he has apparently forgotten his own language and has compensated by uttering mock German not that it matters; he's only in the film for 5 minutes. What isn't in the film for only 5 minutes is the additional footage tacked onto what was once known as MADMEN OF MANDORAS, but has now become THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN. In what looks like speaking outtakes from a '70s porn, we get an additional prologue with individuals who seem to belong to a totally different timeline than our movie's heroes possibly because it was shot five years later by UCLA (I'd like to see some verification on that) students who must have been hitting some choice weed. While MADMEN was shot by famed cinematographer Stanley Cortez (THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER), the additional footage looks like the work of a grindhouse auteur. Rhino has released this DVD in a no-frills package that contains the full 92-minute extra footage version it feels like the work of a Dada artist, or a drunk from a print that looks like it was used as a knife sharpener.
THE MAN WITH TWO DONOVAN'S BRAIN © 2001 MGM Home EntertainmentBRAINS
Brain-o-meter: Brain Candy
Dr. Hfuhruhurr is the inventor of the famous screw-top, zip-lock brain surgery method, which in a perfect world would make him the happiest man alive. Alas, it's not a perfect world and Dr. Hfuhruhurr is a widower who longs for a new woman in his life. That woman comes in the form of femme fatale Dolores Benedict, who's only after Dr. Hfuhruhurr's pocket book. Suddenly, another woman appears, the wonderfully charming Anne Uumellmahaye, who just happens to be a brain in a jar hey, we all have problems. As Dr. Hfuhruhurr becomes more and more obsessed with Uumellmahaye even taking her for boat rides in her best glass container Dolores' sinister intentions become more prominent. Good thing there's a killer out there with a taste for injecting window cleaner into people's blood you'll need to rent this to see why that's good. (Kids, normally that is very, very bad.) Any film that features a man in a gorilla suit and a droll David Warner is a must-rent, so go out and rent it, dammit! Released on DVD by Warner, this is so low on perks you're surprised the disc is even in the package. The print is fullscreen (1.33:1) and passable.
FIEND WITHOUT A THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP © 2000 Image EntertainmentFACE
Brain-o-meter: Mensa
At a U.S. Air Force base in the Canadian wilderness strange deaths are occurring deaths that the locals fear are the result of the base's testing of a new type of radar that employs atomic energy. The victims are apparently assaulted in most cases by an unseen force that drills into the back of their head and sucks out their brain and spinal chords turning them into rabid FELICITY fans. (Naw, I'm kidding - they die.) Well, surprise, surprise, it turns out the atomic energy is the culprit and has resulted in invisible creatures that feed on human intellect (they must always be hungry). These invisible creatures don't stay so for long and when they make their big we finally got a budget appearance, they turn out to be brain-shaped monsters with spinal chord tails so cute but so deadly. And, as Paul McCartney once said, they're "here, there, and everywhere." Best the survivors run to a house and start boarding up the windows with the brains-on-feet in pursuit. An effective British thriller that's both well made and rather gruesome, this is the killer brain movie to end all killer brain movies I mean, this is the killer brain movie to encourage the proliferation of lesser killer brain movies. Released on DVD by Criterion with all the quality and bonuses we've come to expect from them they are, after all, the "big brain" of DVD distributors.
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
