EyeAskance

No, I have not seen this presumably lost Canadian amateur film, I am posting this as a plea for anyone who had involvement in its production, or attended one of its screenings, to submit whatever memories or information they have to this forum. Virtually nothing is known of ATTACK OF THE BRAIN DEMON, aside from the fact that it was made and screened. Your recollections for posterity would be greatly appreciated by the brotherhood of genre enthusiasts and film historians. We may never see this film again, but any bit of knowledge of its history would demystify it substantially. Thanks in advance.

John, a small town American teen, has an altercation with his neo-Nazi father, and is promptly kicked out of the house. A mutant mushroom tells John that he's the new messiah, and that he must relocate to New York City to seek his ordained destiny. He does just that(after killing his father), and spends the ensuing years living in a squalid apartment, barely scraping by as a smalltime pot dealer and affecting a brooding, Manson-like spiritual peculiarity. He's complacent in his spartan lifestyle, principally focused on providing meals for a clique of homeless punks, and watching TV fisheyed for hours on end. By and by, Paisley, an outwardly affable young lady, responds to John's housemate-wanted ad. John swindles her by telling her the rent is twice the actual price, but their ensuing cohabitation is satisfactory...for a time. Inchmeal, Paisley reveals her true unappealing colors, while John's fragile psyche grows increasingly discordant. Tensions build to fever-pitch, and culminate with a head boiling on the stove.

A gritty and well made short inspired by a notorious true-crime case, it has the nihilistic edge of "trangressive" films made by the like of RICHARD KERN and NICK ZEDD(for instance, a sexy narratress, surrounded by impaled turkey carcasses in an otherworldly gloam, provides exposition in the shrill, rowdily poetic manner of "No-Wave" punk icon LYDIA LUNCH). The characters are fairly well developed and vivified(MICHAEL RINGER, above all, is distressingly believable), and the camerawork is sometimes surprisingly aesthetic. The continuity and pacing are a bit choppy, but at just under 40 minutes, it's not a major detriment.

WE WHO ARE NOT OTHERS is not for all tastes, but it carries the pungent sapor of a fleeting and near-forgotten NYC artpunk ethos, and is too ambitiously appointed to warrant eternity in the boneyard of forgotten films.

6.5/10...could likely galvanize a small cult following, should some skinny-jeans internet movie guru/influencer/hipster bring it to the fore.