Brain Dead

Brain Dead...where do I begin? One could easily go crazy thinking about this movie. Brain Dead was written by the late Charles Beaumont (the man responsible for some of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes) and was directed by Adam Simon (The American Nightmare). It's basically one long chaotic nightmare and, at the same time, one of my favorite films. It's a real head trip where one is constantly questioning the sanity of the main characters. Is Bill Pullman crazy, is Bill Paxton out to get Bill Pullman, should the two Bills be taken seriously? In this movie, yes. The Bills are excellent and so is the rest of the cast. This is the film that really made me take notice of Bud Cort. He's hilarious as Halsey. If you're up for some serious insanity, give Brain Dead a spin. I give this movie a 10 on the psychological mind bender scale. It ranks up there with Cronenberg's Videodrome.

Note for genre buffs: Miskatonic University is mentioned by Dr. Martin in the film. That is the same school Dr. West attends in Re-Animator and is mentioned in many films based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Brain Dead is many things, including a mess, but with an ambitious story which is enough to hide the idiocy (mostly), it becomes a fairly enjoyable mess.

Dr. Rex Martin is a renowned brain surgeon who is approached one day by a representative of the Eunice corporation. One of the corporation's best mathematicians has gone Brain Dead, but there are still some numerical data locked in the back of his mind which Eunice wants. Dr. Martin is asked to operate, but as he manages to tap into the patient's mind, he triggers something in his own. He starts behaving strangely. What follows is a seemingly endless series of dreams and illusions that follows the old rhetorical 'what is fantasy and what is reality' question.

As messy as Brain Dead is, it's not dull. The question is whether you enjoy being confused. Making do with a fragmented budget, first time director Adam Simon has constructed the film with a kind of post-modern sci-fi approach. There are times when it resembles some of David Cronenberg's early work, which shows that the film has intellectual potential, but I would'nt call Brain Dead an intelligent film. Then again, next to Carnosaur (simon's proceeding feature) This is actually pretty brilliant.

If I am interpreting correctly, it looks as if Brain Dead is trying to say that the brain is not merely a vital organ, it is a living thing. Whether I am right or not, means nothing. You can interpret this film any way you want.

I didn't expect much from this movie, but it turned out to be decent thriller given its low budget and its cast - Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton, arguably the two dullest actors in Hollywood! Bill Pullman is Dr. Rex Martin, a brain scientist who has developed a technology to manipulate a person's thoughts and therefore their reality. He is recruited by a sleazy corporate administrator, Jim Reston (Bill Paxton), to use this technology on a former corporate genius, Dr, Hasley, turned paranoid psycho killer, to pry some valuable corporate information from his memory. Martin then suffers an accident, and then descends into a world of madness and paranoia, where objective reality is turned upside down. In true twilight zone fashion, it appears that Dr. Martin's technology is now being experimented on him. Pullman plays the part of the eccentric Martin well, and Paxton does a reasonable job as the ambitious, yet, sleazy, corporate type. I found the ending, at least my interpretation of it, somewhat conventional and a little disappointing. This movie has some genuine scenes of suspense without needing to resort to lavish special effects. There is also a gratuitous nude scene involving Martin's Wife, Praticia Charbonneau, which, of course, is always a bonus. Again I didn't expect much from this movie, and I was pleasantly surprised. For those who enjoy movies that involve the theme that objective reality is, or can be made to be, an illusion, this movie is worth seeing as a pre cyber version of this theme; the cyber version of course being the Matrix, The 13th Floor and Existenze.

Brain Dead is a very hard movie to describe because of its constant twists and turns. This movie truly turns you in circles and can be very confusing upon first viewing. Still, this is a really good film with good acting from Pill Pullman and Bill Paxton. The whole concept of the film is based on whether this is a dream or reality and the rest is left to the viewer. The ending is rather sudden but very appropriate and dramatic. This is definitely the type of film you sit through the credits at the end in bewilderment. Truly a surprise, especially considering the fact that this is a Concord produced film and most of their movies are mediocre at best. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who is into the David Lynch style of film-making. This is definitely a true mind-bender. 9/10 stars

This is a very underrated movie that somewhat reminds you of Jacob's Ladder. The movie starts out with Bill Pullman as a doctor who studies brains and has a lab full of brains in glass bottles. Pullman is friends with Bill Paxton and Paxton is in some trouble with the corporation he works with and tries to get Pullman to help him. Pullman agrees and and he has to try and find out if a brilliant doctor, played by Bud Cort, who went and killed his family is actually insane or not. Pullman says he his insane and Paxton isn't too happy about it because Cort has some top secret information in his head and Paxton doesn't want it to ever get out. Pullman operates on him and then and the next thing Pullman knows he is in a mental ward and his entire reality starts to mess with him and he can't tell what is real and what is not. It's a great movie that should be more well known.