The Brain (1988)

You won't be disappointed!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The Brain is a weird movie! But I still love it! I first saw it on TV as a kid late at night and when I woke up the next morning I thought I dreamt it up because it didn't seem real. Years later I saw the poster and realized what I saw wasn't a dream but actually a real movie! It's a very strange film, about a giant brain that brainwashes and feeds off people, but if you get too close it'll actually attack and eat you alive. The brain is created by a scientist who is played by the guy from ReAnimator, and the only one who can resist the brainwashing is a high school rebel who looks like he's in his 30's. The special effects are gloriously cheesy, and watching the brain kill people is the best part of the movie. Since it has no arms or legs, I always wondered how it gets around. I imagine the face of the brain was just put onto the front of a van or something and a driver would drive after the actors. It doesn't even look like a brain...as a kid I thought it was some sort of giant worm or something, and it looks like a granola cookie with a giant evil face on it. What's sad is that this film was not a theatrical release, but instead went straight-to-VHS, which is part of the reason why I think nobody has ever heard of it. It's a very entertaining and well made movie, and it's a shame it doesn't have the attention it deserves. I think the film could actually use a remake, and I NEVER say that about ANY films...my username might as well be IHATEREMAKES or something. But The Brain is unique enough to warrant one. Don't remake Halloween or TCM or some well known classic, remake something like this!

****SPOILERS*** Rambunctious and uncontrollable high school student Jim Majelewski, Tom Bresnahan, has the riot act laid down to him by school Principle Mr. Woods, Kenneth McGregor,to shape up or ship out without a high school diploma. That's if he doesn't get help by being deprogrammed by the wacko Dr. Tony Blake,Dave Gale. Dr. Blake runs this sham of a clinic called the Psychological Research Institute, or PSI for short, that's supposed to cleanse a persons brain of all it's negative ideas and, in Blake's words, make him or her whole again. Having no choice, if he want's to graduate, but go along with Woods' demands Jim goes to PSI to get his brain straighten out only to have it screwed up by Dr. Blake in truing, or trying to turn, him into a mind controlled Zombie.At first the horny Jim was impressed not by Dr. Blake's brain washing tactics by his sexy nurse Vivian, Christina Kossak, who tried to pick him brain with the help of what I could only call a "Brain" from outer space. It's Dr. Blake who's been using the "Brain" to drive the people in the town of Meadowdave to go insane and end up killing each other or committing suicide. After Jim got over his infatuation of Vivian who got him to go along with her boss Dr. Blake's insane plans with doing a striptease act he soon realized that this Blake guy was totally out of his skull and made a run for it with Dr. Blake's #1 goon male nurse Verna, Gerogre Buza, hot on his tale.****SPOILERS*** Getting in touch with his girlfriend Janet, Cynthia Preston, at the local diner that she works at Jim, after convincing Janet that his fears about the crazy Dr. Blake are legit, tries to warn the people of Meadowdale that there's a nut, Dr. Blake, in their soup or in town trying to not only control their brains but, with the "Brain" giving the orders, in fact destroy them. It's later at Dr. Blake's TV show "Inderpendent Thinking" that he uses to brainwash the public Tom crashed the place and exposes Dr. Blake for what he is; Which turns out to be what he isn't and that's human. A lot like the movies "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and the more recent "Videodrome" the film "The Brain" shows how psychos like Dr. Blake and the "Brain" who controls him can through TV waves turns otherwise normal people into homicidal lunatics with just the flick of a switch.

High school student James has excellent grades and a beautiful girlfriend, but he is always playing weird practical jokes. This makes his teachers and parents sign a consent form to have him sent off to a revolutionary new TV doctor, Dr. Blake. Dr. Blake often talks about the increase in teen suicides and sure enough, just near James' house, a fellow student has just stabbed her mother and jumped out a window... but was there more to it? Did she really jump, or did something else kill her mother and push her? James finds the mental hospital where is is sent to be pointless and annoying, so he leaves the building. Unknown to him the hospital nurse who he hallucinated as being topless, is on his side; she knows about the strange hallucinogenic brain experiments on people in the building and threatens to tell. Before she gets the chance, a giant brain-like creature eats her. Blake sends an overweight bearded med assistant to hunt down James and bring him back.James hides out in his girlfriend Janet's diner after his car crashes and blows up. She tries to hide him but a cop shows up, as does the fat med assistant, and Janet can only watch as he is dragged away again, this time kicking at some invisible monster no one else can see. He escapes the hospital a second time with her help, and the help of his best friend, but his best friend is eaten by the brain monster. Murders start popping up all over town and on the TV sets of all the viewers tuned in, Blake tells them it was James who killed them, and that James has trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy. A brainwashing message is also said, convincing several housewives to kill their husbands if their husbands refuse to watch the Dr. Blake show. Now Janet and James are runaway fugitives, hiding out in the local high school as the entire town of brainwashed adults search for them.This wasn't the best movie but you've gotta admit, it's entertaining at least. The soundtrack is pretty good, the acting was okay and for the budget they had, the brain monster was pretty good, though highly unbelievable. This movie might make you think twice about tuning in every day to D. Phil, Ellen and Oprah.

My friends and I rented this for "Bad Movie Night" with high hopes, but The Brain was something of a letdown. The Brain itself is gloriously goofy-looking, but it mostly just sits on its little platform. Who thought that it would be cool that the Brain only gets to munch on three people throughout 94 drawn-out minutes? This movie has a number of things going for it at first, including an Estevez-knockoff lead playing a rebellious genius (we're told that his enormous intellect is misdirected into his elaborate pranks and school stunts, which include putting krazy glue on someone's chair). It also has some great lines, a hilariously out-of-shape and out-of-breath henchman who just barely manages to be everywhere, and, yeah, some chick gets naked. However, the director desperately needs some schooling in the art of pacing. During the last half things just start to drag on and on, with at least 3 or 4 pointless, boring chase scenes making up the middle third of the plot. The scenes inside the PRI complex are especially bad. At least 15 minutes of this movie are people running up and down the same stairwell. I could've fixed the screenplay to this thing in half an hour- more cheese, more gore, more nudity, more Brain action. If you're going to make a bad horror movie, at least give me something cool to look at while my superego shuts down. Maybe the director was trying to really bring the audience into his movie- I started feeling like one of the zombified townsfolk by the end of this crapfest.