Popular reviews

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  Review by Tony the Terror 🎃 ★★★★★ 73

  Sooo I don’t usually read through the other reviews before I write my own but this time I had to because I just needed to see if everyone else saw this movie like I did and wouldn’t you know that only ONE other review that I read mentions it! Everyone else talks about how this is an allegory for heroin addiction and I’m not disagreeing, but I totally saw this as an allegory for coming to terms with one’s sexuality. And don’t get me wrong, I really don’t go looking for gay subtext in movies most of the time, but it was just so glaringly obvious here!

  A cute guy with a nice ass becomes attached to a phallic creature…

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  Review by Ian West ★★★★½ 12

  “When it comes to blood in my underwear I wanna know how it got there!”

  High art scuzz drenched in exquisite colors with a slathered in goo creature so Henenlotterian it’s not even funny. Also, homoerotic, plus Aylmer’s voice (and who it’s voiced by) is perfect. 

  A prime slab of head trip NYC neon grime.

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  Review by Sean Baker 23

  My partner Samantha never saw this film before and came across it while scrolling through Shudder titles. She asked me how it is and I replied "one of the best films ever, let's watch." So we did. And it was a great watch as always. I love Aylmer so much.

  Watched on Shudder and now I want to deep dive in to the Arrow Video steelbook Blu-ray that I've had for a while now.

  The extras are amazing:
  - Isolated Score
  - Brand new audio commentary by writer-director Frank Henenlotter
  - Listen to the Light: The Making of Brain Damage – brand new documentary featuring interviews with actor Rick Herbst, producer Edgar Ievins, editor James Kwei, first assistant director Gregory…

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  Review by CinemaVoid 🏴‍☠️ ★★★★½ 3

  It's always refreshing to see a horror movie where the parasitic creature has good manners and is polite with his host.

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 3

  "When it comes to blood in my underwear I wanna know how it got there."
  "It's no big deal, nothing to get upset about, it came from that girl at the club."
  "What girl?"
  "The girl whose brains I ate."
  "What?"
  "The blood came from a girl whose brains I sucked out."
  "You sucked out her brains?"
  "Yeah, right through her mouth."
  "Is she dead?"

  Full discussion on episode 151 of my podcast SLEAZOIDS.

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  Review by Cliff ★★★★½ 5

  For my money, this movie has the greatest ever ratio of atmosphere per dollar of budget. I would say that its $900,000 bought about 15 atmospheres, which is 1.69 pascals per dollar.

  To put this in perspective, something like The Neon Demon is admittedly even more atmospheric than Brain Damage - it has maybe 40 atmospheres. But on a budget of $7 million, that's only 0.579 pascals per dollar. (There are 101,325 pascals in 1 atmosphere, and that's yer actual physics.)

  Anyway, I am glad to report that the beautiful clarity of the Blu-ray proves that Frank Henenlotter put all that atmosphere in the film himself, and it wasn't artificially added by being poorly transferred to VHS. You know, I never realised it was shot on 35mm.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 1

  84

  The greatest Venom movie in existence. Psychedelic, detestable, and hysterical, all at once. If you're looking for a blood-soaked anti-drug fable with questions of sexual identity that all involves a slimy munchy-brain monster who speaks in polite English, then I have a film for you! Some all-timer gross-out gags in this, with a seriousness applied to the thematic content that doesn't negate the insanity on full-neon-display. A must-see.

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  Review by Matt! ★★★½ 8

  Requiem for a Brain
   
  An unassuming, sweet-talking parasite that provides immediate, short-lived pleasure but demands egregiously unequal trade-offs and forces you to unknowingly spiral into an oblivion of crippling dependence as you destroy all of the relationships and important things in your life – did Henenlotter write this about my ex-girlfriend? 
   
  Classic low budget horror-comedy that serves as an obvious metaphor for drug abuse (and possibly sexual identity? Henenlotter denies it, but goddamn, this thing certainly comes off as brazenly homoerotic). With practical effects (which I can confirm are still undefeated) that include both stop motion and animatronics, and John Zacherle’s iconically voiced Aylmer, Brain Damage imparts that age-old lesson still taught in D.A.R.E. programs nationwide: if you…

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  Review by VIVE_le_FILTH ★★★★ 4

  "Forgot your Buckets?"

  
  🔥St. Elmer's Fire🔥

  Elmer the polite, brain eating, drug inducing parasite and the excellent nod to Basket Case on the subway made me happy, but the cheap ass frosted flakes on top of the fridge made me sad!

  But not mad.

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  Review by Liz ★★★★★

  Somehow not the only horror film from 1988 to have a meatball gag.

  I could write way too much about this, but just two quick things: it’s maybe Henenlotter's best – striking that perfect balance between 42nd St gorehound sleaze and pervy schoolboy glee that colors all of his work in one way or another. Of all of the great 70s/80s New York exploitation directors – thinking Cohen, Ferrara, and Lustig – Henenlotter’s channeling and interpretation of the city’s grime might be my favorite. Unlike some of those directors, you can tell that he’s got a clear love for the city and its inhabitants – he’s not using the punk clubs, streetwalkers, and, uh showering bodybuilders as some cheap way…

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  Review by Lou (rhymes with wow!) ★★★★½ 21

  Wow, this was sooo good! This is my second Henenlotter, after seeing Basket Case only recently (a disgrace, I know). I basically loved everything about this: the crude but effective effects/gore, the performances, the humour, even the cinematography! I think it's super commendable that Henenlotter is able to achieve so much with so little (money).

  Truly a master of his craft!

  A great time watching this with Michelle!

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  Review by edgard713 ★★★½

  Lmao this movie has one of my favorite kill scenes