1990 Directed by Adam Simon
A psychological thriller from the writer of the original "Twilight Zone!" In a showdown of man vs. machine, Martin plunges into a chaotic nightmare trying to save his mind from the megalomaniacal corporation!
Bill Pullman Bill Paxton Bud Cort Nicholas Pryor Patricia Charbonneau George Kennedy Brian Brophy David Sinaiko Lee Arenberg Andy Wood Maud Winchester Lisa Moncure Jon Kellam Willie Garson John Paxton David Sklare Cynthia Ettinger Shannon Holt V.J. Foster Brent Hinkley Kyle Gass Deirdre O'Connell Ann Vincent Dorothy Vincent Dean Robinson Mark Boothby Steve Ruggles Adam Lima Jesse Douglas Show All…
Lobotomie, Sanglante paranoïa, Paranoia, Мертвый мозг
So, like, you're telling me that this movie that I've owned for over a year isn't actually the Peter Jackson film about the person who gets bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey, no, but an old 1990s B-movie directed by No-One Important? Oh.
HoopTober 8
Part XXVIII: Brain Dead (2/2 Birth Year)
The most-liked review for this film on Letterboxd is somebody complaining that it is not Peter Jackson's Braindead AKA Dead Alive from 1992...
No, it isn't future Hobbit Lord's gorefest spectacle.
Instead it's a strange psychological thriller, born from a script that was in a heap of un-produced Roger Corman films, dating back to the '60s, picked up by his wife Julie, and directed by future Spielberg-rivalling Carnosaur maestro Adam Simon.
Everything points to it being a shoddy B-movie, and in some respects it is, but like the best of them, it's a film that has a lot of fun with it's internal logic, twisting and turning through it's story, yanking…
Scientist Blill Pullman and skeevy business man Bill Paxton battle one another in this 90s battle of the Bills. Plus there's secret experiments, white rooms, and enough jars of brains to fill a Costco.
This was a movie poster that always intrigued me over the years but the movie itself always alluded me. This film has that bizarre 90s sci fi/ horror feel and reminded me of a long Tales from the Crypt episode. The type of movie you would catch on late night TV in the 90s.
Pullman plays a neuroscientist who works for a top secret laboratory that does all kinds of crazy brain experiments. Pullman is put on a mission to retrieve vital information from a past…
Based on an old script by Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont, Brain Dead is essentially a feature length Twilight Zone episode; focusing on a brain doctor who finds himself recruited to drag some important information out of a mathematician who has lost his mind. I remember seeing this in the video shop so many times as a kid but we never bothered renting it. There are some really good ideas here - not least the central one involving perception of reality courtesy of the brain. It's handled well overall. The film does get a bit repetitive but this helps it to succeed in the way that it really messes with your head! It's never really clear exactly what is going…
Its the battle of the Bills as Pullman and Paxton square off in pure 90s psychological warfare. One of those unclassifiable little gems waiting to be rediscovered. An oddball video store era head scratcher filled with wonky ideas, walls of brains in jars, abstract visuals, hokey futuristic technology and a B movie quirkiness. Too campy to be profound yet weirdly hypnotic.
"Madness is merely moisture on the brain."
Pullman plays an Rex Martin an eccentric neurosurgeon that has experimented with a new procedure to erase certain memories that leave patients with a "peace of mind." Paxton plays a shady businessman who tries to profit on the new procedure as he lures Rex into his scheme. As Rex gets deeper into…
The elliptical confusion from one segment of reality to the next. So many moments seem familiar but different/extraneous but routine. The journey Dr. Rex Martin takes is filled with cerebral clues and unstructured imagery that manifests an objective reality. Bargaining with himself, with his partner, with Halsey, with the man in the white coat covered in blood. Having an open conversation with all of the people who play all of the roles in his head, but which are real? Who is real? Don't take the wrap around beginning and ending as truth. By virtue of what the film is, any number of the scenarios are as real as any other. From lemniscates to butterflies, Bill Pullman is Dougie Jonesing his way through his own lobotomy. An electric brain melt of memories and fears from frontal to temporal lobe. You can almost taste the metal and smell the toast. It's a BRAINSTORM, get it?? I know that I'M real.
I think.
It's been a loooooooong time since the last time I watched this and I had forgotten how mindbendy it is.
It starts out slightly odd in that the "science" being performed is straight out of Dr. Frankenstien's castle or Dr. Herbert West's basement laboratory. Bill Pullman is our neurologist of note. He is busy with a project that is mapping the brain in high detail. He has a wall full of brains in jars and a comedically poor retrieval system.
Then Bill Paxton shows up as a slimy corporate bootlick who coerces Pullman into performing a dangerous experimental surgery on a mentally ill man by leveraging finance and autonomy. Set aside your morals this one time and you won't have…
Ahhh there's Braindead and Brain Dead... this was obviously not the Peter Jackson vehicle.
this movie will do you a lobotomy to your brain while you're watching it, trust me. this was insane.
"You have nothing to lose... except your mind!"
Brain Dead is like a somewhat more serious version of The Man With Two Brains, Corman-style. It's not that serious either, I guess it was just the loose brains jostling around in big glass jugs that reminds me of that movie.
It's the epic face-off of the two Bills: Pullman vs. Paxton, one good, one bad. Pullman is asked to help Paxton to retrieve some information from a possibly insane mathematician, and things only get weirder from there on. Not gory enough to appease gorehounds, and not as much fun as one would hope. It gets too surreal and off course, but competently made and well acted.
"The universe is a wet dream..."
I bought this solely because of that awesome poster art but DAMN what a wild ass movie.
The 90's biggest Bills co-star in a strange, psychosexual, Lynch-meets-Yuzna rabbit hole of reality: corporate lobotomies, a personality facelift, butterflies in the brain, and a grown Bud Cort playing a genius maniac who may or may not be real?! Just the type of weirdness I LOVE!!
I should not be giving it this much credit... there's no telling by the end what's actually going on, and I can understand if others feel cheated because of that. But I just had so much fun on the way there. Every single scene is a delight. Reality is in the mind, and we're all just brains on a shelf....
Love it. An instant favorite.
Three things about Brain Dead, no particular order (or relevance to the plot of the film itself, for that matter)
1) between the Peter Jackson Dead Alive,and the Frank Henenlotter Brain Damage, I was always getting this film mixed up with those, back in the day, and so never got around to seeing it till now, despite (because of?) the freaky cover art. As you can tell by the rating, despite the not-great transfer, it was worth the wait.
2) In fact, all ratings systems are kind of arbitrary and individual on a site like letterboxd...not just that one movie one person would give three stars to, another person would give four stars, but what qualifies a movie as three…
