Brain DamageNever let a pusher get inside your head. Brain Damage is a horror movie/black comedy about a phallic parasite named "Aylmer" (voiced by John Zacherle) who wriggles his way into the brain of a young man named Brian (Rick Hearst), who was fighting off a flu at the time. Brian experiences hallucinatory visions--which at first he chalks up to the fever--but soon discovers that he's not alone in his apartment. The talking parasite Aylmer convinces him that he can continue to enjoy these euphoric visions if he wants; Aylmer just wants to "go for a walk". But each "walk" results in Brian blacking out and Aylmer feasting on the brains of a new victim. Can Brian kick the habit or will Aylmer turn him into just another brainless addict?
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Brain Damage isn't subtle about comparing an alien--is in an alien?--creature's window-cleaner blue discharge to other forms of intravenous drug abuse. After Brian experiences Aylmer's "juice", he wants more, and rearranges his life to have it. Aylmer acts like his buddy, and in short time, Brian blocks out everything else from his life--including his girlfriend, Barbara (Jennifer Lowry), and his brother, Mike (Gordon MacDonald). To them, all of the signs point to Brian being on drugs; it's really some kind of alien (yeah, we'll go with alien) goo injected straight into his cerebral cortex that...well...behaves exactly like drugs. (Or at least as far as the movie is concerned.) What's interesting about Brain Damage is how committed it is to this metaphor. Once Brian gets wise to what Aylmer is doing--even if it took a pair of bloody tighty-whities to do it--he tries to reject the drug. Aylmer, however, knows that Brian--as others before him--can't resist, and Brian proves him right. Brian exhibits all of the telltale signs of a junkie, but his situation is worse because he discovers after the fact that he's been a party to murder--even if unconsciously--so he can't just check himself into a clinic. Even his efforts to leave his apartment so as to not endanger Barbara or Mike--who fall into each other's arms in the wake of Brian's breakdown--fail to keep Aylmer from killing again.
Despite what might come across as a serious anti-drug message, Brain Damage banks hard into the absurd. So much so that scenes of violence and mutilation occasionally end up being hysterical--intentional or otherwise. Incidental characters in Brain Damage are often full-on weirdos. My favorite is the night watchman in the junkyard (Bradlee Rhodes) who hears the drug-addled Brian screaming with joy at a laser light show that only he can see. But the watchman's first action is to straighten his coat, and then get his gun, striding out into the night with his pistol at the ready. I don't know just what kind of crowd this guy is used to dealing with, but this seems excessive for a security guard. But even more than that, his behavior is weirdly stiff. I would have just chalked this up to a rookie actor or something, but there are many more moments like this throughout Brain Damage. There's a wino in the background (Michael Rubenstein) crying into his whisky, but we never get any insight into why. There's a biker (Ari M. Roussimoff) at the hostel where Brian holes up who prognosticates to some other skeezy looking dude, but this exchange goes nowhere. I'm not sure if the movie is trying to make some statement about how everyone in the city has some kind of "brain damage", or is suffering from some affliction that allows for this weirdness to thrive, but I couldn't figure it out. But it's not like the film doesn't set the tone for the truly bizarre from the start. The two original keepers of Aylmer--an elderly couple named Morris (Theo Barnes) and Martha (Lucille Saint Peter)--open the movie with Morris going on about how frustrating it was to get something "special" from a deli, only for it to be revealed to be perfectly intact animal brains (which all look like just small human brains instead, but never mind). When they discover that Aylmer has fled his captivity, they utterly lose it, screaming and tearing their apartment down. Of course, we don't know yet that they are junkies like Brian is doomed to become, so their antics help establish the surreal nature of Brain Damage.
For a movie about a brain-eating slug desperately in need of braces, Brain Damage has some unusual touches that make it clear that writer and director Frank Henenlotter gave this movie a good deal of thought regardless...or he's an awful skilled BS-artist at least. Take the moment where Morris discovers that Aylmer has left him for Brian. He recounts the known history of the organism, going back all the way to the Fourth Crusade, where it was discovered. Then, he shares about all of the people who "enjoyed" Aylmer over the next eight centuries. I'm sure that Morris is something of a historian, but wouldn't it have been simpler to write off the critter as just some fluke of nature or the like, rather than go to the trouble of establishing a history for it? Well, that's one of the charms of Brain Damage. Even if the anti-drug metaphor is as ham-fisted as can be--right down to the needle-like protrusion that Aylmer jabs into the back of Brian's neck to dose him--this represents an unexpected dimension of mystery to the movie; mystery about the presence of monsters throughout history that have exercised influence over kings and the like. But like the drug-addled Brian, Brain Damage rarely sits still long enough to let these details plant their roots. At its core, it is an odd yet spry horror movie and black comedy that is good for getting an awkward chuckle out of it. You will find yourself asking, "is it okay to laugh at this" more than a few times.
Recommended for: Fans of an off-kilter, Eighties-era horror comedy about a weird, brain-eating monster that looks...well, I won't say what it looks like in any greater detail, but let's just say it gets mistaken for "that" in the worst possible way in one scene. Brain Damage is, like it's name, a bit "brain damaged" and deranged, but don't let that deter you from its unique oddball weirdness as a fun, little horror gem.
Despite what might come across as a serious anti-drug message, Brain Damage banks hard into the absurd. So much so that scenes of violence and mutilation occasionally end up being hysterical--intentional or otherwise. Incidental characters in Brain Damage are often full-on weirdos. My favorite is the night watchman in the junkyard (Bradlee Rhodes) who hears the drug-addled Brian screaming with joy at a laser light show that only he can see. But the watchman's first action is to straighten his coat, and then get his gun, striding out into the night with his pistol at the ready. I don't know just what kind of crowd this guy is used to dealing with, but this seems excessive for a security guard. But even more than that, his behavior is weirdly stiff. I would have just chalked this up to a rookie actor or something, but there are many more moments like this throughout Brain Damage. There's a wino in the background (Michael Rubenstein) crying into his whisky, but we never get any insight into why. There's a biker (Ari M. Roussimoff) at the hostel where Brian holes up who prognosticates to some other skeezy looking dude, but this exchange goes nowhere. I'm not sure if the movie is trying to make some statement about how everyone in the city has some kind of "brain damage", or is suffering from some affliction that allows for this weirdness to thrive, but I couldn't figure it out. But it's not like the film doesn't set the tone for the truly bizarre from the start. The two original keepers of Aylmer--an elderly couple named Morris (Theo Barnes) and Martha (Lucille Saint Peter)--open the movie with Morris going on about how frustrating it was to get something "special" from a deli, only for it to be revealed to be perfectly intact animal brains (which all look like just small human brains instead, but never mind). When they discover that Aylmer has fled his captivity, they utterly lose it, screaming and tearing their apartment down. Of course, we don't know yet that they are junkies like Brian is doomed to become, so their antics help establish the surreal nature of Brain Damage.
For a movie about a brain-eating slug desperately in need of braces, Brain Damage has some unusual touches that make it clear that writer and director Frank Henenlotter gave this movie a good deal of thought regardless...or he's an awful skilled BS-artist at least. Take the moment where Morris discovers that Aylmer has left him for Brian. He recounts the known history of the organism, going back all the way to the Fourth Crusade, where it was discovered. Then, he shares about all of the people who "enjoyed" Aylmer over the next eight centuries. I'm sure that Morris is something of a historian, but wouldn't it have been simpler to write off the critter as just some fluke of nature or the like, rather than go to the trouble of establishing a history for it? Well, that's one of the charms of Brain Damage. Even if the anti-drug metaphor is as ham-fisted as can be--right down to the needle-like protrusion that Aylmer jabs into the back of Brian's neck to dose him--this represents an unexpected dimension of mystery to the movie; mystery about the presence of monsters throughout history that have exercised influence over kings and the like. But like the drug-addled Brian, Brain Damage rarely sits still long enough to let these details plant their roots. At its core, it is an odd yet spry horror movie and black comedy that is good for getting an awkward chuckle out of it. You will find yourself asking, "is it okay to laugh at this" more than a few times.
Recommended for: Fans of an off-kilter, Eighties-era horror comedy about a weird, brain-eating monster that looks...well, I won't say what it looks like in any greater detail, but let's just say it gets mistaken for "that" in the worst possible way in one scene. Brain Damage is, like it's name, a bit "brain damaged" and deranged, but don't let that deter you from its unique oddball weirdness as a fun, little horror gem.