The Brain (1988)

There's a strange cinematic netherworld where idiocy meets fun and the two duke it out for our hearts and minds, and The Brain sits there rather comfortably. Eschewing chances of suspense or paranoid frights by way of an ill advised early reveal of the central creature and soon after a reveal of its nefarious plans, The Brain seeks to run on crazed gumption alone and the pleasantly surprising thing is, it actually works. The story has young and smart delinquent Jim Majelewski signed up for treatment at the mysterious Psychological Research Institute, where he comes across an evil giant brain with an eye on world domination. The rest of the film sees him dodging the brainwashed populace while seeking to save everyone from the alien ministrations of the brain, its a chase film and it happily zips along, sleekly crafted cheese to please. Director Ed Hunt is something of a B movie veteran and so knows not to take this sort of thing too seriously, while going full tilt at scenes that require the schlocky goods, thus while the film is never gory there are a few scenes that really shine, particularly a freaky opening gambit and a spot of wild cafeteria behaviour. He also avoids emphasizing the lesser effects apart from times when they'll be clearly entertaining, so goofs are at a relative minimum and at times the effects work really does. Performances are game throughout though few are especially good, Tom Bresnahan starts slow but builds a good head of steam as Jim, Cindy Preston is effortlessly pleasing as his girlfriend and George Buza makes for a solidly menacing villainous hired goon, while the heavy lifting acting wise is carried in style by David Gale. Riffing on his Re-Animator villainy he opts for a quieter course but still amusingly deranged, its a fun turn and he lights the screen whenever he appears. The titular brain is an important star as well, a wonderfully ludicrous creation that gets to move around, make the odd expression and even eat some people, as completely crackers monster go its a good 'un. Sadly the film gets dull at times despite the driving pace and thudding score, it also needed more acting zap and gore to make it really work, but its easy watching and well freighted with chuckles. Heck, there's even a bit of nudity (from a rather lovely lady) so I can't criticise the film too much, its cheesy trash, it know its cheesy trash and it does its best to deliver as such. I happen to love cheesy trash and this one broadly worked for me, so 7/10, but it won't be to all tastes.

Let's face it, this film isn't great; hell, it's not even good. But it does feature a huge pulsating purple brain with googly eyes and fangs that eats people, and if that sounds like your bag of trash then you'll no doubt derive some pleasure from this patently daft drivel. I know I did.The film sees power-mad TV psychologist Dr. Anthony Blakely (David Gale) plotting to control the world with the help of a giant disembodied brain that can transmit hypnotic suggestions over the airwaves. When obnoxious high-school trouble-maker Jim Majelewski is sent to Blakely for treatment, he subconsciously manages to resist the brain's mind control powers, but suffers from a series of hallucinations which almost cause his death. Realising that all is not right at Blakely's institute, the plucky lad decides to investigate...In addition to the titular creature with a liking for human flesh, this dumb B-movie horror offers viewers the following dubious delights: a girl being attacked by rubber claws and tentacles in her bedroom; Jim performing the old 'sodium block down the loo' prank (a scene necessary to help explain the brain's final demise); an industrial basement plastered with warning signs about the facility's use of sodium (hmmmm!); a topless nurse; several people having their heads chomped by the brain; and a couple of decapitations (with David Gale once again losing his head!).Oh, and one giant exploding brain, of course.5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for the topless nurse (an element that I feel can improve almost any film).

This is a nice little b-movie from the glorious 80's that really made me laugh. The thing i enjoyed the most of course would be the awesomely slimy low budget special effects! Those, although cheap, were often really killer! The movie's about a mad doctor who brainwashes people subliminally through his television show into being what he calls "Independent Thinkers" which are really helpless pawns in his nutty plot to take take over the planet via mind control. (They should have included that Suicidal Tendencies' song "Subliminal" in the soundtrack, oh well) Anyway somewhere tied into this cool plot is a giant slimy killer brain from outer space. Sounds cool huh? Well it is so check it out if you dig cheesy creature fx from the 80's. There's also a couple scenes with boobies which is always a plus. The funniest part is a certain attack where the brain looks like a giant scrotum devouring a human being...if that don't sound rad to you then don't waste your time with this or any of my other reviews cuz we definitely got different taste but otherwise this isn't to be missed!

I found this really cheap on DVD recently and just HAD to snap it up - it's one of those horror flicks I kept seeing on ebay but didn't want to pay too much for it.It turns out that it's not a bad cheesy monster flick, but nothing special either. I would describe it as average. The brain itself is funny to watch, especially when it attacks. The scene at the end where it explodes in a shower of sparks is hilarious. The plot is silly and loosely ties all the events together. There's some boring moments and some fun moments.Overall I would rate it as average. There's loads of better films out there, if you're a fan of The Brain then you may want to check out The Suckling (a film about an aborted killer foetus) or The Deadly Spawn. Both have similarities to The Brain and are much more entertaining.