I did not go into
1988's The Brain with high expectations. All I really expected was to see a giant alien brain puppet eating people. No more, no less. That is exactly what I got. What I didn't expect was one of the most obnoxious group of characters possibly in any movie, ever. Not obnoxious in an entertaining way either. The kind of people that you are just rooting for to die. The only people I actually wanted the brain puppet to eat, it doesn't. The plot is fairly simple and
exactly like somewhat similar to
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A pseudo-psychiatrist in a small town, creepy
Dr. Blakely (played by
Re-Animator's creepy decapitated doctor,
David Gale) hosts a popular public access show called ironically (that will make sense later),
Independent Thinking. Many of the town's parents send their wayward teens to
Dr. Blakely's research facility in the hopes of curing their waywardness. What they don't know, is
Dr. Blakely isn't curing shit. In fact, he's housing a giant killer alien monster brain that he's using to control every one's brain waves through his television show! Not only that, but (
SPOILER, not really)
Dr. Blakely himself is in fact an alien made of slime and worms disguised in a human meat suit! So far, so good.
Where this goes awry is the main characters/heroes of the film. It's your standard teenage couple,
Jim, the wise-talking sex-obsessed
James Deanesque boyfriend and
Janet, the squeaky clean, I'm waiting for college, screams all the time and gets easily captured girlfriend (what part of
STAY HERE do these bitches not understand?!?). Smart-ass
Jim gets in trouble in school and is forced by his parents to see
Dr. Blakely for his behavioral problems. This is when he finds out the good
Doctor has a hot European assistant with nice boobs and oh, he's not really a doctor. The rest of the film involves he and
Janet trying to convince other people in town that
Dr. Blakely is not what he seems, but unfortunately they have both been framed for the murders committed by the monster brain so no one really listens.
Here's where the mildly entertaining moves into incredibly infuriating. These two assholes have to be the fucking stupidest fugitives of
ALL time. First of all, they never feel the need to actually run from anything or at least not a very accelerated speed. Although
Janet has seen the killer brain eat a guy with her own two eyes, she refuses to believe that the brain is actually controlling minds. Is that really too far fetched at this point? She decides to call her Dad, an avid watcher of
Independent Thinking after
Jim explicitly tells her not to. Obviously, this leads the doctor's
ONE goon directly to them. Oh yeah, so
Dr. Blakely has a giant alien brain to do his bidding, but only
ONE fucking goon to do all his killing.
Then the two lovers decide to hide out at their high school which I guess
Jim has the keys to, it's never explained. Then they decide to bone just in time before the goon shows up.
Janet starts watching the show on some monitor in a classroom and turns on
Jim. He is
CONFUSED by this and isn't sure why she's turned against him even though he caught her watching the show and he was the one that theorized this is how
Dr. Blakely is controlling people's brain waves.
AHH! After a slow speed highway chase,
Jim actually shakes the fuzz and
Blakely's goon. He escapes into the woods only to
RETURN to town where
EVERYONE is looking for him and just walks around busy streets wondering why people are starring at him. He even goes to
Blakely's facility which I guess makes sense since he obviously thinks he should destroy the killer brain, but while there he enters a room full of
Independent Thinking watchers and is once again, surprised why they don't listen to reason. I know horror movies are full of stupid people. If they weren't, the movie wouldn't last an hour, but seriously, the dumb things this couple does and says is beyond horror movie stupidity and just moves straight into mental disability. I made it up to the end, but does it really matter? Guess what,
Jim destroys the giant brain puppet on a dolly and the couple stays in love and goes off to college. Meh.
I did not go into 1988's The Brain with high expectations. All I really expected was to see a giant alien brain puppet eating people. No more, no less. That is exactly what I got. What I didn't expect was one of the most obnoxious group of characters possibly in any movie, ever. Not obnoxious in an entertaining way either. The kind of people that you are just rooting for to die. The only people I actually wanted the brain puppet to eat, it doesn't. The plot is fairly simple and 
Where this goes awry is the main characters/heroes of the film. It's your standard teenage couple, Jim, the wise-talking sex-obsessed James Deanesque boyfriend and Janet, the squeaky clean, I'm waiting for college, screams all the time and gets easily captured girlfriend (what part of STAY HERE do these bitches not understand?!?). Smart-ass Jim gets in trouble in school and is forced by his parents to see Dr. Blakely for his behavioral problems. This is when he finds out the good Doctor has a hot European assistant with nice boobs and oh, he's not really a doctor. The rest of the film involves he and Janet trying to convince other people in town that Dr. Blakely is not what he seems, but unfortunately they have both been framed for the murders committed by the monster brain so no one really listens. 
No comments:
Post a Comment