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Brain Damage (1988)
Director: Frank Henenlotter
Frank Henenlotter makes f#cked up movies exclusively. He isn't like Stuart Gordon (ReAnimator), who sometimes writes and directs for Disney (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit). He is a raw and vile man with an equal imagination. His movies are disgusting, disturbing, depressing and ugly. Back when he debuted his film "Basket Case" in 1982, we had to sit through a scene where a deformed, stop motion siamese twin blob creature rapes a young woman with some illustrious sound design.
In 1988, he kept going, and this time he concentrated on drug addiction. "Brain Damage" is about an ancient turd like slug creature about the size of an adult film penis that bores a hole into the back of an unsuspecting man's neck and manipulates the man to bring him out on the town for fresh kills, so he can eat human brains. The reward for the young man is that he gets an injection of blue sunshine lsd into his brain which makes him trip the live fantastic while this small creature named "Elmer" feasts on the minds of security guards, sluts and whoever else happens to be in the general vicinity while they are on their night time walk.
It becomes a powerful addiction. The man hates that he is the host transportation to bring Elmer around the city to kill for food, but the injection Elmer gives him in the back of the neck is such a good high, that withdrawal would be unbearable.
First of all, I want to say that, yes, there are some clever bits in this film. The effect work, though dated, does still hold its own, and there are inspired visual light effects I enjoyed. But because I am 41 years old now, and have pretty much burned out my curious clutch of revisiting my dreadful horror aficionado past on these cheap home video release deluxe treatments we are getting by boutique cult labels nowadays, in glorious HD, I can't say I thoroughly enjoyed Brain Damage. I mean, it's dumb. Elmer escaped his old owners to find another host. Just the fact that he escaped and is able to scurry across floors and jump out at people and attach to their faces in the dambdest of places such as a bathroom stall, just that fact alone would mean Elmer, I'm sorry, AYLMER, doesn't need a host to begin with. He can DO IT HIMSELF!!
Secondly, I'm tired of seeing sick movies. Yeah, I get it. It's shocking, it's twisted. Yay.
I'm not a teenager anymore. I'm not even a twentysomething, or a thirtysomething. I've been there and I have done it (if you can count watching movies alone doing anything at all).
I see Brain Damage as a good indicator that my tastes have changed. I guess I also cannot understand how an intelligent man in his 60's or even 70's can continue being cool with making totally messed up sicko movies. I listened to the commentary out of curiosity. The guy is clearly blowing rails of coke off during his endless tirade of mile-a-minute blabbing. He barely takes a breath. I felt low even listening to the track, to be honest.
I don't hate Brain Damage. It's a pretty damn good little freak out movie that surprisingly deals with addiction fairly well and also has some really brilliant moments in the way of exposition, focused on the origins of the Aylmer (Elmer for slang).
I can't discount the fun of it, even though, if I'm being honest, it really wasn't that much fun at all. I found myself depressed during it. It's not cheery, doesn't have any kind of uplifting message. It's shot dark, it looks dark, it's an ugly mentality. What is to gain from that? It's like watching a movie with people being burned alive or tortured. I do not understand the appeal. Not anymore. Not sure I ever found it appealing. Other factors were responsible for my interest in films like Brain Damage.
Those other factors are asides that can be carried over, leaving the trash behind.
My final thought is that there is entirely too much inspired whackiness in Brain Damage to fully slag it off as a failure film. It's not. It's clever, well made, and yeah, I guess parts of it are well written, sure. It looks great on blu ray, and the music, though dopey, does have a certain something going for it. Maybe it's because it sounds like something anyone could play on an old Yamaha DX-7. Frank Henenlotter may be a twisted, line sniffing old man, but he has gotten my money, so at least he's a decent businessman.
Director: Frank Henenlotter
Frank Henenlotter makes f#cked up movies exclusively. He isn't like Stuart Gordon (ReAnimator), who sometimes writes and directs for Disney (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit). He is a raw and vile man with an equal imagination. His movies are disgusting, disturbing, depressing and ugly. Back when he debuted his film "Basket Case" in 1982, we had to sit through a scene where a deformed, stop motion siamese twin blob creature rapes a young woman with some illustrious sound design.
In 1988, he kept going, and this time he concentrated on drug addiction. "Brain Damage" is about an ancient turd like slug creature about the size of an adult film penis that bores a hole into the back of an unsuspecting man's neck and manipulates the man to bring him out on the town for fresh kills, so he can eat human brains. The reward for the young man is that he gets an injection of blue sunshine lsd into his brain which makes him trip the live fantastic while this small creature named "Elmer" feasts on the minds of security guards, sluts and whoever else happens to be in the general vicinity while they are on their night time walk.
It becomes a powerful addiction. The man hates that he is the host transportation to bring Elmer around the city to kill for food, but the injection Elmer gives him in the back of the neck is such a good high, that withdrawal would be unbearable.
First of all, I want to say that, yes, there are some clever bits in this film. The effect work, though dated, does still hold its own, and there are inspired visual light effects I enjoyed. But because I am 41 years old now, and have pretty much burned out my curious clutch of revisiting my dreadful horror aficionado past on these cheap home video release deluxe treatments we are getting by boutique cult labels nowadays, in glorious HD, I can't say I thoroughly enjoyed Brain Damage. I mean, it's dumb. Elmer escaped his old owners to find another host. Just the fact that he escaped and is able to scurry across floors and jump out at people and attach to their faces in the dambdest of places such as a bathroom stall, just that fact alone would mean Elmer, I'm sorry, AYLMER, doesn't need a host to begin with. He can DO IT HIMSELF!!
Secondly, I'm tired of seeing sick movies. Yeah, I get it. It's shocking, it's twisted. Yay.
I'm not a teenager anymore. I'm not even a twentysomething, or a thirtysomething. I've been there and I have done it (if you can count watching movies alone doing anything at all).
I see Brain Damage as a good indicator that my tastes have changed. I guess I also cannot understand how an intelligent man in his 60's or even 70's can continue being cool with making totally messed up sicko movies. I listened to the commentary out of curiosity. The guy is clearly blowing rails of coke off during his endless tirade of mile-a-minute blabbing. He barely takes a breath. I felt low even listening to the track, to be honest.
I don't hate Brain Damage. It's a pretty damn good little freak out movie that surprisingly deals with addiction fairly well and also has some really brilliant moments in the way of exposition, focused on the origins of the Aylmer (Elmer for slang).
I can't discount the fun of it, even though, if I'm being honest, it really wasn't that much fun at all. I found myself depressed during it. It's not cheery, doesn't have any kind of uplifting message. It's shot dark, it looks dark, it's an ugly mentality. What is to gain from that? It's like watching a movie with people being burned alive or tortured. I do not understand the appeal. Not anymore. Not sure I ever found it appealing. Other factors were responsible for my interest in films like Brain Damage.
Those other factors are asides that can be carried over, leaving the trash behind.
My final thought is that there is entirely too much inspired whackiness in Brain Damage to fully slag it off as a failure film. It's not. It's clever, well made, and yeah, I guess parts of it are well written, sure. It looks great on blu ray, and the music, though dopey, does have a certain something going for it. Maybe it's because it sounds like something anyone could play on an old Yamaha DX-7. Frank Henenlotter may be a twisted, line sniffing old man, but he has gotten my money, so at least he's a decent businessman.