Brain Dead - Wannabe 'Lynchian'

Nearly thirty years after its release, I've only just come across 'Brain Dead' (no, not the early Peter Jackson movie) - a film starring two of my favourite Bills (Pullman and Paxton).  Despite them possibly being the ONLY Bills I know in the acting industry, I was surprised that I'd never heard of this film before.  However, now I've watched it, I can see why it's been forgotten.  I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't really get behind it fully.

I checked out some of the other reviews online and it gets a hell of a lot of 1 star ratings and people use phrases like 'You have to be brain dead to like Brain Dead.' I don't agree that it's quite that bad, but it's probably not worth the watch.  It's about here in a review that I try and do a brief plot synopsis, however I'm not entirely sure what the film was about even after watching it.  I figured that Bill Pullman played a scientist who experiments on people's brains after they've been removed from someone's body after their death.  However, there are also times when he experiments on people's brains while they're still in people's heads!  Paxton, on the other hand, plays a (delightfully!) slimy corporate executive.

I think it's fair to say that there are definite elements of the 'horror' genre in here, however I've seen it listed as 'science fiction' in some places, too.  Despite its minimal budget (it really is no blockbuster!) there are actually a couple of rather disgusting scenes involving probes entering a sort of sensitive organ (clue as to which on in the film's title!).  Although, rather than being an outright horror movie, it leans more towards what I always consider to be 'Lynchian' horror (i.e. a David 'Twin Peaks/Mullholland Drive/Lost Highway' Lynch film or TV show).  Weird things start happening and the lines between what's real and what's imaginary become blurred.

Lynch does this really well and, even if you don't understand what he's getting at, you can enjoy one hell of a stylish experience.  However, 'Brain Dead' is not directed by David Lynch.  Therefore, what you're left with is a bit of a messy tale that whats to be really deep and thought-provoking and just ends up being... well, a mess.  It's not helped that, even though it was released in 1990, it feels like they used the cheapest video camera ever to shoot it on.  The film itself just looks incredibly cheap and the most of the soundtrack and incidental music feels like elevator music and probably public domain to begin with.

The actors do their best with what they're given and, if you really enjoy total mind-bending tales where you don't know what's real or imaginary, you could get something out of this.  However, if you do like those sorts of films, then you've definitely seen better (probably from David Lynch, but also Cronenberg has done similar mainstream/cult offerings), so I'd probably stick to those.  Ironically, only seven years later Bill Pullman went on to star in Lynch's 'Lost Highway.' Although that divided audiences and was also hard to follow, it was a visual joy to watch and the sheer brilliance of direction gave it that creepy, menacing vibe which 'Brain Dead' tries for, but fails.  It's not a one star movie, but it's probably best to gloss over in the scale of things.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back