baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (The Phantom) (05/30/90)
BRAIN DEAD
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)
As the Phantom mentioned last week in his review of the unfortunate
TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, the film so disappointed and disillusioned him
that he was forced to seek solace in the arms of the Criterion Center,
New York's sleaziest legitimate theater. Whenever he comes to believe
that films -- and especially horror films -- have become too mainstream,
too middle-of-the-road, too tame and too, well, boring, he checks out
the Criterion, conveniently located in the heart of Times Square (home
to more sleaze than the boards of a dozen Texas savings and loans).
He had quite a selection of choice films from which to choose, and
although several of the ninja and revenge films seemed to have much to
recommend them, he chose BRAIN DEAD instead because he felt it so aptly
described the sad excuse for a horror film to which he had just been
subjected.
So imagine his surprise when he found that not only was BRAIN DEAD
a cut above the average horror film (and at least three cuts above the
cut-rate TALES), but that it was a superb example of the genre, a
little-known and limited-release gem in the rough of big budget and big
name bungles.
BRAIN DEAD is good for the same reasons that TALES was not: for
one, someone actually sat down and wrote an intelligent script. For
another, that person was Charles Beaumont, one of the original writers
for the "Twilight Zone" series. And finally, BRAIN DEAD was directed
with style and confidence by Adam Simon, a director with whom the
Phantom is not familiar, but one whom he hopes will continue working in
the field. The last director who so impressed the Phantom was John
McNaughton, who brought us the incredible HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL
KILLER; before that, the Phantom would have to go back to Sam Raimi and
his equally stylish and compelling EVIL DEAD series.
Such directors are quite obviously few and far between. Now, lest
the Phantom raise his phan's hopes too high, let him say that while
BRAIN DEAD is quite good, it isn't really in the same class as either
McNaughton or Raimi's masterpieces. BRAIN DEAD is stylish, it's fairly
original, it's well written, but it does have problems.
Before we get to the problems, though, the Phantom will attempt a
brief plot synopsis: "It's a dream, isn't it?"
That's about it. Throughout the film, it's never quite clear what
is and isn't a dream; Beaumont and Simon lead us on for ten or fifteen
minutes at a time, only to confound our expectations time and time
again. The protagonist appears to be involved in brain research --
particularly in the mapping of specific thoughts, actions and
personality traits to specific portions of the brain -- and he's called
upon to help a mathematician who was hospitalized after he cracked
during a particularly difficult equation -- and one that evidently would
lead to a conclusion of unspeakable violence (this is implied by the
mushroom cloud drawn just to the right of the equals sign). In fact,
the corporation for which he works has the blackboard containing the
equation, but they don't have the right side -- just the left, and a
paranoid schizophrenic who used to be their star researcher.
Of course, this theme has been touched upon by countless horror
films in the past (most popularly in the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
series); its roots go back to the stellar DEAD OF NIGHT in 1945, a film
that predated the "Twilight Zone" television series by 20 years and
provided the inspiration for many of its best episodes (the Phantom is
indebted to Brandi Weed, who reminded him of this wonderful classic --
those phans who enjoy classic Zone episodes will be more than pleased by
this very early horror effort). But rarely has the theme of dream vs.
reality been carried quite so far, and for so much of a film, as it has
been in BRAIN DEAD.
In the Phantom's eyes, this is what makes BRAIN DEAD a cut above
the average horror film. As he mentioned in his review of TALES FROM
THE DARKSIDE, most horror films suffer from an excess of exposition --
the writers and directors spend much too much time on perfectly ordinary
scenes of perfectly ordinary people doing perfectly ordinary things in
the hopes that these scenes will provide dramatic contrast with the
horror to come. Sometimes this works -- HALLOWEEN and NIGHT OF THE
LIVING DEAD come to mind -- but most often it doesn't, and instead it
creates the "7 minutes of tedium" scenario that we've grown to loathe
but live with in the interminable FRIDAY THE 13TH SERIES: for every
killing or suspenseful scene, there is a corresponding seven minutes of
pointless dialogue and exposition ("Where's Sally?" "I don't know."
"Is she in the barn?" "Maybe she's in the basement." "Should we go
down there?" and on and on, ad infinitum and ad nauseam) that do
nothing but help us bide our time until the screenplay gets back to
Jason, his hockey mask, and his impressive array of gardening
implements.
But in BRAIN DEAD Beaumont and Simon have all but done away with
the "curse of the 7-minute-space filler"; throughout the film even the
blind alleys are interesting, and we spend so much time trying to figure
out whether what we're seeing is "real" that we barely have enough time
to catch our breath and pat ourselves on the back for figuring things
out before we're sent off into still another dream (or, as is more
frequently the case, another nightmare).
This, too, is one of the best things about BRAIN DEAD: whereas most
horror films use dreams and dream sequences and the contrast between
dreams and reality in a cheap and exploitative way, Beaumont and Simon
do an admirable job of exploring the theme. Throughout the film, they
avoid most of the more sensationalistic and shocking aspects of the
"dream within a dream" sequences: unlike in, say, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF
IN LONDON or CARRIE, people don't suddenly wake up beside dead people or
thrust their hands through the six feet of dirt covering their coffins.
While those kinds of thrills are fun, they have to be taken in
moderation -- if in the ELM STREET series Freddy could appear at will
anywhere at any time, there wouldn't be much point to having chase
sequences, and the films themselves would be almost wholly without
suspense. Instead, the dreams in BRAIN DEAD go on for tens of minutes
at a time, and this turns out to be a much more effective and disturbing
technique than the quick scares that comprise most horror films.
Showing decomposing corpses is easy; having "reality" degenerate slowly
but surely into the impossible landscape of a nightmare is difficult.
But it's also very effective, and the Phantom thinks that it will be
much more greatly appreciated by true phans of the genre.
Unfortunately, in structuring a film like this they also break one
of the cardinal rules of the game: continuity. By the time BRAIN DEAD
nears its end, we feel somewhat cheated because we find that there is no
way to keep the "story" straight in our minds. The Phantom wished he'd
saved his FIRST POWER score card; there are so many false leads and
blind alleys in BRAIN DEAD that he felt somewhat frustrated by the time
his popcorn ran out (though in truth that might have been the real
reason for his frustration).
For some, this may be what ultimately sinks the film. The Phantom
believes that he is better than most at suspending disbelief and
accepting whatever premise with which the filmmakers wish to proceed,
but even he started having difficulty with BRAIN DEAD toward the end.
However, those phans who stick it out will be amply rewarded: unlike
run-of-the-mill horror films made by run-of-the-mill directors with
dreams of sequels dancing in their heads, BRAIN DEAD has a real,
believable and satisfying ending. As he unstuck his sneakers from the
floor and left the theater, the Phantom caught himself thinking that
with the exception of the exceptionally literate HENRY, it had been a
long time since he had seen a film -- horror or otherwise -- that had an
ending other than "trap/catch the bad guy/zombie/Russian sub commander
and kill him/disintegrate him/repatriate him." For all its faults and
sometimes faulty logic, BRAIN DEAD has a real and reasonable ending, and
that, too, puts it a cut above the competition.
So, phans, on the whole the Phantom highly recommends this one.
Alas, BRAIN DEAD seems to be in very limited release -- so much so that
he never saw a newspaper advertisement for it -- so phans who wish to
see it will probably have to wait until it makes its Blockbusters debut.
That's especially a shame in this case, since BRAIN DEAD boasts some
stunning cinematography and clever camera work that will likely be lost
on the small screen. (And yes, that last sentence does set off even the
Phantom's alliteration alert, but thank you so much for noticing....)
: The Phantom
: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
: {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgart