THE BRAIN (1988) (Scream Factory Blu-ray Review)

THE BRAIN (1988) 

Label: Scream Factory

Region Code: A

Rating: R

Duration: 94 Minutes

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: Edward Hunt 

Cast: Tom Bresnahan, Cynthia Preston, David Gale, George Buza, Christine Kossak, Bret Pearson, Susannah Hoffmann, Kenneth McGregor, Carol Lazare

When the high school prankster Jim Majelewski (Tom Breznahan, Mirror Mirror) blows up the school's bathroom after flushing a bar of pure sodium down the toilet, showering the principal in toilet water, he is sent to Psychological Research Institute (PRI) for behavioral analysis. The institute is run by Dr. Blake (David Gale, Re-Animator) who also hosts a popular nightly TV broadcast, a show ironically called "Independent Thinkers" , a self-help styled show that is really a transmission for a mind-slaving alien brain that Blake keeps in a tank at the institute.

Dr. Blake attempts to subject Jim to the Brain's mind-slavery but he resists, we learn that people who are able to resist it's alien mind-magic begin suffering hallucinations. Jim's hallucinations are more pleasing than some, imagining a nude woman standing before him. Earlier in the film we see a suburban teen girl at home envisioning tentacles emerging from her bedroom walls, and her blood streaming from her teddy bears eye, before killing her mother in a hallucinatory rage and leaping out a window to her death.

Jim resistance to the mind-control upsets Dr. Blake, who attempts to keep him imprisoned at the institute, but he manages to escape with the help of his girlfriend Janet (Cynthia Preston, Pin), who then set out to stop the alien brain and Dr. Blake before they mind-slave the whole town, but Blake is framing Jim for a series of murders so the odds are stacked against him.

The Brain (1988) was directed by Canadian filmmaker Ed Hunt (Bloody Birthday), and it's a fun throwback to the 50's sci-fi/creature features about killer-brain monsters, along the lines of Fiend Without a Face (1958) or 
The Brain from Planet Arous (1957), but
enhanced with some cool-looking 80's practical special effects work. That big alien brain is pretty awesome, it's a bit rubbery in places, but it works for me, looking at times like a demonic version of those 80's Madballs toys. It's well lit with some strobing lights which give it the illusion of pulsating, managing to chomp down on a few hapless victims throughout the film, with a little bit of bloodshed, but not overly gory.  

Actor Tom Breznahan who plays our teen hero is a bit of a cocky dick, which seemed a strange choice for the hero, but it makes for a fun watch as he smarmily navigates his way through this strange, maple-blooded sci-fi/horror movie. Re-Animator vet David Gale shows up as the evil Dr. Blake, and much like Dr. Hill from Re-Animator he eventuality ends up with a severed head, talk about being typecast! He gets one of the better lines in the film, after his assistant is eaten by the brain he says, "now that;s food for thought". One of the more menacing characters in the film is an orderly named Verna played by George Buza, who looks like a bearded homicidal maniac from the get-go, so when he shows up with an ax later in the film its no real surprise, he's got one of those demented faces that you will not soon forget. 

The overall vibe of the film is semi-ironic and a bit campy, it's all very tongue-in-cheek, but not over-cooked with humor. Director Ed Hunt absolutely knew what sort of film he was making here and he has a lot of fun with the tropes and the silliness of it all, which makes The Brain (1988) a hell of a fun film to watch.    

Audio/Video: Killer brain cheese-fest The Brain (1988) arrives on Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, and it looks pretty stellar for this low-budget Canadian film. Grain is well-managed, colors are vibrant and nicely saturated and the source is in excellent shape. The image has some good depth and clarity throughout, with fine detail showcasing clothing textures and facial features, in addition to the highlighting some of the rubberiness of the alien-brain prop.

Audio on the disc comes by way of a solid English DTS-HD MA stereo mix, there's a tiny bit of hiss that pops up from time to time, but overall it's a small consideration, the score from composer Paul Zaza (My Bloody Valentine) sound nice in the mix.

This is another instance of Scream Factory really packing on the extras for a non-Collector's Edition release, which I always appreciate. There are three brand new audio commentaries on this sucker, the first is with director Ed Hunt, a second with composer Paul Zaza, and a third with star Tom Bresnahan.

There are also about 37-min worth of new interviews with actors Cynthia Preston and George Buza, plus art director Michael Borthwick. Preston speaks about her early catalog modeling career which lead into acting, her experience with with Ed Hunt and the fandom of the film. Buza, who has a long career in voice acting, including a stint as the voice of Beast from the 90's animated X-Men TV series, speaks about getting into theater for the love of girls, which is a motivation I hear a lot on these extras. He speaks about his early career, working for director Hunt and going into detail about the production and the long hours required to make the film. Assistant art director Michael Borthwick (Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe) talks about his early love of monster film, working on this film, and rescuing some of the props from the dumpster, one of which is proudly on display behind him during the interview. 

There's also an 11-min appreciation of the film by super-fan John Campopiano, the co-director of the excellent Unearthed and Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary (2015) doc, who tells of how he discovered the film and fell in love with it, travelling from his home in Rhode Island to Canada to find the shooting locations, his correspondence with the cast and crew, and showing off his collection of The Brain memorabilia, including script pages, posters and home video releases from around the world. Extras are finished up with a still gallery of behind-the-scenes stuff, with lots of great shots of the the Brain being sculpted, painted and prepared for shots.

The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a 2-sided sleeve of artwork, the a-side is the original movie poster and VHS artwork for the film, which is also featured on the disc. The reverse in an image of actor David Gale's severed head from the film, though I do wish they would have used the alternate foreign market movie poster that I've seen for the reverse art option, an illustration of a brain hovering over a suburban neighborhood.  

Special Features:

- NEW 4K Scan of the Original Negative

- NEW Audio Commentary with director Ed Hunt

- NEW Audio Commentary with composer Paul Zaza

- NEW Audio Commentary with actor Tom Bresnahan

- NEW Canada on the Mind – an interview with actress Cynthia Preston (11 min) HD

- NEW From Monster Kid to Monster Man – an interview with actor George Buza (13 min) HD 

- NEW Brain Art – an interview with assistant art director Michael Borthwick (13 min) HD

- NEW Food for Thought: A Love Letter to The Brain (11 min) HD

- Still Gallery (4 min) HD

The Brain (1988) is a semi-cheesy totally fun sci-fi/killer brain film with all the 80's trimmings, fun stuff from start to finish. Scream Factory's release looks fantastic and has load of extra goodies for fans of the film, highly recommended - here's hoping there's more Ed Hunt films headed to Blu-ray soon!

The Notorious CATHY'S CURSE (1977) makes Blu-ray debut from Severin Films!

CATHY'S CURSE (1977) 

The Infamous ‘Canuxploitation’ Classic

Now Fully Restored For The First Time Ever! 

On April 11th, Severin Films will possess the souls of genre fans with the first ever fully restored presentation of Canadian nightmare generator CATHY’S CURSE. Fans can now experience one of the strangest EXORCIST/OMEN/CARRIE-inspired grindhouse hits like never before, transferred in 2k from recently-found film elements and featuring revealing new Extras with long-lost star Randi Allen and producer/director/co-writer Eddy Matalon.

Forget what you’ve seen in blurry bootlegs and crappy budget packs. This first- ever restoration of the depraved Canadian shocker is being hailed as the genre rediscovery of the year: In 1947, a young girl is roasted alive in a car accident. Thirty years later, her grown brother returns to their childhood home with his mentally unstable wife and sweet daughter Cathy. But when the dead aunt’s vengeful spirit possesses the child, it will unleash an unnerving nightmare of creepy mediums, demonic dolls, and plenty of sick ‘70s foul-mouthed moppet mayhem.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Director’s Cut
- Alternate U.S. Release Cut
- Tricks And Treats: An Interview with Director Eddy Matalon
- Cathy And Mum: Interview with Actress Randi Allen and Costume Designer Joyce Allen
- Audio Commentary on U.S. Cut by BirthMoviesDeath critic Brian Collins and Filmmaker Simon Barrett
- Introduction to Cinematic Void Screening At American Cinematheque by BirthMoviesDeath Critic Brian Collins
- Theatrical Trailer

DVD Review: THINGS (1989)

THINGS (1989)

Label: Intervision Picture Corp

Release Date: July 12th 2011

Region Code: Region 0 NTSC

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 85 mins

Video: 1.33:1 Fullframe

Audio: Dolby Digital Mono 2.0

Director: Andrew Jordan

Cast: Barry J. Gillis, Amber Lynn, Bruce Roach, Doug Bunston

Tagline: Things, a Movie that Defines What Cult Really is...

That must be some strong weed up in Canada and it must have been particularly potent in the late 1980's when director Andrew Jordan and writer/actor Barry J. Gillis got together and filmed the shot-on-Super 8mm horror flick THINGS. This film is the kind of mind-numbing epic that stoner gore-hounds dream up while smokin' weed, eatin' shrooms and drinkin' some Molsens after watching Sam Raimi's EVIL DEAD (1981) at 2am on a Saturday night. Most metalheads would likely forget these nutty bong dreams by the crack of dawn but not these two, no way, instead they created Canada's first SOV horror film, and were still gawking at it 22 years later in bewildering awe.

This nightmarish slice of Canuxploitation begins with, what else, a nightmare as dreamt by Doug (Doug Bunston) involving a naked woman wearing a devil's mask whom he asks to bare his child. She then offers him a bassinet with a hideous creature inside and he awakens screaming. Turns out Doug and his wife Susan (Patricia Sadler) are having difficulty conceiving a child to the point that they submit to the strange experimentation of Dr. Lucas. The procedure is a success and his wife is now pregnant with child though bed ridden with a debilitating sickness, the stress is getting to the father to be, thus the aforementioned child birthing nightmares. Now we're introduced to two Canadian hosers, Doug's brother Don (Barry J. Gillis, WICKED WORLD) and his beardy friend Fred (Bruce Roach, SPIRIT OF THE SEASON) whom arrive at Doug's secluded house for some brewskies. Doug doesn't answer the door so the two let themselves in and dig into some beers and eats from the fridge. Don discovers a book and a tape recorder in the freezer, yeah, you heard right - in the freezer. Don't ask why, just know that it's awesome. The book is a memoir of sorts by infamous occultist Aliester Crowley. As Don pages through the book he observes "oh, the diagrams are SO sick" which we of course never see. The recorder contains a cassette of weird low-end  chanting or incantations, Fred jokingly exclaims "turn it off, I think I'm being possessed, arrrggghhh", it's a clear reference to EVIL DEAD but it's quickly forgotten and never revisited. Doug comes outta nowhere and joins the dudes for some beers and cheese sandwiches. This is the major jumping off point in the film and I have a theory that either the American cheese slices or bread contained mold spores that drive the trio out of their minds (or maybe it's the insect they stuck in Don's sandwich, those bastards). Everything that happens from here I think could be attributed to a bad acid trip of hallucinatory insanity ending in one of them killing the others. I'm sure that's over thinking this film but see for yourself and let me know what you think.

Later that night Doug's ailing wife calls out in pain from the next room and Doug enters just as a toothy creature or "thing" crawls out of her abdomen, very much like ALIEN (1979), killing her. Doug's expressions and howls of pain during and after the birthing of the "thing" are unintentionally hilarious (par for the course so far), it's not helped by the poorly post-sync'd dialogue which really adds to the film's surrealistic disconnect. Soon more of these "things" appear and the family dog bites it in the shower, then Fred up and vanishes without a trace. Don suggests he's been whisked away to "the 3rd, 4th and 5th dimension" while Doug offers spontaneous combustion, or maybe he just couldn't get any more time off from work to film his scenes, who knows. The remaining two take on the insectoids armed with a flashlight, a mallet, chainsaw, a power drill and some seriously, awesomely bad dialogue and frightful acting. It's pure SOV insanity, it's all rather incomprehensible and felt to me like what watching a horror film through the eyes of someone with a diminished mental capacity might be like, it's weird and just don't make no sense.

There's also some intercut footage of porn star Amber Lynn (EVILS OF THE NIGHT) appearing as a TV news anchor reporting on copyright issues pertaining to George A. Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), a weird procedure involving Dr. Lucas's life-prolonging experiments and a missing person's case involving a Fred and Doug who may or may not be the film's protagonists. What passes as a TV newsroom in this film is pretty fantastic, quite a sight. Speaking of Dr. Lucas there's some odd cuts to his private practice where he busy ripping the eyes and tongues from patients, and amputating a hand with a paper-cutter, most of the film's gore comes from these brief sequences.

Not surprisingly the acting in the film is pretty  gawd awful, stilted, weirdly delivered, and again, not helped at all by the post-sync'd ADR or the just plain bad dialogue. You know there's a problem when the best performance comes from a fully clothed porn star. Barry J. Gillis's line delivery is awesome though, it's like Doug McKenzie's retarded brother, fun times. Visually the films is a surreal mess of fuzzy red and blue lighting, low-budget creepiness, and cheapie gore effects. The pacing is like a never ending nightmare. It has an that odd dream logic to it, not too dissimilar to SLEDGEHAMMER (1983), a fucked-up nightmare where you find yourself in a weird places but can't recall how you got there or what's the Hell is happening, it's very much like that. The film ends with a title card proclaiming "You Have Just Experienced THINGS.", indeed, you watched it, you can't unwatch it. Now go forth and infect others with the video-sickness that is THINGS.

One wonders how a film so stupefyingly bad got not just made by some Canadian stoners but at some point distributed on VHS and then 20+ years later gets a sweet DVD release stuffed with glorifying bonus content at a time when THE DECLINE OF THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION PART II: THE METAL YEARS (1988) is still not on DVD. Okay, maybe that's bad example, or perhaps not, these would make a complimentary double feature actually, but you know what I mean. Well, it's thanks to the outsider cinema saviors at Intervision Picture Corp. These cats brought forth SLEDGEHAMMER from the VHS collector's crypt to DVD and are doing it again with THINGS. This gives me hope that in twenty years time that Intervision or some other future Criterion level purveyor of schlock cinema will give Thomas Berdinski's THE ITALIAN ZOMBIE MOVIE a sweet HD release.

DVD: Intervision's presents the film in it's original 4x3 fullframe aspect ratio in Dolby Digital mono with no subtitles. It looks like a cheapie late-80's film shot on Super 8 under what could generously be described as poor shooting conditions, there's shit lighting, crap sound and a real point n' shoot approach to cinematography. It's looks pretty abysmal, very flat, but it's not too shabby when put up against some other SOV titles. The dialogue and effects are post-synced with tons of awesome foley sound effects, it sounds pretty terrible but I do actually enjoy the sound design of the film, it's eerily effective, rudimentary but effective.

Like Intervision's SLEDGEHAMMER DVD before it this slice of outsider cinema is given a deluxe set of extras that may outshine the feature film. I have Criterion Collection titles on my shelves with less supplemental materials than what's crammed onto this disc. Two commentaries, one a drunken and lively commentary from Director Andrew Jordan and Stars Barry J. Gillis, Jan W. Reed and Doug Burston in which it's revealed that the naked woman in the devil mask at the start of the film is a prostitute they hired. There's also a audio viewing party commentary from The Cinefamily crew, fun stuff with some great insights into the film and other SOV titles and occasionally just silence as they are dumbfounded by what transpires onscreen. Four testimonials of the film from Tobe Hooper (LIFEFORCE), Jason Eisner and Rob Cotterill (HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN) who film their segment in the corner of a kitchen (very appropriate) with some THINGS-esque red lighting, Cunuxploitation.com creator Paul Corupe, Thing-ite Joey Izzo and two dudes from Bleeding Skull with some fun THINGS worthy effects and audio effects. There's a 20th Anniversary Cast and Crew Reunion which was recorded on a public access channel TV show apparently, very odd. A behind-the-scenes featurette featuring footage of pornstar Amber Lynn doing her anchor woman character from the film as she suffers through technical issues while she talks about the director of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, Fred Lincoln, in actuality it's Wes Craven. Lincoln actually plays "Weasel" in the film, and apparently was quite a prolific adult film director including a couple of FRIDAY THE 13th parodies, too. There's a collection of vintage TV appearances by Barry J. Gillis promoting the film on Canadian TV, at one point it is mentioned that the film cost $350,000 which made me choke on my beer a bit, in actuality I hear it's more around $30,000.  Also on the disc is the EVIL ISLAND investor reel made for $200 to attract investors that apparently never showed. The extras are finished off with some Intervision trailers including the forthcoming German SOV film THE BURNING MOON (1997) which looks splat-tastically brilliant, can't wait for that one.

Special Features:

- Audio Commentary with director Andrew Jordan and stars Barry J. Gillis, Jan W. Pachul, and Doug Bunston

- Audio Viewing Party with the Cinefamily

- Testinmonials on THINGS: interviews with

Tobe Hooper (3:36) 4:3

Jason Eisener and Rob Cotterill (5:19) 16x9

Canuxploitation.com creator Paul Corupe (6:39) 16x9

Bleeding Skull's Joseph A. Ziemba and Dun Budnik (2:15) 4x3

- THINGS-ite Joey Izzo (3:57) 4:3

- THINGS 20th Anniversary Cast and Crew Reunion (16:20) 4x3

- Behind the Scenes with Amber Lynn (10:36) 4x3

- Vintage Barry J. Gillis TV Appearances (5:47) 4x3

- THINGS trailer (2:57) 4x3

- EVIL ISLAND investor reel (2:06) 4x3

- Trailers for THE BURNING MOON (0:54), and THE SECRET LIFE OF JEFFREY DAHMER (4:00)

Verdict: Weird, fucked-up, and terrible but I say worth a watch - at least once. This was a chore to watch first time around but let me say, after watching the features I had a whole new appreciation for the film. That's what I love about the Intervision titles, they're not good films in the traditional sense, but they fall into that so-bad-it's-good category that's a whole other level of cinematic satisfaction. I can't tell you this belongs on your DVD shelf but if I came over to your house and saw Andrew Jordan's THINGS sitting there next to John Carpenter THE THINGS  I would definitely watch it with you and have a few beers and cheese sandwiches. It's a trash film, but y'know what, I once found a TDK recordable cassette with both ST. VITUS and PENTAGRAM's eponymous album's on it, it was in the trash outside my apartment and that shit was awesome. Up next from Intervision is the super-gore-tastic German SOV horror THE BURNING MOON and I can't wait. 
2 outta 5

  MENU SCREEN CAPS