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!

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1989) / BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003) (Umbrella Blu-ray Review)

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1989) / BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003) 

2-Disc Collector Edition 
Beyond Genres: Worlds on Films Vol. 2 

Label: Umbrella Entertainment 
Region: Region B
Rating: MA
Duration: 97 Minutes (Bride)/ 96 Minutes (Beyond) 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo (Bride), English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 (Beyond) with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) (Bride), 1080p HD Widescreen (1.77:1) (Beyond) 
Director: Brian Yuzna
Cast: Jeffrey Cobs, Bruce Abbot, Claude Earl Jones, David Gale, Fabiana Udenio, Mel Stewart (Bride) / Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Santiago Segura, Simon Andreau (Beyond)

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1989) 
The events of Brian Yuzna's lunatic sequel to Re-animator begin eight months after the events of the first movie with both Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs, From Beyond) and Dr. Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott, Bad Dreams) working as medics in Peru where a bloody civil war is raging around them. The steady stream fresh corpses proves ideal for West and his continued experiments in reviving the dead with his green-glowing re-agent serum. When the medical camp is overrun by enemy soldiers the duo are forced to abandon their South American endeavor and return to Arkham, Massachusetts where they resume their former careers as doctors at Miskatonic University Hospital, where Dan seems content in making terminal patients comfortable during their finals days, while West just sort of wrings his hands with delight waiting for them to pass, at which point he can use their fresh corpses as test subjects for his coveted re-agent serum.   

Both Dan and Herbert West live together in a house on the property of the local cemetery which seems appropriate, though the two once again make for combative housemates, not exactly seeing eye to eye on all things. West is conveniently able to pilfer body parts from the Miskatonic University morgue, which is where he finds Dr. Hill's severed head and Meg's heart among other medical artifacts saved from the Miskatonic Massacre, Meg being Dan's former love interest from the first movie. West steals the heart and uses it to coerce Dan into helping him create a body from human parts, which when finished they will give life to by using the re-agent serum. This experimentation takes place in the basement of the home, a space that shares a wall with a cemetery crypt next door, which is where West conveniently disposes of his failed creations, which will come back to haunt him during the final moments of the movie.

Meanwhile, back at Miskatonic University the aptly named Dr. Graves (Mel Stuart, Dead Heat) has himself become obsessed with the work of the late Dr. Hill (David Gale, Ritual), and while using some of the re-agent serum found at the crime scene from the first movie is able to re-animate Hill's head, who then sets about exacting revenge on West, beginning by using his diabolical hypnotic powers to force Grave to sew a pair of bat wings to the sides of his severed head, which enables him to fly around! This has always brought to mind the winged skull mascot of the thrash band Overkill, and if the notion of a bat-winged severed head flying around seems a bit on the silly side that is because it certainly is, and it doesn't look much better than it might sound either. While the first movie was darkly comedic this one amps the comedy up quite a bit and goes right off the deep end of demented.

Also figuring into the story is police officer Lt. Leslie Chapham (Claude Earl Jones, Evilspeak) who harasses both Dan and Herbert whom he holds responsible for the re-animation of his dead wife nine months earlier. As Dan and West were the only survivors of the Miskatonic Massacre he knows that deep down they had something to do with it. His quest for deranged justice results in him becoming one of Dr. Hill's re-animated minions, joining the ranks of the formerly undead. This time around Dan has a new love interest, another doctor named Francesca Danelli played by Fabiana Udenio (Alotta Fagina from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)), her inclusion seems a bit jammed-in here but it's not ruinous.

The movie comes to a head with the completion of their Bride, a corpse stitched together from various cadavers, with the heart of Dan's beloved Meg within it, they inject it with re-agent and the re-animated bride arises, just as the winged head of Dr. Hill and his re-animated minions lay siege to the house, leading up to a fevered finale with a cat fight between the Bride and Francesca, but when Dan rejects the affections of the creature she rips out her own heart and begins to fall apart quite literally. There's some very cool Screaming Mad George created freaky looking creatures that have been kept hidden away in the crypt which come after West he and the others take refuge from Dr. Hill's mind-controlled minions in the crypt, which brings this weird and gory sequel to a proper close. This sequel solid, maybe a bit on the absurd side, with more comedic and slapstick moments than the Stuart Gordon original, but a worthy and gory entry with a nicely deranged performance from Jeffrey Combs as the beloved Dr. Herbert West, a sweet slice of '80s gore cinema loaded with humor and nicely shot. 

Audio/Video: Bride of Re-animator (1989) arrives on region B locked Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment, containing both the R-rated and unrated versions - and looking to be from the same existing source as used by Arrow Video for their Region A release, framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The image has a healthy looking grain field with good color saturation and nice looking blacks. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 audio, a well-balanced track with good separation, with Richard Band's score coming through with some nice depth and fidelity, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Extras fro Bride begin with three audio commentaries for the unrated cut of the film, the first with director Brian Yuzna moderated by David Gregory of Severin Films, the director right from the start reveals the influence of schlock-master William Castle on the movie with the floating head of Dr. Hill. I have not listened to the commentary with Yuzna, Combs and the special effects team yet, but the commentary with Combs and Abbott is a great listen, the two have a great chemistry onscreen and on the commentary, coming across as humorous, the two are always questioning the why and how of the absurd sequel.  

The disc also has two Severin Films produced featurettes, beginning with the 10-minute 'Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-animator' with the director remembering the origins of the sequel, unused story idea,making Society before getting to the sequel, the hurried start to the movie and selling the movie to Troma for distribution under the banner of 52nd Street Films, in addition to the critical and fan reception to the movie. 

The 15-minute 'Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-animator' features interviews with the many talented special effects creators who worked on the movie including Robert Kurtzman of KNB, Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin, John Buechler and Brian Yuzna, these are great, I always love hearing about the creation of these '80s practical effects, it begins with Yuzna recalling the work on Stuart Gordon's Dolls, and is peppered with loads of behind-the-scenes footage.  

Other extras on the set included an archival making of featurette offering some great behind-he-scenes footage of the movie being made along with the set-up of the great gore gags, eight minutes of deleted scenes, a theatrical trailer, and a 12-minute radio play of the H.P Lovecraft source material. 

Bride of Re-Animator Special Features:
- Audio commentary with Brian Yuzna (Unrated Cut) 
- Audio Commentary with Brian Yuzna, star Jeffrey Combs, visual effects supervisor Tom (Unrated Cut) 
Rainone and the effects team including John Buechler, Mike Deak, Bob Kurtzman, Howard Berger and Screaming Mad George
- Audio Commentary with stars Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott (Unrated Cut) 
- Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-animator – brand new featurette in which the director looks back at the making of the first Re-animator sequel (10 Mins) HD
- Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-animator – Brand new FX featurette with a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Robert Kurtzman of KNB, Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin and John Buechler (15 Mins) HD
- Getting Ahead in Horror – archive making-of featurette (24 Mins) HD
- Deleted Scenes (10 Mins) HD 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) HD 
- Behind the Scenes: Special Effects Artists (15 Mins)  
- Dark Adventure Radio Presents: Herbert West: Re-Animator (12 min) 

BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003) 
Beyond Re-Animator opens up with a wonderful pre-credit sequence with a pair of kids having a sleepover in their backyard telling scary stories to each other in a tent, they go back inside the house to give one of the boy's sister a hard time when the trio are attacked by one of Herbert Wests re-animated corpses, apparently having wandered in from across the street. It's a stunning looking corpse that is missing it's lower jaw with it's tongue hanging out. It kills the teen girl and then begins drinking milk straight from the carton before a cop shows up and blows it away. The traumatized kid watches as the cops arrest Dr. West (Jeffrey Combs, From Beyond) and put him in the back of a police cruiser, then finding a syringe full of the glowing green re-agent and the opening credits begin to roll. 

Thirteen years later we catch-up with West in prison, still working away on his unnatural quest to defy death, but in the time passed he's begun working on a new key component of the re-animation process, something he calls "Nano-Plasmic Energy", an energy that can be extracted from the brain and stored in a glass capsule/fuse that can then be transferred into the body of another re-animated corpse, which when used along with re-agent can theoretically restore the re-animated to a more natural state, and not one of the near mindless zombie-types usually associated with the serum. As he's in prison his experiments have been rudimentary and relegated to the rat population, and he has no re-agent serum to further test his theories further, but all that's about to change. 

A new prison doctor arrives and requests that Dr. West be assigned to the sick ward as his assistant, it turns out that the new doc Howard Phillips (Jason Barry, Titanic) was the kid whose sister was murdered by one of West's creations thirteen year's earlier, He's been obsessed with the Dr.'s work ever since and the two begin almost immediately working on a new batch of re-agent, while also trying out that syringe of re-agent the kids kept all those years ago, it's degraded some but the results are as problematic as you might expect. 

This movie is a bit of a departure from the previous entries, gone is Bruce Abbott as Dan Cain, West's former partner turning state's evidence against him, and it's set in a prison so it has a different feel about it, also being shot in Spain but set in America. The tone may be different, but Jeffrey Combs is still the quirky over-serious doc we've loved for years, and Howard Phillips makes for a good stand-in for the Dan Cain-type character for West. The new doc even has a tragic love-interest by way of gorgeous local reporter named Laura (Elsa Pataky, Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt) who arrives at the prison to do a story about the prison and it's sadistic Warden Brando (Simón Andreu, The Blood Spattered Bride), who turns his eye onto Laura, which ends with her violent death when she refuses his come-ons. Of course this leads to Phillips ill-advisedly using the re-agent on his doomed lover, which only further damns everyone involved with the expected results when the prison breaks out into a riot, with the re-agent being spread around in liberal doses.

    
The special effects in this one are realized by Screamin’ Mad George (Society) and look very good, we get a handful of re-agent zombies, including a rat-like  variant, a man cut in half, the jawless zombie from the beginning of the film, tit-munching and some digital effects that aren't too shabby for the time period, mostly relegated top small touches, but it looks like all the gore is practical, so that's cool. 

The movie is third in the series and is last in terms of quality for the franchise, the story is an interesting examination of the evolution of the re-animation process and there's some keen practical effects but the acting is a bit uneven and the tone is inconsistent, but I will say this gets better with each consecutive watch. 

Audio/Video: Beyond Re-Animator (2003) makes it's worldwide HD debut from Umbrella Entertainment on a region B locked Blu-ray in 1080p HD framed in 1.77:1 widescreen. The image on this one is problematic in that it's been heavily DNR'd, looking overly smooth with the fine detail being lost, with facial detail appearing slightly waxy. Colors look decent but there's an overall softness and lack of depth combined with the grainless image that just makes for a lackluster HD presentation. Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 that sounds very good, there are no issues with distortion or hiss, and the Xavier Capellas score heavily references Richard Band's scores for the first two films and gets some nice depth to it, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Onto the extras we get that have appeared on previous home video versions from Lionsgate in the U.S. and Arrow Video in the U.K., these include an insightful commentary from director Brian Yuzna, an 18-minute making of featurette with interviews from the cast and Yuzna, plus 18-minutes of interviews from Brian Yuzna, Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Santiago Segura, Simon Andreau, a lot of which was incorporated into the making of featurette. There's also a music video, 18-minutes of behind-the-scenes footage and a trailer for the film. 

This is the second release from Umbrella's Beyond Genres: World's On Film imprint following the wonderful release of Re-Animator, the 2-disc release comes housed in an over-sized Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork with four panels of artwork, though there's no text/logo on any of the artwork options, but the spine is logo-ed, and it comes with a handsome slipcase which which like the branded with the Beyond Genres design, the spine is numbered, this being volume 2. The discs themselves features excerpts of the artwork from the four-panel sleeve.    

Beyond Re-Animator Special Features: 
- Audio Commentary with Director Brian Yuzna 
- The Making of Beyond Re-Animator  (18 min) 
- Dr. Re-Animator: Move Your Dead Bones (4 min) 
- Interviews with Brian Yuzna, Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Santiago Segura, Simon Andreau (18 min) 
- Behind The Scenes (12 min) 
- Trailer (2 min)

Umbrella's Blu-ray release of Bride of Re-Animator/Beyond Re-Animator is a fun double-feature, Bride looks fantastic in HD, while Beyond is marred by a dated HD master and some excessive DNR, but it's great to have both on Blu-ray in HD with loads of extras. I do wish that the Beyond had been afforded a new restoration for it's  worldwide HD debut, but I give kudos to Umbrella for the presentation of Bride and the sweet-looking packaging on this one. Both of these sequels sequels continue to age with a gory grace I wouldn't have guessed when I first watched them years ago, more so for Bride, but Beyond is still growing on me.