Gawd, did ANYONE see Bruce "Evil Dead" Campbell's writing/directorial/producing debut last Saturday on the Sci Fi Channel? It was a very, very low-budget, camp, implausible movie about an arrogant pharmaceutical exec who gets "killed" by a crazy gypsy woman in Bulgaria. (Told ya the plot was implausible). Stacy Keach--wielding an awful, fake accent--plays a mad scientist who's discovered a method of combining tissue from two or more people without any danger of rejection. He plans to get Campbell's character to invest in his technology. But upon hearing of Campbell's death, he decides to put on the ultimate demo. He grafts brain tissue from a former KGB agent-turned-cabbie who was also killed by the gypsy (again, don't ask!) into Campbell's head, regenerating his brain and body in the process. The result is a freakish-looking low-budget Frankenstein (big forehead, big scar) who runs around acting crazy as the two personalities fight for dominance in his head. Hence, the "Screaming Brain" title. Those of you old enough to remember the infamous "two-headed transplant" films of the early '70s will recognize this effort as a modernized take on that classic theme. Throw into the mix Keach's sidekick, a Bulgarian who's created a humanoid robot and who so loves American hip-hop culture that he says stuff like "fo' shizzle my nizzle" (in equally badly faked accent) and teaches the robot to flash gang signs. He's played by Ted Raimi, best known as Joxer on Xena. And THEN throw into the mix Campbell's wife, who's had an affair with the dead KGB cabbie, and you have the ingredients for an awfully campy, awfully bad movie. The sets were cheap, everyone sounded horrible, the "robot" was painfully, obviously a man in latex, and the whole thing couldn't have cost more than a few hundred thou to produce. Still, I found myself laughing out loud throughout much of the movie. Campbell is a gifted comic actor. Only he could get laughs from stuff like pouring cold milk on his head to cool off his overheated brain, or from sitcom-level slapstick as the two personalites battle in his body, each having separate control of one hand. Only Campbell could make me laugh as his two brains argue out loud in a fake Bulgarian restaurant, with fake Bulgarian patrons looking on. "I want steak!"... "No I don't!"..."I want vodka!"... "No I hate vodka! Bring me scotch!" Can't believe I enjoyed that stuff, but it was silly enjoyable fun. The movie does tend to peter out in the last quarter as the minimal framework starts to give. Raimi's wannabe-Black Bulgarian grates on the nerves after a while. The ending's a little predicatble. "Screaming Brain" doesn't rise to the level of classic camp like "Plan 9 >From Outer Space" or "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". Still, all in all it's not the worst movie I've seen, it gave me some laughs, and frankly, Campbell's camp was much better than some of the serious fare Sci Fi Channel's put out recently.
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