Souonds like a farce to me and I do so love farces...especially unintended
farces...(i.e. Starcrash...)
Keith Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: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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