The Man with the Screaming Brain
Written, Directed, and
Staring Bruce Campbell
“The Man with the Screaming Brain” is a Scifi Channel
original… wait! Don’t close the page! It’s a Scifi Channel original
movie starring Bruce Campbell.
Conflicted aren’t you?
On one hand, Bruce Campbell is the King of Modern
B-Movies, stars in some great films, wrote some great books, and is an
all-around awesome guy. On the other hand, Scifi Channel made the
conscious decision to cancel all their quality first and second run programming
in favor of saving a dollar fifty and using that to make crap-tacular movies
that they didn’t even bother keeping the Mystery Science Theater 3000 cast
around to make fun of. Do the ends justify the means? Is it worth
putting up with the Scifi Channel just to see Bruce chinning his way through
another sleeper?
Well, what if I said Bruce Campbell also wrote and
directed “The Man with the Screaming Brain”? Good. Now keep reading.
“The Man with the Screaming Brain” (I just like
typing that) is the story of wealthy American businessman William Cole (Bruce
Campbell) who receives a severe head injury while visiting Bulgaria, and has to
undergo experimental surgery to survive. I can make a joke here about how
normally one would have to have already experienced severe head injury before
agreeing to go to
The movie, to its credit, runs a lot like a classic
horror scifi B-movie. There are numerous subplots of revenge and
disfigurement, almost as if the filmmakers were unsure that the main plot of
Bruce Campbell’s character receiving a brain implant and going mad wasn’t
enough keep the audience’s attention. The subplots, of course, all relate
to one another. William Cole and his wife Jackie (Antoinette Byron) are
having martial problems when they go to
Oh, and of course this film features two mad
scientists, the father from “Titus” and a Raimi.
Stacy Keach and Ted Rami play the scientists which
keep resurrecting people that die in this film, sometimes in the form of
two-brained psychopaths, and sometimes as killer robots. I hate my
high-school guidance councilor. It should be me that gets to
perform experiments that stretch the limits of morality and undermine God’s
great plan!
Anyway, the film is pretty good. It’s campy and
meant to call back to all those 50s scifi schlock films used to stuff teenagers
into drive-ins in an attempt to shore up the number of newborns – you know – to
fight the Commies. We have just about as much as can be crammed into one
film all packaged in “The Man with the Screaming Brain”, including vengeful
women, illicit sex, slap stick, blood thirsty monster machines, and psychopaths
of the regular and head-scar variety. Kudos all around.
On a separate note, I think the film does a good job
portraying ex-soviet block countries in a normal light. They aren’t
heroes or villains, just normal folk. Don’t get me wrong, with an
American businessman getting capped and then having involuntary surgery
performed on him, you can bet that this film was not approved by the tourism
board of Bulgaria (despite a great deal of posing near statues). It’s
just that the characters all come off sounding very genuine.
The film’s portrayal of Gypsies on the other hand… well…
let’s just say that the Gypsy-American Anti Defamation League (GAADL) better
get off its ass and get created and then go about protesting.
I learned a lot by watching “The Man with the
Screaming Brain”. I learned that I want a Vespa. I’ve learned that
if your wife or girlfriend cheats on you, the best thing to do is merge with
the guy she did it with, and then you’ll all be happy. Writing this
article, I’ve learned that I too, have a split personality.
So, if you want to see Bruce get his ass kicked and
then go around and start kicking ass (and you know you do), if you’d like to
see a man give himself a swirlie in a disgusting Bulgarian toilet, and if
you’re a fan of the Erkle-bot – check out “The Man with the Screaming Brain”,
you’ll be glad you did.
Final Grade:
**********
Revenge of the Bonus Material!
By far, the winner for Best Commercial aired during
this movie goes to Cialis, makers of an erectile dysfunction drug (you can
always tell a lot about what the advertisers think of an audience by seeing
what ad they pay to have aired after any given program). The commercial,
after going through its paces, ends with a long warning that tells you to “seek
medical attention if you have an erection for more then 4 days” and “don’t take
Cialis with alcohol and have sex.” I can just picture all those old guys
that enjoy getting bombed and scoring around the clock being very disappointed
that their week old hard-ons are actually a sign of super-cancer.
F.G. Hablawi
May 21, 2006
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2006 F.G. Hablawi. All Rights Reserved.