“Brain Dead” is a trippy horror film that keeps you guessing
at what reality is the real one for the main character that’s played by Bill
Pullman. It was written by a main contributor to the old “Twilight Zone”
episodes, Charles Beaumont. Bill Pullman does a great job as a man who is
experiencing a never ending nightmare while Bill Paxton gives a very held back
performance when compared to some of the other films that he has worked on. The
only distracting aspect of this movie that I had to force myself to get over is
the poor lighting and film quality. This was a lower budget movie and it shows;
both Paxton and Pullman had been in major movies where the quality is
outstanding (“Aliens” and “Spaceballs” for example), but this film feels like
it’s from the early from the early 1980’s and not 1990. The other, much lesser
issue is the fact that a 15 second special effect is the prominent selling
point, the picture of a disembodied face that is being manipulated by the
doctors in a research lab. This thing had nothing to do with the movie!!
Dr. Rex Martin (Bill Pullman) is a neurosurgeon who is
working on mapping out the brain and the various ailments that it can suffer such
as paranoia and other mental illness. An old college friend and rival, who now
works for a megacorporation shows up asking for help with an employee who has
had a mental breakdown. Dr. Martin is coerced into helping and after he does
what he’s asked, he begins to suffer the delusions that his patient had. His
nightmarish decent shifts and changes constantly, always giving Dr. Martin a
glimmer of hope before having it dashed away.
Favorite moment – Bud Cort plays Halsey, the original mental
patient that Dr. Martin operates on. His presence in the films keeps the viewer
easily entertained during some of the drier scenes in the film.
Halsey
The Bills
Is he real?
The Bills again
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