221) Brain Damage (1988)

"This is the start of your new life, Brian. A life without worry or pain or loneliness. A life filled instead with colors and music." 

Director
Frank Henenlotter

Cast
Rick Hearst - Brian
Jennifer Lowry - Barbara
Gordon MacDonald - Mike
Theo Barnes - Morris
Lucille Saint-Peter - Martha
John Zacherle - Aylmer

I had my review for the 1988 comedy horror "Brain Damage" saved for the Halloween when I post 10 or more reviews during the season that follow a specific theme or series. 

After watching it and organizing my opinions, I decided to post it now and watch something else in its place. I already watched and reviewed another movie from director Frank Henenlotter for October, so I decided to post this commentary now. 

The first thing that came to my mind after watching "Brain Damage" is that it's definitely an experience. I'm sure if I thought long and hard enough, I could come up with a cleverer way to say that. But that's really the most accurate description. "Brain Damage" is really an experience. In other words, I doubt I'll ever forget I saw this movie. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. 

The movie starts with an older couple about to feed a platter of brains (gross, I know) to some unknown creature they're keeping in the bathtub. They're really excited about feeding this thing and making sure it's happy. 

That joy dies a quick death when they find this mysterious creature is missing. They panic and frantically try to find it. They're both so agitated that they begin to convulse in a seizure. They foam at the mouth, and everything. 

The story then shifts to Brian (Rick Hearst). Brian is leading a relatively normal life and lives with his brother, Mike (Gordon MacDonald) in the same apartment building as that older couple. He also has a beautiful girlfriend, Barbara (Jennifer Lowry) and I'm assuming a decent job as well. Things aren't extraordinary with Brian, but life is generally good. 

One night, just before he and Barbara are about to leave for a concert, Brian suddenly feels sick. 

He insists Mike take Barbara out instead while he rests from whatever's ailing him. 

So, they go out and leave Brian home. Lying in bed, Brian starts having some really trippy hallucinations.

Aylmer! And this thing talks.

Obviously, things are worse than he realizes. A parasite has somehow attached itself to Brian and causing these hallucination by inserting a needle-like appendage from its mouth into the back of his neck. It's injecting him with a fluid that goes straight to his brain creating a euphoric pleasure mixed with visions of colors and lights. 

Once Brian gets off his high and snaps back to reality, he takes the parasite off his neck and has a conversation with it.

It happens to speak perfect and distinguished sounding English. No joke! So, it introduces itself to Brian. 

It promises to give him more of his "juice" to create those euphoric feelings and tantalizing hallucinations. All Brian has to do is allow him to continue feeding on him from the back of his neck.

So, Brian agrees. 

The parasite tells Brian to go for a walk to where ever he wants to. This walk is likely the best walk he's ever had. 

During these parasitic trips, Brian doesn't speak coherently and doesn't realize what's going on around him. When the fluid and good feelings wear off, he doesn't remember anything. 

Of course, he's addicted to all this. Meanwhile, Mike and Barbara are worried about him and try to intervene. 

That older couple from the beginning catch on that their parasite attached itself to Brian. 

The husband (Theo Barnes) confronts Brian to try to get the parasite back. They had been feeding it animal brains before it escaped and found someone else. 

He tells Brian that the thing is called "Aylmer" and his "influence" can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Though they want Aylmer back, Brian isn't so willing to let him go. 

Aylmer ultimately wants to eat people. Once Brian figures out the parasite is using him to get to innocent victims, ultimately killing them, he realizes how deep and out-of-control this situation has gotten. So, he tries to free himself from Aylmer and his euphoric juice. But he can't. The withdraw is too hard to overcome by mere willpower. 

No doubt it's obvious this movie is an off-the-wall allegory regarding drug addiction, or any kind of addiction, really. 

According to Jon Towlson's book, "Subversive Horror Cinema," Henenlotter was inspired to make "Brain Damage" from his own addiction to cocaine. That's certainly no surprise. 

Rick Hearst in "Brain Damage."

"The film is about the joys and perils of addiction, in whatever for that may take. 'This is the start of your new life,' Aylmer promises Brian at the start of their liaison, 'a life without worry or pain or loneliness.' The fact that Brian's life is already good at the start - he is affluent, with a good job, an apartment on the Lower East Side and a girlfriend - speaks to the hedonistic appeal of cocaine to young people like Brian during the late 1980s." (Towlson, 186).  

"Brain Damage" doesn't strike me as a glorification of drug use, or addiction in general. The movie is called "Brain Damage" after all. 

Brian is depicted as enslaved to this thing on his neck, which I'd say is an accurate depiction of sin in general - enslavement to our vices and lower passions. 

The nitty-gritty of the addiction theme is spot on despite how off-the-wall it comes across. The devil, or Aylmer, knows where and what his victim's weaknesses are, and he presses them hard.  Pure will power doesn't completely help. Man needs grace. And Aylmer has absurdity itself as something to hide behind. Brian would be hard pressed to tell someone the parasite on his neck talks to him, and be believed. 

When Brian relies on his own power and limited strength to break himself from the addiction and its strong pull as he suffers withdrawal, Aylmer tells him, "Ready to beg for it, Brian? Ready to crawl across the floor and plead for my juice? No? Not yet? Well, give it a few more hours, Brian. Whenever you want the pain to stop, I'll be here. Whenever you want to stop hurting, you come to me. When the pain gets so great you think you're turning inside-out, just ask for my juice." 

Aylmer talks like a figure of reason, as it forms articulate sentences and arguments, trying to encourage Brian to allow it to feed. 

When Brian succumbs to the urges, Aylmer goes from "sympathetic" tempter to Brian's accuser, saying he can't break free now. He's fallen too far. 

At one point when Brian meets a girl at a club during one of his parasitic trips, Aylmer entices Brian with illicit sexual thoughts and contact with her just so it can feed on her brains, too. So, temptation, obviously, plays a big part in the movie's theme. It's blatant at times. For that reason, I wouldn't recommend "Brain Damagae." 

I mean, Henenlotter also directed the 1990 black comedy, "Frankenhooker" so sexploitation seems to run in his films. He also wrote and directed the black comedy "Basket Case" and its sequels, "Basket Case 2" and "Basket Case 3: The Progeny." Henenlotter seems to love a bit of gag-inducing gore! 

Kevin Van Hentenryck makes a cameo as his character from Henenlotter's "Basket Case" which I'll be posting a review for this October. 

"Brain Damage" is a trippy flick that oddly works as the off-the-wall dark comedy it is. It's as though the writers were more concerned with enjoying themselves and going with whatever came out of their mind when coming up with this flick. Who cares about line delivery or how ridiculous the whole thing becomes. They certainly wanted to entertain in the oddest way no matter how absurd it is by the end. 

It's a gory, cringe inducing creature feature at its best. Silly, surreal and repulsive. I went along for the ride all the way through. And the dialogue isn't any different. The lines definitely match the tone of the movie. 

"Why are the stars always winkin' and blinkin' above? What makes a fellow start thinkin' of fallin' in love? It's not the season; the reason is plain as the moon. It's just Aylmer's tune! What makes a lady, of eighty, go out on the loose? Why does a gander, meander, in search of a goose? What puts the kick in a chicken, the magic in June? It's just Aylmer's tune! Listen, listen, there's a lot you're liable to be missin'. Sing it, swing it, any old place, and any old time. The hurdy-gurdies, the birdies, the cop on the beat. The candy-maker, the baker, the man on the street. The city charmer, the farmer, the man in the moon, all sing Aylmer's tune!" 

As social media says all the time, now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it.