I loved Bruce Campbell in "Bubba Ho-tep," surely the strangest Elvis horror comedy ever made, so I decided to buy "Man With the Screaming Brain," and while not up to the level of peculiarity that "Bubba Ho-tep" reached, I think it's a solid four stars on the B-movie horror comedy scale. Bruce not only stars as American industrialist William Cole, but also wrote and directed this little gem, originally made for the Sci Fi network in Sofia, Bulgaria for $875,000. It features a largely Bulgarian cast and crew, and the depressing post-Communism sets add a great edge to the film.
The other cast members are wonderful in their roles: Tamara Gorski as the evil Tatoya, and her ex-fiancé Yegor (Vladimir Kolev) are perfect as the confounding duo, while Antoinette Byron as Jackie Cole is the perfect annoying rich wife. My favorite casting decisions were the scientists: Stacy Keach as Dr. Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov could not be more perfect, and his wacky assistant, Pavel, is played by Campbell's old pal Ted Raimi to great comic effect. The Russian (Bulgarian?) accent Keach adopts is better than average for a B-movie, and makes some words genuinely difficult to understand (in the line I used for my title it's hard to tell if he says "flashes" or "flushes" for instance); this added to the depth of the Keach character substantially. You may like Raimi's robot rap, but then again you may not; it grew on me in the second viewing.
The film starts with a horrifying cab ride through Sofia. The driver, Yegor, takes them through "Gypsytown" where he has to fight off a carjacking. During this outing he sees his ex-fiancée, Tatoya, and inadvertently sets an extremely unusual love quadrangle into play. I don't want to give away the plot, but as is pointed out in the commentary, if you follow a key piece of jewelry through the film, the rest of the plot unfolds around it. It is unusual for a large number of main characters to die in the first act of any movie, but that's the beauty of Stacy Keach as a crazed scientist. Keach is able to reanimate the dead and in the process creates a very gothic Frankenstein effect.
There are many comic relief moments in the film: I enjoyed the scene in which Campbell changes clothes in a dumpster; I also found the restaurant scene with the self-induced swirley in a revolting toilet, followed by a milk and ice bath to work quite well. I was not as enamored with the robot as Campbell was on the commentary; for me a little went a long way. I absolutely loved the fact that Campbell (as the creature) rode a pink Vespa (moped) with tassels on the handlebars during a key chase scene through Sofia; I also found the robot catfight in a bridal shop scene (more brides should carry pistols in their garters) to be relentlessly entertaining. The homage to Mike Tyson in a bar fight was also well done, as were the general right-versus-left brain problems Campbell encounters. The robot death scene was well done camp at its best, although it could have been edited for time a bit in my opinion. In the end the messy love quadrangle is resolved in a novel (though somewhat predictable) way that worked well.
The DVD has lots of great extras. The commentary track is very interesting, and I actually liked watching the film more the second time. There are several "making of" extras, and I especially enjoyed the account of the 18 year ordeal of getting the movie made: you wouldn't think that would be interesting, but it is.
The film started a little slowly (the characters are totally disagreeable in the beginning), but after I warmed up to it I really enjoyed it. It doesn't measure up to "Bubba Ho-tep," but easily gets four stars.
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October 4, 2005 "Please retry" | — | 1 | $9.99 | $3.00 |
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