Man with the Screaming Brain

<<

Under the Radar

>>

Here we have a modern B movie, of sorts. This one comes to us from Bruce Campbell, himself, with both writing and directing credits. Being his debut in the director's chair, he's helped along by the legendary Sam Raimi (as they work so incredibly well together), and the lesser known David M. Goodman, for which this is his only writing credit. Together, they have created something very strange, indeed. I mean, if you couldn't tell already by the title and accompanying picture.

This tale of twisted comedy centers a wealthy drug company CEO named William Cole (Campbell); a smug and rude American who travels to Bulgaria, on business, with his wife, Jackie (Antoinette Byron). The couple take a Taxi to get to their hotel, and luckily, the driver is an ex KGB agent named Yegor (Vladimir Kolev) who ends up protecting them from a car jacking. William pays extra to keep Yegor on-call for protection, which soon leads to Jackie cheating on William with Yegor while William's busy at a construction sight. The tables are soon unknowingly turned when William gets back to the hotel to find Tatoya (Tamara Gorski) and act on his own impulses - the difference being, he gets caught.

Tatoya knocks William over the head, causing severe damage, and further murders Yegor, who witnesses the whole thing, and we do find out that Yegor and Tatoya were once a thing, but he escaped her murderous ways (she kills men who leave her). This leads to the pieces of Williams and Yegor's brain to be fused together by a mad scientist named Dr. Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov (Stacey Keach - in another Bruce Campbell movie) and his dopey but hilarious assistant, Pavel (Ted Raimi). To keep it short, William wakes up with the voice of Yegor in his head, and together, they seek revenge on the woman who killed them. There's more, but some of it has to just be seen to be believed.

This is a movie that's very clearly running on "bad" on purpose. It's very much a B movie comedy, not to be taken too seriously. It's just Bruce Campbell's answer to a mad scientist movie, or a 'Frankenstein', if you will. This something like 'Upgrade', but a little more classic monster movie, and a little more clumsy. 'Upgrade' was badass, this is just silly - but for all the right reasons. At the very least, the film is entertaining, and did give me a few genuine laughs. If you are a Bruce Campbell fan, I might recommend it just to check out for a giggle, although it's not like it doesn't come with a few faults.

I think the biggest thing to point out is that this is a film where the accents are immitated rather than legit, and often it can be a bit cringe-worthy, but that almost makes it funnier to me. These guys aren't taking anything seriously in this movie, and nor should anyone else. The rest of its downfall is just the strangeness of it all. Sometimes the humor just comes off as weak or trying too hard. It didn't do so hot with critics, but this clearly wasn't a film that was aimed at critics - it was aimed at those of us who like a good sci-fi comedy with old B monster movie elements, as only Campbell can deliver. For that, it works just fine. It's not "bad", per se, just... really odd.

As far as Bruce Campbell's movies go, it's one title I remember seeing a lot of, but just not bothering with. I saw it on the shelf at Blockbuster (when that was still a thing), and kept debating on checking it out, but decided it looked too stupid. One must understand that my love for Campbell didn't come along until way later in life, and at that point, it was kind of 'Evil Dead' Universe or bust, for me. But this is just another film of his I'm glad I finally saw. I got some good laughs, and the film is perfectly passable for the sci-fi oddity that it's trying to be. Could have been better, but I also don't have any real complaints.

3/4

---