The Brainiac

Rating:
Summary: Brainiac DVD Debut Disappointing
Review: Disappointing DVD transfer of the classic turkey, The Brainiac. Beverly Wilshire released this DVD in 2000 and it's too bad they just picked up any old copy and transferred it to the digital medium. The video is scratchy and there are several places where the audio skips. There is even an inexcusable long pause during a reel change. I guess you get what you pay for. Maybe someday one of the better companies will release The Brainiac in all its glory. Until then, we're stuck with this copy. Abel Salazar is turning over in his grave!

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest Turkeys
Review: One of my favorites from south of the Border. The monster is so over the top and the storyline so nutty, not to mention the crazy dubbing. If you love Plan 9 or Robot Monster, then pick this up.
The lead (German Robles) has played other great Mexican Monsters - he was the lead in the classic, The Vampire and The Vampire's Coffin.

Rating:
Summary: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR LAUGHS
Review: There is nothing that has not gone wrong with this movie. Please do buy it, and from the opening credits to the most amazing ending there are lots of laughs. It's so badly written, acted, filmed and dubbed, that one finds it hard to belive it wasn't masterminded by at least someone who screwed it up intentionally. The transformation scenes and the final outcome (monster) must be the lousiest in the rich history of stinking bad cinema. A true masterpiece!!!

Rating:
Summary: Brain Casserole, Anyone?
Review: This is an amazing film from our friends in Mexico. I give it five stars for hilarity and pompousness in equal combinations. You will be unable to stop rolling your eyes at this film.

The premise is that in 1661 this guy, Baron Vitelius of Astara, was burned as part of the Inquisition in "New Spain" (Mexico), and he vows revenge on the descendents of those who wrongfully executed him in 300 years, when the comet that was overhead at the time of the execution returns. We know he is serious, because he appears to have ill defined magical powers, including the power of invisibility, which for some reason he does not use to escape the fire.

In 1961, right on schedule, the comet returns, the Baron riding along with it, only now he is the Brainiac, a monster who must eat human brains. The comet needs an aside here: never before has a comet looked this hokey in all of film history (you simply must see this for yourself), and secondly, the comet lands (!) by gently dropping to the ground with a thud. It appears to be papier-mache. No smoke, no crater, nothing. Then Brainiac gets out. Amazing.

Brainiac is able to transform himself into a suave Baron who eats brains out of a casserole dish after he removes them (intact, somehow) from his victims skulls using his tubular, bifurcated tongue while in his Brainiac form. After we meet the Brainiac we get to a long monologue that was not dubbed into English, so perhaps it was a great scene, but somehow I doubt it. In the end he succeeds in killing the descendants of his old rivals and meets his own demise, oddly enough through the genius of special effects, in his underwear.

The special effects throughout this film are delightfully bad, and none is worse than the puffy, hyperventilating Brainiac himself with his rubber forked tongue and hairy hooves that he uses like big, hairy tweezers.

This movie is so bad you almost feel sorry for it. It is un-scary and tedious, yet pompous, pretentious, and so badly executed that like a train wreck, it is impossible to look away.


Rating:
Summary: If you are into this genre, this is a MUST HAVE! (cheap too)
Review: Well, it's cheap, cheesy, but a good laugh. I especially liked the
scene with the big bowl of brains -- the "good guy" slurps a spoonful. I assume that since this movie was made in Spain that they are real brains (calves brains?) and not Jello. Yuck.