Brain Dead (Adam Simon, 1990)

I was always a little annoyed with the old joke (joke? trope? saw? frequently repeated public observation?) about Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton being the same guy. Sure, they were brown-haired white guys of roughly the same age with similar names, but Paxton (whose untimely death in 2017 still bums me out) and Pullman are pretty distinctive presences. I can imagine them playing each other's roles in many projects and succeeding (and my wife pointed out about this particular film that they would have done an equally great job swapping parts), but I can also think of just as many roles played by one that would not have worked with the other (for example, Pullman would stick out like a sore thumb playing Paxton's flamboyant parts in Aliens, Weird Science, and Near Dark, and Pullman was far more suited than Paxton for the more closed-off characters in Lost Highway and Zero Effect). Pullman and Paxton are unique guys with unique approaches. You seriously can't tell them apart? Or do you just like repeating things you hear other people say?

With that grouchy opening paragraph concluded, I will now turn my frown upside down by talking about the triumph of mindfuckery that is Brain Dead, starring Bill Paxton AND Bill Pullman (and Bud Cort and George Kennedy). Brain Dead is clearly operating within a low budget and limited resources, but it more than compensates with a clever script that goes in lots of unexpected directions, great actors, a visual style that is neither over-stylized nor pedestrian, and lots of weirdness and humor. I liked this one a lot.

Brain Dead opens with scientist and brain researcher Dr. Rex Martin (Bill Pullman) entering his lab. It's a little weird. There are metal shelves full of brains in fluid-filled jars, and a human-like face stretched flat and pinned to a surface that is connected to a brain. Martin's assistant is probing different parts of the brain, and the face reacts with twitches, expressions, and movements. Back in his office, Martin is visited by his old college roommate, corporate executive Jim Reston (Bill Paxton). Reston wants Martin to probe the brain of Jack Halsey (Bud Cort), a scientific researcher at Reston's corporation who went mad and murdered his wife, children, and research assistants and has a secret equation locked in his mind that could make the corporation, Eunice, a lot of money.

Reston wants three things, to know if Halsey is lying about being insane; to retrieve the equation; and to erase the memory of the equation if Halsey won't give it up so a competitor will never get it. Martin, who doesn't want to do anything for corporate America, is eventually strong-armed into it by a blackmail threat from Reston.

At this point, I thought I knew where the film was going and had settled into its rhythm and tone. About a third into the running time, however, Brain Dead takes an odd turn and then keeps taking them. Reality, or the "reality" of the world in the film, is frequently upended, and the audience member's perception of story, character, and event has to be continually relearned and readjusted. It's like a familiar game whose pieces keep getting knocked off the board and put back in different positions. Are we watching dreams, fantasies, visual expressions of the characters' anxieties and fears, flashbacks, reality, distorted interpretations of reality? Are any of these characters who they say they are? How the hell will the filmmakers find an ending?

Paxton, Pullman, and Cort are perfect for Brain Dead, keeping up with the constantly shifting tone while keeping a handle on their characters. The cast also includes George Kennedy as Eunice's CEO, Patricia Charbonneau (Desert Hearts, Crime Story) as the scientist wife of Martin, and Bill Paxton's dad John as one of the board of directors, in his first film role. John Paxton had just retired from running his Texas lumber company and caught the acting bug from his son. He went on to work with Walter Hill and many times with Sam Raimi before his death in 2011. A pre-Tenacious D Kyle Gass also appears in the film briefly as an anesthetist.

The behind-the-scenes crew was impressive, too. B-movie vet Julie Corman (fellow Nebraska native and wife of Roger Corman) produced, future director of Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown, and Twilight, Catherine Hardwicke, was the production designer (her other production design credits include Thrashin', I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Tapeheads, Tombstone, Tank Girl, SubUrbia, The Newton Boys, Three Kings, Vanilla Sky, and Laurel Canyon), and director Simon's screenplay was based on a previous screenplay by Charles Beaumont, writer of novels, short stories, and many classic Twilight Zone episodes and Roger Corman films.

Director Simon has had an unusual career in and around the fringes of Hollywood. Brain Dead was his first film as director. He followed it up with Body Chemistry II: The Voice of a Stranger, possibly the only erotic thriller about talk radio starring Morton Downey Jr., Clint Howard, and John Landis, and killer dinosaur movie Carnosaur. He also directed the documentaries The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (about Sam Fuller) and The American Nightmare (about the sociopolitical content of '70s American horror films) and a Marilyn Manson music video, produced the Stallone action movie Lock Up, cowrote the screenplay for Snoop Dogg's horror film Bones and Hollywood ghost movie The Haunting in Connecticut, acted in Bob Roberts and The Player, and was the head writer and co-creator of TV series Salem. 

Bloody Birthday (Ed Hunt, 1981)

Just a few long weeks ago, I was writing about another Ed Hunt movie, The Brain, on this blog. That movie, for all its many charms and delights, was not what any half-sane person would call plausible (not that I care anything about plausibility in art). Earlier in the decade, Hunt directed another horror film that was much more rooted in hard astrological fact -- in particular, the fact that a child who is born during a total eclipse when Saturn blocks the sun and moon will enter this world lacking a conscience.

Bloody Birthday's small California town is astrologically mega-fucked because three children from three different families are born during one of these total eclipses we've been hearing so much about in recent paragraphs. The kids -- Debbie (Elizabeth Hoy), Curtis (Billy Jayne), and Steven (Andrew Freeman) -- are approaching their tenth birthday, and they decide to celebrate the occasion days before the big joint neighborhood birthday party by embarking on a murder spree, complete with a scrapbook commemorating the homicides. No one is safe from the tiny thrill killers, not even relatives or school chums. This birthday ... (David Caruso lowers shades) ... just got bloody (Roger Daltrey screams "yeahhhh!).

As the kids keep getting away with murder, school friend Timmy (K.C. Martel) and his older sister Joyce (Lori Lethin) become targets, Timmy because he witnesses the aftermath of one killing and Joyce just because. The bulk of the film's second half covers this conflict, with the siblings escaping death many times over.

Writer/director Hunt, who is working with a slightly larger budget than he had in The Brain, turns the generic slasher film into a stranger, funnier thing by making a trio of goody-two-shoes children his killers, and the film never flags in its pacing and never gets dull. I particularly enjoyed a scene where the children attempted to hit Joyce with a car but one child had to work the pedals from the floorboard while the other drove, the driver inexplicably wearing a white bed sheet with eye holes cut out.

Bloody Birthday's cast is kind of a microcosm of '80s pop culture to come. The two top-billed actors, Jose Ferrer and Susan Strasberg, have the least amount of screen time, and it's clear the production only had enough money to pay them for a day or two of shooting. There seems to be little reason for Ferrer to be in the film, but Strasberg at least gets a few meaty scenes as the children's strict teacher. The larger roles were played by then-unknowns who went on to work in a lot of '80s television and horror movies. Debbie's older sister is played by Julie Brown, future MTV star (not to be confused with fellow '80s MTV VJ Downtown Julie Brown, catchphrase: "wubba wubba wubba"), Billy Jayne, who plays one of the killer kids, would later star in The Beastmaster and Cujo and the TV shows Silver Spoons and Parker Lewis Can't Lose. Martel played one of the children in The Amityville Horror a few years before Bloody Birthday but is probably best known for his role in E.T. and his recurring part on Growing Pains. Lethin appeared in two more cult '80s horror films, The Prey and Return to Horror High. Joe Penny, who has a small part as another teacher at the school, went on to play Jake in Jake and the Fatman. (Also check out the posters in Julie Brown's bedroom: Blondie, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Erik Estrada, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the blend of which kind of makes up the tone of this film).

Bloody Birthday is a solid, reliable '80s horror film that won't blow your mind but is a fine piece of violent entertainment. I would be remiss if I did not point out one of the most amazing things about this movie, even though it only lasts a second or two: the world's sleaziest children's party clown. Please enjoy his picture below. I've already created an elaborate back story for him in my mind.