Brain Damage (Frank Henenlotter, 1988)
Getting high on grey matter
An elderly couple with a freshly procured plate of juicy brains freak out to find their bathtub empty. “He” is gone. They go door to door in their New York apartment building, but to no avail. Soon they’re lying on the floor, froth spewing from their mouths, presumably dead.
Elsewhere in the building, 20-something Brian inexplicably starts tripping; imagining that his bedroom is flooded with blue liquid and that the light fixture on his ceiling has morphed into a giant eyeball.
It’s soon revealed that Brian’s hallucinations were caused by a veiny blue parasite-slug called Aylmer, who attaches himself to the base of Brian’s neck and injects a blue fluid that gets his host high.
So far, so weird, right? It gets weirder :)
Yes, the parasite dude has a name. He also has the voice of a groovy late-80s DJ and a surprisingly expressive face for a grossly phallic monster.
But his blue stuff is good, and so Brian and Aylmer quickly enter into a co-dependent symbiotic relationship. Not that Brian realizes that’s what happening…
You see, whenever Brian is tripping — wandering round junk yards after midnight, for example, marveling at the non-existent neon colors — Aylmer is killing the random people that they encounter.
Aylmer loves to eat brains. And Brian is his means of finding fresh new victims. Human victims. Because their brains are much tastier than the animal grey stuff his previous people (the old couple) would provide him from a deli.
Of course, by the time Brian realizes what he’s become involved with, he’s hooked on Aylmer’s psychedelic drugs. He wants out, but he can’t. Meanwhile, Aylmer demands more food. And then there are others who want Aylmer for themselves…
Brain Damage sounds nuts. And it is — wonderfully so.
As cheesy as the character of Aylmer is, the special effects are damn impressive. Aylmer was created using a combination of techniques including puppets and stop-motion animation, and the result is remarkable.
Likewise, the grotesque violence is exaggerated and cartoonish throughout. There’s one gag, for example, where blood sprays for a ridiculous amount of time. It’s nasty, yes, but also funnier the longer that it goes on.
And if you think that Aylmer has a remarkable resemblance to a — ahem — Snickers bar, then you won’t be disappointed to discover that, yes, there is a particularly memorable/disturbing murder scene involving parasitic fellatio. (Aylmer sucks out her brains “right through her mouth”.)
I genuinely, enthusiastically, and unironically love this film. It’s a fun horror movie that drops you straight into the action and doesn’t quit. It’s an easy, breezy, gory, bloody riot.