Meet Brian, an average New Yorker who's in for the trip of his life when an evil brain parasite named "Alymer" decides to make him his new host. In exchange for the blue, drug-like fluid that Alymer provides, Brian must (unwittingly) pay him back with human brains for sustenance.
In 1982, director Frank Henenlotter gave us the cult classic known as Basket Case. I was fortunate enough to catch that gem on tv one night and fell in love with it's sleazy, low budget monstery goodness. Henenlotter took his sweet time to release Basket Case 2, but until then was able to follow up with another cult hit, Brain Damage. It shares many similarities, which I wouldn't have any other way. Here's why...
The movie opens with a bizarre elderly couple who have prepaired a gourmet meal of sheep brains for "Alymer", but are distraught to find that...whatever Alymer is, has gone AWOL on them. We then go to our protagonist, Brian, who spends the opening credits curled up in bed whining to his brother and cute girlfriend about feeling sick. His condition soon goes from bad to...well, really fucking bad as he goes into a strange hallucinogenic trance and discovers blood on the back of his neck. It's here where the cause of all this confusion is finally revealed and we finally get to meet Alymer, who has already drugged poor Brian and got him craving for "his juice", which he inserts into the back of his neck, into his brain. What follows is the symbiotic misadventures of the two as the now doped up Brian is unwittingly made to gather human brains for his new pet in exchange for the fluid, whilst Alymer's previous owners chase him down. As you may have already guessed, this movie is a large metaphor for drug addiction.
The main selling point is easily the movie's villain. I was expecting this creature to be really twisted and evil, what I got instead was one of the most amusing horror characters I've seen yet. The turd-shaped Alymer talks like a gentleman, makes wisecracks, he even breaks out into song at one point. It's every bit as good (and bad) as it sounds. Gore wise, you wont be too disappointed. All the deaths involve brains being eaten as you would expect, but it's not without creativity.
SPOILER BELOW (highlight text to read)The best of which involves a busty blonde giving a blow-job that results in the "penis" sucking her brains out through her mouth. Messy stuff. Overall Brain Damage is, like Hennenlotter's Basket Case before it, a B-movie in every sense of the word. The acting is hammy, the monster effects are bad (though the monster itself highly entertaining), it's just pure cheese all the way. Cinematic snobs need not apply, but anyone looking for a surreal piece of cult film will find plenty to like here.
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