Macabre...ish Horror Review: Brain Damage

 

 

Brain Damage, 1988/ 86 min

 

After a couple tear up their apartment looking for something, a pet presumably, a neighbor, Brian (Rick Hearst) wakes up in a bloody bed with a neck wound. And then some kind of parasitic, phallic creature crawls out of his shirt and starts talking (voiced by John Zacherle).

Brian makes a deal with this creature, to let it latch on to him, feeding from his brain and in return he gets to experience life differently. And so that night, with this creature attached to his neck, he goes and plays in the local scrap yard! Which appears to be covered in different colors. When he’s confronted by the night watch man, the creature leaps at and attaches itself to the other man’s head.

All Brian’s behaviors are changing. He takes 4 baths a day, he’s added 4 additional bolts on his room and bathroom door, he’s stopped going to work and seeing his girlfriend, Barbara (Jennifer Lowry). Plus his hallucinations are getting worse and his memory lapses.

Then the original owner, his neighbor, Morris (Theo Barnes) finds him and wants the creature, named Aylmer, back. Brian is thoroughly addicted and fights to keep him and ends up running away. But he has lost control of Aylmer and struggles to detox from the fluid that the parasite leaves in his brain. It’s long before it’s totally out of control, people are dying and he can’t cope.

This is a comedy horror with the standard mix of bad CG and hilarious physical effects, that pull off some gory, gross and some times disturbing moments. The Aylmer effects, lines and facial movements are the icing on the cake! Fun flick!!

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