Main Cast: Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, Bud Cort, Nicholas Pryor, Patricia Charbonneau
Release Year: 1989
Country: US
Run Time: 85 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Brain Dead was based on a script by Charles Beaumont, leading some obtuse fans to hail the "return" of that frequent Twilight Zone contributor. Actually Beaumont has been dead since 1967, so this cookie spent a long time in the oven. Stalwart supporting actor Bill Pullman is given star billing as a brilliant brain surgeon who agrees to perform an operation on a psychotic mathematician. This surgery, ostensibly, is to "adjust" the patient's attitude--and, incidentally, to unlock the corporate secrets secreted within the patient's brain. But as Pullman probes about, he begins experiencing first-hand the psycho's fevered, paranoic dreams. Pullman drifts farther and farther from reality, and the audience is implicitly invited to do the same. Bill Paxton also stars in this Roger Corman-style thriller, produced by Corman's daughter Julie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
A clever and frightful little chiller that was unfairly ignored upon release in 1990, director Adam Simon's Brain Dead offers an enticingly complex foray into the human brain highlighted by a surreal sense of reality distortion. Scripted by frequent Twilight Zone scribe Charles Beaumont, the story somewhat resembles the darker entries of the classic fantasy series, albeit with a decidedly more gruesome slant. Bill Pullman offers a solid early performance as a brain researcher who is slowly drawn into a patient's psychosis after picking at the request of a slick corporate administrator (Bill Paxton) who hopes the probing will reveal valuable information, and as the troubled patient, Bud Cort (of Harold and Maude fame) offers a memorably giddy schizophrenic. Instead, the doctor finds himself drawn ever deeper into a puzzling world in which reality and fantasy clash in a seemingly unending cycle of psychotic confusion. Sporting a deliciously warped sense of humor that perfectly compliments the film's nightmarish tone, the film may not be entirely gratifying to impatient viewers who tire of its trippy sensibilities, but for those willing to let logic go, it's an interesting journey. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
George Kennedy - Vance; Lee Arenberg; Brian Brophy - Ellis; Cynthia Ettinger - Nurse Anderson; Willie Garson - Board Member; Kyle Gass - Anaesthetist; Brent Hinkley - Dewey; Shannon Holt - Toni; Lisa Moncure - Board Member; Deirdre O'Connell - Mrs. Halsey; Steve Ruggles - Restaurant Manager; Maud Winchester - Crazy Anna; Andy Wood - Brain Surgeon; Barney Burman - Experimental Face; Dean Robinson - Valet
Credit
Gilbert Mercier - Art Director, Catherine Taieb - Costume Designer, Adam Simon - Director, Carol Oblath - Editor, Peter Francis Rotter - Composer (Music Score), Catherine Hardwicke - Production Designer, Ronn Schmidt - Cinematographer, Julie Corman - Producer, Gene Serdena - Set Designer, Charles Beaumont - Screen Story, Charles Beaumont - Screenwriter, Adam Simon - Screenwriter
Bill Pullman plays a top neurosurgeon, Dr. Rex Martin, who is active in studying brain malfunctions that cause mental illnesses. High school friend Jim Reston, a successful businessman at Eunice, requires Martin's aid in reading the mind of John Halsey, a former genius mathematician who once worked for the company and is now a paranoid psychotic at a nearby asylum.
Dr. Martin's surgery is intended to successfully alter the patient's mental attitude to unlock the corporate secrets secreted within Halsey's brain. However, as Martin begins to operate he starts to experience unusual heated paranoic dreams which Halsey has been encountering. Martin floats farther and farther from reality, caught between friendship and loyalty in his business
