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There is a killer going around town sucking the brains out of his
victims. Investigations lead cop sergeant Danko (Joe Hansard) to the
PsyMax Organisation, a company that has been developing a legal feelgood
drug until research was shut down by the FDA. However, PsyMax's head Dr
Van Dorn (Greg Bayan) is little help, as he only time and again claims
there is no possible connection between the killings and his research.
However, one of his employees, Dr Sunday Morgan (Lisa Nistri), proves to
be more sympathetic to the cop's cause - especially after she obtains some
information concerning some botched up experiments at PsyMax she wasn't
even aware about. However, a DNA analysis of the killer's saliva found on
the victims proves that he is ... some kind of mutated human, most
probably. and the mutations most certainly have to do with the feelgood
drug developed at PsyMax. However, when Dr Morgan confronts Dr Van Dorn
with her findings, he denies everything. Not long afterwards, an FDA agent
(Philip J.Martin) involved in closing down the research turns up dead, and
someone is after Dr Morgan ... Of course it should by now be obvious to
the viewer that the killer of the piece is Dr Van Dorn himself, but not
quite in the way you think. You see, he has taken the feelgood drug
himself, but when research was shut down, his supply of endorphins (the
very thing that makes humans feel good) was cut off, and suddenly he found
himself turning into a brainsucking monster (literally a monster that is)
who has to kill until it's fed enough endorphins. Eventually, Dr Morgan
finds out the whole truth, but by that time, monster Van Dorn is already
hot on her trail. The finale pits Dr Morgan and Van Dorn's own daughter
(Elizabeth Shevock) against Van Dorn on a cable car - which ends with his
decapitation after an extended fight. But given his regenerative powers
that have inexplicably come with his condition, can a mere decapitation
really kill him? Brainiac is a film that takes its
influences from pretty much everywhere, from your typical cop movie (with
Joe Hansard giving a quite amusing caricature-cop), Jekyll
and Hyde, the 1962 Mexican shocker Brainiac,
and more 1950's monster movies than I could shake a stick at - but what
the film resembles the most closely are possibly the low budget horror
movies small-frye studios like Monogram
or PRC churned
out in the 1940's: Basically, it's all there, a plot based on a ridiculous
understanding of science, a hilarious monster, cheap special effects and a
plot that's at the same time too formulaic and not thought through enough
to really convince - and that's the charming part about Brainiac,
the downside is that the film as a whole is actually too overconvoluted
with characters and subplots to tell its simple story, that it often
cannot decide whether to play it straight or tongue-in-cheek, and that the
directorial effort on the film is a bit too functional to really elevate
it beyond cheap monster flick status in any way. In all, not without its
merits, but not really good, either.
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