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Brainiac

USA 2004
produced by
Matthew J. Bayan, Terry Michael King, Greg Bayan (executive) for Flood City Productions
directed by Terry Michael King
starring Greg Bayan, Lisa Nistri, Joe Hansard, Elizabeth Shevock, Sarah East, Mcihael Petrunak, Robert Gratton, Philip J.Martin, Tamber Layne, Matthew J.Bayan, Terry Michael King, David Macerelli, Phillip Ryan Mathias, Nikki McIntyre
written by Greg Bayan, Matthew J. Bayan, animatronics design by James Woodruff

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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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.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
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