When Gray Matter Goes Bad:
 "Mind Over Matter" Starring Tom Breznahan, Cynthia Preston, and David Gale Written by Barry Pearson Directed by Ed Hunt American/Canadian, 1988 This film has the stench of Canada all over it. Many of Canada's films are, to be honest, quite odd. The Brain is no exception to this general rule of thumb. After the credits, we open the film with a shot of a distinctive looking building, one that looks a bit like a spaceship. It's the Psychological Research Institute (PRI), where a television show called Independent Thinking is being broadcast. I suppose it's sort of like Dr. Phil. Then we see a shot of a weird tentacle attached to a large slimy brain that sits in a tank with electrodes attached to it. We cut to the host of Independent Thinking, Dr. Anthony Blake (David Gale). He welcomes the live audience, and the people who watch on television. One of these people is a woman, whom I will call 'Victim 1'. Blake talks about how his show is number 1 in the city, and he smiles a very slick, evil smile. Victim 1 asks her daughter, Victim 2, if she will join her in watching the show. Victim 2, who's a teenager, refuses, stating that she sees Dr. Blake enough already. Meanwhile, Blake says that he has the solution to teen angst: Independent Thinking. Upstairs, Victim 2 touches up her makeup. Suddenly, her powder box starts making smoke, and her white teddy bear starts to bleed from it's eyes. She freaks out and tries to get out of her room, but her door is stuck shut. Suddenly, claws burst out from the door and television in her room, and the lights go out. Tentacles wrap around her waist, and she screams but gets away. Then the room starts closing in on her, with the walls and furniture moving closer together. Despite all this, Victim 2 doesn't look terribly frightened. I know I would be. Suddenly, everything is back to normal, and Victim 1 enters the room, checking on Victim 2. Victim 2 is scared. A tentacle then bursts out from the teddy bear, and wraps around Victim 1's throat, choking her. Victim 2 tries to save her mom by stabbing the tentacle with a sharp object, and it bleeds a thick yellow liquid. All through this, the actress playing the girl looks really calm. We get a close-up of the girl's face, and then we see that there was no tentacle to begin with, and that she really was stabbing her mother in the chest. Victim 1 dies with the knife or whatever sticking out. We see a large flying brain pounding against the other side of the mirror, and Victim 2 screams. This brain bursts into the room, and wraps its prehensile spinal cord around the girl's throat, pushing her towards the window. Then we see an exterior shot of the girl flying out her bedroom window and onto the ground far below. Judging from the decorations on the house, it's close to Christmas. We cut back to the television, and Blake tells us that Independent Thinking will be going nationwide very soon. Then we see shots of Victim 1 and Victim 2, both dead. We cut to a car pulling out from the driveway of a typical suburban house. On the radio, the DJ talks about the recent murders and suicides in 'Meadowvale', the town they live in. We see the driver of the car, a teenaged boy. Then the radio resumes playing what is described as "hard, hard rock", but is really some tame 80's drivel. When I think about "hard, hard rock" from the late 80's, I think about Metallica, not Heart. The driver, a guy by the name of James 'Jim' Majelewski (Tom Breznahan), pulls into the parking lot of his high school, and gets out of the car. However, he leaves the car right in the middle of the lot, and not in a parking space. Oh well, he enters the school, imaginatively called 'Meadowvale High School'. James meets two friends, Willie and Becky, at his locker, and they chat. Then James' girlfriend Janet (Cynthia Preston) arrives, and he asks for the homework that he didn't do. He says he'll copy it in class. This establishes that he's a lazy student. She says that she loves him, and he says he has to use the bathroom. The others talk, and head off for class. In the bathroom, James takes a fairly large hunk of metal from a plastic case marked 'sodium', and dumps it into the toilet. Being familiar with chemistry, I can say with some confidence that sodium does not react nicely with water. James knows this too, and flushes the chunk down the toilet. He leaves the stall, but notes a teacher who combs his hair at the sink. James realizes he's in trouble now. I thought teachers had separate bathrooms from the students, but never mind. Of course, the pipes explode, and water erupts from every fixture in the bathroom. I doubt a single lump of sodium would do all that. James leaves the bathroom, only to encounter another teacher drinking from a water fountain, which promptly explodes in the teacher's face. The teacher, Mr. Woods, is mad, and stops James in the hallway. Woods accuses James of doing something to the pipes to make them explode. The teacher from the bathroom shows up and presents the plastic case. Busted! It was also here that I became aware of a peculiarity of this film. Whenever we are treated to a headshot of a character, the framing is usually a little off. The person's face is usually just below the center of the frame. It's really noticeable in this part of the movie. Maybe it's just my tape. We cut to an office somewhere in the school. James is there, as are his parents, Mr. Woods, and another teacher. Woods tells us that James is one of the smartest people in the school, but is constantly preoccupied with pulling pranks and stunts. Woods is sick of James and his troublemaking. Woods threatens to suspend James, thus preventing him from graduating. I thought it was Christmas time. You're going to suspend him for six months?! Anyway, James protests this punishment, so Woods suggests another. He shows Mr. and Mrs. Majelewski a tape of Dr Anthony Blake recommending troubled teens visit him at PRI for treatment. James is skeptical, and says that Dr. Blake is a flake (hey, that rhymes!). Woods is determined, and says that Blake has treated others with wonderful results. Mrs. Majelewski points out very intelligently that Blake "wouldn't be on TV if he wasn't good." Sheesh, how naive. The parents seem optimistic about this plan, and James feels betrayed. However, he relents and agrees to see Dr. Blake. Woods and the parents shake hands, and while everybody is standing, James squirts some kind of glue all over Woods' seat. As if no one would see that. We cut to a 'lover's lane' type setting. James and Janet are there in James' car, making out. James is frustrated that in eight months of dating, they haven't had sex yet. Janet is determined to keep her virginity until college. She says that James would have to go to whatever college she went to if he wanted her. James tells her that he's going to see Dr. Blake about his behavior, and Janet is worried. They knew someone, possibly Victim 2, who died while under Blake's treatment program. Outside the car, something approaches. Tense music indicates that something is going to happen. James doesn't seem worried about Blake at all. They resume making out, when a pair of creatures look in to the car. Janet screams, but it turns out it's really Willie and Beckie. Janet is mad at them for what they did. I really hate it when movies do that. A policeman approaches the car. This is the inept Officer Marks, whom we will see more of later. Marks warns James to leave because it's past curfew, and James is a bit of a smartass with the cop. As they drive away, he makes a quip to Janet about Marks' ineptitude. The next day (presumably), James drives up to the evil looking PRI building. He walks up to the front door, and we are treated to more unique architecture. Inside, we see a front desk with a long lineup of people behind it, walking slowly forward like they're waiting for an amusement park ride. Who knew so many people were mentally imbalanced. James has an appointment with Blake, and the guard at the desk clears him. James walks down a hallway, and encounters a mental patient who resembles Pee Wee Herman, and who speaks softly about Dr. Blake being an alien and how he hides in his mind. James humors the nutcase, and a nurse arrives to take the loony back to his room. After all, in most mental hospitals, the patients get free run of the place. Then there's the aforementioned nurse. It's not some woman (as you probably imagined. Shame on you), this nurse is a man, and he looks like a biker. He's got longish brown hair and a beard and a really mean face. He's also pretty chunky. He's a bear of a nurse. This 'nurse' takes the loon away after being a bit rude with James. James proceeds to the examination room. It's a brightly lit room with a large mirror for a wall (hmmm...) and a television monitor on a cart. James sits down in a chair, and waits. Enter Vivian, an attractive blonde nurse. She checks James' forms, and performs a routine medical checkup that consists of listening to James' heartbeat with a stethoscope for a long time. Meanwhile, on the other side of the so-called mirror, is a dark room filled with all kinds of monitoring equipment. Blake and the Biker Nurse watch James. The Brain is right there with them, sitting in an aquarium. Vivian attaches some electrodes to James' head, and the Brain signals Blake through a television monitor that it's ready to put images into James' brain. Vivian leaves the room, and Blake enters. He asks James to answer his question: what is Vivian holding? On the television, Vivian holds an apple in one hand. James says he sees an apple, just as any sane person should. Blake seems confused. Meanwhile, the Brain reports that its signal is being rejected by James' brain. James keeps seeing an apple, but Blake is confident it's a baseball that Vivian is holding. The Brain tries harder to make James see a baseball, and for a moment it almost succeeds, but James' intelligent mind overpowers the Brain, and he continues to see an apple. Blake nods at the window. I guess he doesn't care if James knows there are people in there. The Brain's TV monitor warns that a hallucination is likely. Sure enough, James sees Vivian's top float off, starting a scene during which we see Vivian's bare breasts for a total of 30 seconds. James seems happy with what he sees. The Brain is not happy, and Blake is confused. This hallucination of Vivian then walks right out of the television and stands over James. James is getting worried by what he's seeing. Vivian vanishes and reappears. Blake seems worried, not seeing what James is seeing. The Brain is really mad, shaking back and forth in its tank, and we get brief flashes of an angry monster face, which we will be seeing more of later. Blake suddenly pulls the electrodes off of James' head and tells him to leave. James is mad at what they did to him, and Blake explains that it was all a hallucination. Really?! I never would have guessed. If I were James, I would sue. Anyhoo, James leaves in a huff. Blake rejoins Vivian, Biker Nurse, and the Brain (quite a motley crew we have here) in the back room. Biker Nurse notes that the Brain's spinal cord has grown, while Blake angrily plans to forget all about James Majelewski. Biker Nurse teases the Brain with a mouse, as if it could eat. Vivian doesn't like the Brain. She tells us that it controls people with 'hypnotic waves' via the Independent Thinking TV show, but that people who reject these waves start hallucinating. I guess she has a moral problem with this, and we're supposed to like her. Blake, of course, gets mad at her, and speaks the following: "Your mediocre mind cannot begin to comprehend the importance of my work! I suggest you look into your own neurotic behavior, then perhaps you will understand your continuing negativity!"Oooo, he's so evil. He must have gone to Satan's School of Psychiatry. Vivian tells him to stop this weird work, but Blake fires her. She's glad to go, and is prepared to blow the lid off this secret project. In a great scene of cheap cheesy delight, the Brain suddenly leaps out of its tank, and latches on to Vivian's face. She stumbles backwards, and for a total of 8 beautiful seconds, we see the actress holding the large brain-shaped prop to her face and screaming. I was laughing so hard, I thought I'd get a hernia. We see that it's eating her up. Who knew brains had digestive systems? Maybe one could be hidden in the cingulate gyrus region. Ooo, I'm so smart ;-) The Brain, which is maybe two feet long, is eating an entire human being. As she's being eaten, Blake is compelled to say this: "Now that's food for thought."He also smiles that weirdly evil lopsided smile he has. Meanwhile, the Brain grows very large and a face starts to slowly (and cheaply, I might add) push its way out from between the Brain's hemispheres. It also growls, suggesting this brain also now has a respiratory system. Is it good to continue calling it a brain? Apparently so. Blake gazes at it in wonder. James is driving home. Some Christmas music playing on the radio starts sounding distorted, and James switches the radio off. The doors lock all by themselves, and the car begins to speed up all by itself. James tries braking, but the car won't respond. The car then starts driving all over the empty road, even in the other lane. James tries taking control of the car, but in the process accidentally pulls the steering wheel right off. Whoops, must be an Edsel. It nearly hits a truck in the other lane head-on, but swerves to avoid it. While its still driving fast, a tongue-like tentacle emerges from the steering column and wraps around James' waist. I wonder what Freud would have to say about that image. I know I was grossed out. James shouts, and he tries pulling it off. Then we get more rapid flashes of the Brain's new monster face. James looks terrified. In a stunt that must have cost half of the film's budget, the car flies off the road, over an obviously hidden ramp, flips in midair, and crashes off the road upside-down. Once this crash is over, a fire starts on the underside of the car, and James claws his way out. He runs off, and the car explodes three times. We cut to a 23-second long shot of a fast food place that specializes in submarine sandwiches. James enters the restaurant. Inside, James asks for Janet. You see, Janet, Debbie, and Willie all work there. How convenient! James explains he got in a car accident, and they're worried. At the time, however, I was observing their uniforms - tight t-shirts with a red cloth thing tied around their necks. It doesn't look bad on Debbie or Janet, but on Willie... it looks a bit off. Janet leads James into the back room to nurse him. James says he was hallucinating, and sounds frustrated because he can't really explain what happened. Janet is really worried. She wants him to go to the hospital, but James is sick of doctors. Who isn't? Debbie pops in, saying that the whole cheerleading squad just showed up and they want food. She whines at Willie and Janet for help, and they reluctantly leave James alone in the back room. While they work, James predictably starts hallucinating again. Blood, or something that is supposed to be blood, starts leaking from decanters on the floor. A police car pulls up outside the restaurant, and Officer Marks enters. He asks if James is there, saying that he spotted his car wrecked by the road. Should he not call for backup, or inform the parents first, before popping into a restaurant to casually inquire if James is there? Maybe he did, it's not terribly clear. In the back room, James is getting scared, and he tries to get out, but the door is stuck shut. Is this a hallucination, or is the Brain manipulating matter as well as thought? Marks hears the ruckus at the door, but Willie makes a lame excuse. In the backroom, a tentacle bursts out of a cardboard box behind James and again grabs him by the waist. He struggles and frees himself. He's making a lot of noise, and Marks is getting suspicious. We get a shot of James on the floor, fighting something above him. Janet, Debbie, and Willie go back to check on James since he's making lots of noise, and Marks follows. They find James thrashing around on the floor, fighting a figment of his imagination. It's one thing to read about it, but it's quite another thing to see an actor fighting an invisible foe. It's hard to get involved in that sort of fight. All the while, Janet pleads annoyingly for him to stop. James bursts out of the back room, fighting the invisible tentacles or whatever the whole way. He ends up on top of the counter slowly fighting his way backwards, getting odd looks from everyone in the restaurant. He's kicking and punching the air. We also get a shot of a tentacle thrashing around in a shallow bowl of water, which I guess is what he sees. This one-sided 'fight' lasts 43 seconds. A white car pulls up next to the police car, and Biker Nurse lumbers out. He too enters the restaurant. Officer Marks struggles to subdue James while Biker Nurse injects an unknown substance into James' arm. Janet and the others are outraged and demand to know what's happening, and Biker Nurse calmly explains that James escaped prematurely from PRI and needs more treatment. I don't get it. Blake told him to go because the hypnosis didn't work on him, so why do they want him back all of a sudden? Biker Nurse and Marks take an unconscious James out to the PRI car, and Marks explains that James' parents signed a 'release' that allows Biker Nurse to take him away like this. Janet and Willie put up a half-assed, sissy resistance as James gets driven away by Biker Nurse. We cut to a brilliantly illuminated room with a single door. James is curled up on the floor when he wakes up and looks around. Someone is pounding on the door, and trying to get in with a small knife. James is scared and probably thinks someone is coming to kill him. That's what I'd think. Of course, it's only the loony that we saw earlier. He enters the room and says he will switch places with James, thus allowing James to escape. I guess the loony has no room of his own, so his place is in the hallways... with a knife. James is cautious but grateful, and he leaves the room. Outside, Janet and Willie are driving around the PRI building, perhaps intending to somehow get James out of there. I didn't really know how they would do it, or why since his parents authorized his stay in there, but okay. Meanwhile, James is sneaking around the many hallways and passages in PRI. Janet and Willie park their truck, and sneak over to a small door marked 'boiler room'. There, Willie uses a large pair of cutters to cut through the padlock. James stumbles upon Blake, Biker Nurse, and the Brain. There, James learns of Blake's plans: "...it has increased size, the brain waves we're sending out can be even stronger. We'll be reaching a wider audience. Soon, it will be thinking for all those morons out there... The stronger it gets, the more minds it needs to control. It must expand, or it will die."The Brain turns and sees James peeking in. Biker Nurse is sent out to catch James, and a chase ensues. We watch them run through halls, down ramps, through more halls and down staircases. Trust me, there will be a lot more shots of hallways and staircases later. Occasionally, Biker Nurse fires his gun from a distance and misses. Janet and Willie get into the boiler room, and run around pipes and ducts and stuff that you'd expect to see in a boiler room. We see James and the Biker Nurse running up and down more staircases, and James hides in the same boiler room as Janet and Willy. Now, I have theories for this little plot hole: a) The Brain told James for some reason that his friends were in there;I tend to think it's c). Anyway, Biker Nurse and a security guard also enter the boiler room and split up to find James. James sneaks around the pipes and vents and furnaces and whatnot. We see a sign cautioning us that this boiler uses sodium. Huh? Sodium is one of the more useless metals in its pure form, and I certainly don't see an application for sodium in a boiler. I think this director might have a sodium fetish. James wants to get out of the boiler room, but is lost. At the same time, Willie and Janet argue: Willie: "Janet, we're never gonna find him up here."Yeah, writer Barry Pearson was a real Einstein. James looks around, almost like he expects Janet and Willie to be there. Biker Nurse is also looking around. Finally, James meets his friends, and James leads as they head off to the exit. Janet is, of course, confused. Willie is lagging behind the other two, and as they all walk, the Brain suddenly pops out from hiding and slides aggressively to Willie. It grabs him with tentacles, and pulls his head into its large mouth. This is another wonderfully bad scene. If I were the actor who had to stick my head in a huge rubber mouth, I'd be humiliated. He has to pretend that this thing is biting his head off when it clearly isn't. James and Janet realize Willie is missing, and they turn back only to find him being eaten by the Brain. Biker Nurse is waiting on the other side of the Brain, and won't pass by it. James wants to rescue Willie, but it's far too late, and Janet pulls him away. They run, and the Brain roars. Biker Nurse goes out another exit to continue the chase. So, why was Willie written into the film? He served no purpose. James and Janet exit the building and hop into the truck. While James hunts down the keys and struggles to start the engine, Biker Nurse appears from the corner of the building and runs towards them. Janet is screaming, and as they drive off, Biker Nurse shoots right at them. I was expecting the window behind them to at least shatter, but that didn't even happen! They drive down the road, and everything seems okay, until a police car suddenly starts chasing them. Janet wants to pull over, but James won't because he says the police can't be trusted. Unfortunately for James, the cop forces them to stop anyway, and everybody exits their respective cars. It's Officer Marks. Is he the only cop in Meadowvale? With his gun drawn, Marks shouts at them to freeze, and says James is wanted. James and Janet beg Marks to go with them to PRI to check out the death of Willie. The cop puts them in handcuffs, and piles them into his car. Then the PRI car appears and Biker Nurse emerges. While he speaks briefly to Officer Marks, Biker Nurse takes an axe and first cuts into Marks' side, and then lops Marks' head clean off. We see it flying off! Jan and James are horrified. Biker Nurse approaches the door to the police car, his axe ready. Jason and Janet scramble to get out the other door, while Biker Nurse smashes the window with the axe. If we can pause here, I'd like to point out that the rear doors of police cars cannot be opened from the inside. Anyway, James and Janet run from the car, and Biker Nurse almost gets them, but James knocks him out cold with a blow to the head using a large rock. They get away. More police cars arrive, and Biker Nurse awakes. He claims that James killed the cop with the axe. James and Janet plod through a forest. They decide to head to the school to hide as it's Saturday and nobody will be there. On their way to the school, they pass by houses. I would think it would defeat the purpose to hide out at the school by walking by houses and being seen by people in the vicinity. Back at PRI, we see the Brain sitting on a large platform. Independent Thinking is on, and the Brain is sending out its hypnotic signal. We cut to a woman watching the show. Blake is on, and warns the audience that James is on the run and needs to be brought back to PRI for more treatment because he's a psycho. James and Janet stumble on the house of Mr. Woods, who is out in the backyard building a deck or some wooden platform. This also happens to also be the house of the woman we just saw. James sees her watching the show through the window, and figures out the Independent Thinking is the show that will carry the Brain's hypnotic signal to everybody. Meanwhile the police are near, looking for James. The TV seems to be talking directly to Mrs. Woods. Blake is addressing all of his female viewers, and he wants them to get their husbands to also watch the show. "If he wants you, he must watch me."Mrs. Woods looks mad, and the Brain is controlling her mind. She gets up to reign in her husband. Outside, the cops are getting closer. Mrs. Woods meets her husband in the backyard. Janet and James watch, and we watch them speak the following lines: Mrs. Woods: "Honey, wouldn't you like to watch Dr. Blake?"My God, the way these lines are delivered, I feel like I'm watching some anti-drug public service announcement. You know the kind, 'Just Say No'. Really, REALLY awful acting. People don't talk like that. We get a shot of the Brain growling softly. Mr. Woods sits down, but Mrs. Woods takes the chainsaw and starts it up. She approaches him with it, and he tells her repeatedly to put it down. He doesn't try to get away, except for slowly backing up. She proceeds to slowly cut into him, and he screams. He doesn't even struggle or writhe in pain. We see a brief shot of the entire deck with her cutting into him, and There is absolutely no blood anywhere. No splatter, no stains, no blood! Do the police that are nearby not hear the chainsaw and the screaming?! She laughs hysterically. When she's done, she drops the chainsaw. James and Janet are very disturbed by what they saw, and they run off. Mrs. Woods spots them and cries that James cut her husband in half. We get another shot of the Brain. James and Janet avoid the many police cars out looking for them. They eventually make it to the school, and by then it's nighttime. He has a key he made in shop class the year before that can open the front door to the school. That was a pretty stupid assignment for the teacher to give out. All the lights are on, and there's nobody in the school. I suppose this is accurate, though I suspect a school would be monitored during weekends. Janet wants to call her father to get help, but he watches Independent Thinking, and he's probably already been brainwashed. James goes off to the metal shop to cut off his handcuffs (huh?), leaving Janet alone with a payphone. She calls her father, and from the sounds of things, he's been brainwashed. She tearfully hangs up on him. James uses a pair of large cutters to cut through his handcuffs. It would be impossible for him to cut through his handcuffs with that tool, but never mind. He goes back to Janet to cut off her cuffs as well. We cut to a biology room, complete with a model skeleton. Janet and James hide in this room, behind a bench. They wonder if everyone in the town has been brainwashed. James suspects that if the show went off the air, everyone would go back to normal. Then Janet kisses him, saying afterwards that she "doesn't wanna wait anymore." I understand the feeling, but you want to do it right there and then? They kiss again for 34 seconds, and it is implied that they have sex. Back at PRI, the Brain watches them sleeping together on the floor of the classroom. Who knew the Brain was a voyeur. Anyway, how can it watch them? There are no cameras in this room! The Brain somehow moves the skeleton, and we hear some sinister music. We suddenly see the Brain actually in the room with them, looking down at Janet and Jason sleeping. It moves in, presumably to kill them. James suddenly wakes up, fully clothed, and as if waking from a bad dream. Janet is not there, and he gets up to find her. Now I'm confused. They're in the school, but did they really have sex or was that some dream he was having. I guess it was a dream, that they slept in the biology room but didn't do anything. Outside, the police pull up to the school. How they know James is hiding out there is beyond me. They're ordered 'shoot to kill.' Geez, isn't that a bit extreme considering that James is unarmed. We see Janet in the school library, watching Independent Thinking on TV. Why, if knowing it's bad, is SHE WATCHING IT??!! Blake says that James is sick and needs help, and begs him to turn himself in. James finds her and pulls her away from the television, but it's too late. She accuses him of murder. He can't believe what she's saying. She then trips the fire alarm, and she screams at him. A cop that is already inside the school shoots at James, and he runs off. The cop chases, and we see more running scenes in hallways. The cops shoot, and everybody runs past lockers, through halls, and through more halls. The whole while, the fire alarm is ringing loudly, and it gets annoying really fast. We get to hear this alarm for a total of 2 minutes and 18 seconds. The chase is 36 seconds shorter. James loses the cops in the auto shop, but this delay will only be brief. He opens the garage door and drives a fully fueled car without a hood out of the shop. The cop that found him in there fires but misses. The fire alarm is just as loud inside the car and outside the school. This is a segue from the School Chase to the Car Chase, which lasts another 3 minutes and 16 seconds. James drives his hoodless car down many roads and over some hills, trying to leave Meadowvale. However, the police car is catching up, and another is coming from the opposite direction. At the last minute, James suddenly turns onto another road, and in the process manages to lose both police cars. I thought cops were good drivers. One drives right off the road, and the other gets stuck in a ditch. James laughs in triumph, not realizing that this road is, in fact, a dead-end. At the end of the road, James gets out of the car and looks past the edge. The road stops at a tall cliff. He goes back to the car and uses a piece of wire or something to hold the gas pedal down, so the car drives itself over the edge of the cliff. In a stunt that must have used up the other half of the movie's budget, we see the car plummet and land hard. This time, there was no explosion. James then hides by the side of the road. The cops finally arrive. They look around, and see the crashed car over the edge of the cliff. Then they leave. Isn't this a crime scene, shouldn't they stay there and ask for an ambulance or anything? No, I guess not. Now it's nighttime. James is alone in the cold, and watches the town that's all lit up from his vantage point. Then we see a shot of the Brain. James sets his plan to defeat the Brain into motion. We cut to a parking lot, and James walking through, getting glances from people on the street. He avoids them and walks down a sidewalk. Maybe they're looking at him because it's Christmas time, it's very cold out, and he's only got on an insubstantial sweater. Anyway, a few people note his resemblance to the psycho on the loose. We cut to PRI, where a long lineup of people is slowly filing into the building. A banner proclaims that the show is going nationwide today. James appears there, and buys a newspaper with him on the front page:
MAD MAJELEWSKI MURDERS MORE
Total at Four 'Unpredictable' Dr. Jekyll - Mr. Hyde Note the attempt at alliteration for the headline. Anyhoo, James looks around and sees heavy security at the entrance. He knows he can't get in there, so he dashes off and heads for the back of the building. Inside, Blake and Biker Nurse talk to the Brain. Blake says that now millions of people will be watching and the Brain can control all of them. Then the Brain communicates through its television that James is in the building. Biker Nurse is dispatched again to kill James. James slips in through the boiler room door, which is still broken from the day before. Inside, James has a brief flashback to Willie's death. Then James sees another hallucination of a shirtless Vivian standing before him. Here, we see breasts for another 10 seconds or so. She speaks to him: Vivian: "This is your hallucination, Jim. You have a dirty mind."She goes on to suppose that Dr. Blake is not human (hint), and that he's on Earth to help everyone because he knows what's best for all of us. James wills her to vanish, and he continues on. Up in the lobby, everybody stands around while they wait to be let into the stage. James peeks in at the sullen crowd, and sees his parents there. He stares at them for 17 very long seconds, puts on some aviator-style sunglasses, and walks out into the crowd. Never mind the fact that he's wearing a filthy sweater and that he still looks like the picture in the newspaper. Mrs. Majelewski recognizes him, and James begs for their help. She accuses him of murder and attracts attention. James pleads with her to stop, but she's been brainwashed and calls for security. James runs off, beginning yet another chase. Biker Nurse joins in the fun, and we watch everyone run through hallways, down stairwells, and through more hallways. PRI is either a labyrinth, or has the dimensions of a stadium. James eventually stumbles on Jan, who is hanging up in a freezer with bodies on the ground. She screams that the Brain eats people, and that she's next. She repeatedly screams for James to free her. Meanwhile, in one of the building's many, many staircases, Biker Nurse is approaching. James takes an axe and starts hammering at the metal door of the freezer. Then Biker Nurse and a guard appear and shoot at him, but James gets away. Biker Nurse looks in on Janet, and smiles at her as she hangs. We see more stairs, only now the cop is chasing James up the stairs. Biker Nurse also follows. At the stage, Independent Thinking starts, and Blake enters to applause. We see more staircase chasing. GOOD GRAVY, The director must have a staircase fetish too! Then we see some running. Blake is really happy. He says that he's in negotiations to have the show broadcast worldwide via satellite. Mr. and Mrs. Majelewski are in the audience, smiling. After some more running, James enters the studio. Blake warns the audience that James is in the building, and must have returned for treatment. Blake wants to help him. Just then, James bursts onstage, and Blake is delighted. We get shots of the Brain. James punches Blake right in the face, knocking him over. However, Blake's head flies off at the moment of impact and dark green slime pours out of where the head was attached. Blake's head rests on the floor, oozing dark green fluid. James and the audience are horrified. I am amused. The Brain is upset now, and Biker Nurse heads for the studio. James tells the audience what Dr. Blake was and what he was up to. The audience watches and accepts everything. The Brain is still in control here. Why doesn't it convince them that James is still a murderer?! His parents look proud of their son, but Mrs. Majelewski spots Biker Nurse joining James on stage. James runs off, and... we get another riveting chase!! Through the halls and down yet another set of staircases. James finds Janet and frees her from the freezer. Together, they run off and enter some dark warehouse-like room with some truck entrances. James manages to open one of these. Biker Nurse is close behind them. As James opens the door, the Brain bursts out, growling and roaring. It eats Biker Nurse, and again it looks so silly to see the actor scream and struggle while a piece of rubber squeezes his neck. So funny. James and Janet sneak around boxes and crates and shelves, while the Brain somehow moves and looks for them. The music goes all quiet, suggesting that the Brain will burst out at any moment. Sure enough, it happens, and it chases our two protagonists. It is here that it is obvious that the Brain prop is on some kind of cart and being pushed by at least one stagehand. In fact, according to BadMovies.org, at one point the shoes of one of these stagehands are visible behind the Brain. Err, did the editor not see this? He must have been busy laughing his arse off. Anyway, the Brain corners James and Janet against a wall and a shelf, and James starts throwing stuff from the shelf at it, but the Brain is really big and James does no damage. It tries grabbing Janet with its long tongue, but James manages to sever it and free Janet. Janet screams (of course). James pounds a container against the Brain's nose, but nothing happens. Then James looks at the container. Lo and behold, it contains sodium, the prankster's best friend from the beginning of the film! James throws the container into the Brain's mouth, and it roars. James and Janet shield themselves from the coming reaction. The Brain slowly starts rolling backwards, with smoke starting to come out of its mouth. Then we see its face blow up. It's quite a sparse explosion effect, with some sparklers obviously dangling inside the Brain's blown-up face. It looks more like a fireworks misfire than a killer explosion. The Brain is dead. James and Janet get up, and are relieved by what they see. A few months later (presumably, as James is getting letters of admission from various universities), James and his parents are having breakfast in the kitchen at home. Everything seems to have returned to normal. Mrs. Majelewski, who apparently reads his son's mail, says that Princeton wants James to attend their school. James says that they'll have to wait in line like the rest of them. Yeah, sure. They regret Mr. Woods not being able to see this. Then Janet arrives to pick James up and drive him to school. He gets up and leaves, and we see that his relationship has apparently returned to normal with his parents. I think if I were James, I wouldn't quite look at my parents (or Janet for that matter) the same way again after how they betrayed me. I know they were brainwashed, but still... As he leaves, James takes out some of the garbage left from Christmas, which suggests that it's still January. What university makes even conditional offers in January?! We cut outside, and we see James and Janet drive off to school amid a bleak, post-Christmas suburban landscape, which we stare at for 28 seconds. Then (and quite predictably), we see a sudden 'triangle wipe', and the Brain growling and roaring. MWAHAHA!! Finally, as the credits roll, we get a warning:
Warning
The washroom scene is a dramatic representation. Combining sodium and water may cause serious injury. Do not attempt it!!! Puh-leeeze! THE END!!!
Hey hey, I feel I have a special connection to this movie. Let me tell you why: a) I live in the area where this movie was filmed;Believe me, it's a strange feeling to see the place that I worked at in a bad movie. First, let me talk about the city. Meadowvale is a real place, and there really is a Meadowvale High School. I have a feeling that, when it came to filming the high school exterior scenes, they were too cheap to change the name of the school for real, so they revised the script and changed the town's name to Meadowvale. That's my idea. Anyway, Meadowvale is not a city in of itself, but part of a larger suburb city called Mississauga, in Ontario, Canada. All those houses are typical of Mississauga, and it's really weird to see them in this movie. I was half expecting to see my house during the film. As for PRI, it's not the Psychological Research Institute, or any kind of hospital. It's the Xerox Research Center of Canada, also in Mississauga, and it's a chemical research facility. It must have been used because it really is an evil looking building. There's a scene in The Brain where James is walking up to the front door for his first visit with Dr. Blake, and those are the front doors to the building. I used those doors to go to work!! AHHHH!! In fact, when I was interning there, I even went around to the back of the building to search for the 'boiler room' door that Janet and Willie broke into in the film, but alas, it was not there. The Xerox building had expanded in the intervening years. The interiors of PRI were not filmed at Xerox (probably for security reasons - secret stuff goes on in there), but were filmed at least partly at the Ontario Science Center, north of Toronto. I recognized many of the hallways in the chase scenes as being at the science center. So you see, most of the movie was giving me a weird feeling when I watched it. But enough about me. I think it's ironic that a movie was made that demonstrates the evils of television. I mean, come on! I really found it funny that a movie's main moral was to stop watching so much television. TV and movies are both forms of media, aren't they? They're both part of the problem! This movie had such lame monster effects, though I got the feeling it was only due to a low budget and not incompetence like other bad effects I've seen. I liked David Gale in this movie, I thought he was pretty good (relatively speaking, of course). At the bottom was Cynthia Preston, who was really annoying in the movie. Tom Breznahan wasn't bad, though the little speech he gives towards the end about Dr. Blake's plan was awkward. However, Biker Nurse is a different story. He's credited as 'Verna' in the movie, and the actor who played him, George Buza, really is a biker, as well as a weightlifter and an internationally known stamp collector. Who would have thought? By the way... Xerox has no evil giant brains... at least not ones I'm at liberty to discuss... May 6, 2004 Back to main site? |
