Brain Damage (1988)

I’ve gotta get something off my chest. For several years, I thought To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, the film, not the book) was a horror movie. Yes, the classic tale of childhood innocence and racial bigotry. This thing scared the ever-loving fuck out of me. Why? Boo. Radley. Let’s not forget that, up until the ending, which I must have blocked out, Boo Radley is a specter; lurking around the neighborhood and always ready to jump out and snatch up the children. I had a friend over for a sleepover and we showed him the movie, warning him that there were scary parts. We didn’t even make it halfway through because he got so freaked out by the Boo scenes. It was easy for me to label TKAM a horror movie because it scared me.

For years, the great writer/director Frank Henenlotter has insisted that he doesn’t make horror films. He makes exploitation films. I agree and it’s for that reason he stands apart in the horror genre for the simple fact that he doesn’t specifically set out to make horror movies. Then again…come on. Nearly everything in a Frank Henenlotter movie could very easily belong in an extreme horror film. The difference is that he is a self-described “eccentric” and “a strange little person” who goes places very few filmmakers, both horror and non-horror, will tread.

Most people know him as the man who brought us the immortal Basket Case (1982), an ultra-low budget tale of two brothers seeking revenge. Along with its two sequels, he created a small-scale saga following Duane and his misunderstood but very temperamental brother, Belial. In 1990, Frankenhooker was unstrapped from the slab and jerked its stitched-on neck around to ask, “Wanna date?” It would be seventeen years until Henenlotter directed another feature, the somewhat poorly received Bad Biology (2008), which may have lacked the fun of his previous work but still had that classic Henenlotter feel. Nowadays, you can mostly find him running the fabulous Something Weird Video, but he’s also put his vast knowledge of the exploitation genre to good use with a handful of documentaries, including the solid Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010). In between Basket Case and Frankenhooker, he’d direct a feature that has slowly but surely grown in both appreciation and stature amongst his filmography. Here’s how I look at his most famous pieces. Basket Case is the most iconic. Frankenhooker, the most fun. 1988’s Brain Damage is his masterpiece. An unassuming, maybe even small masterpiece, but a masterpiece nonetheless.

I get a real jolt of recognition whenever I see the great blue electricity effect which opens the film. You see, I once poured some delicious hot chocolate into a fancy Christmas mug, assuming it, like the other mugs in our household, could withstand the awesome power of our microwave. No matter that the outside of the mug resembled tinsel. What could happen? For a brief 3 seconds, I witnessed glorious sparks and blue lightning envelop it until I quickly pressed the stop button. The mug, once a smooth and shiny gold, now resembled those weird decoratively-cracked mirrors you often see in movies when a character is doing cocaine, then stares at themself, asking each of the many reflections, “What am I doing with my life?” For Henenlotter, he knew he had to beat his own cocaine addiction. The result? A sober director who channeled his drug problems into a darkly hilarious allegory for addiction and dependency.

Several close-ups of African sculptures indicate that the people living in this apartment are scholarly types. That assumption is confirmed when Morris (Theo Barnes), a man whose appearance practically screams ‘professorial,’ arrives with something wrapped in paper. Note the prominently placed “Liquid Pain” book. As he complains about people asking too many questions regarding the package, his over-enthusiastic wife Martha (Lucille Saint-Peter) gleefully unwraps the paper, revealing a pile of gooey, pink brains. She can’t wait to feed them to ‘him.’ Who ‘he’ is, we’ll soon find out. She screams in abject horror when she discovers their bathtub is filled with nothing but water. Soon, they’re destroying their apartment, tossing books and breaking dishes, desperately looking for something. They start checking the tubs of their neighbors, including Beverly Bonner’s, a favorite of Henenlotter’s and who’d appear in all of his features. Morris and Martha come up short and lay on the floor, foaming at the mouth. Something is very wrong with them.

Meanwhile, Brian (Rick Hearst, a mega star on soap operas), whose name can easily be re-arranged to spell ‘Brain,’ sleeps in his bed. His girlfriend Barbara (Jennifer Lowry) shows up for a date, but he feels deathly sick. She’s convinced to go with Brian’s brother, Mike (Gordon MacDonald), who definitely has eyes for her.

Brian wakes up a little later to discover a massive amount of blood on his sheets and the back of his neck. As he crawls toward the bathroom, there are some cool in-camera flashes as he realizes something is going on in his head. He’s giddy and loopy. Henenlotter’s ambitious vision for Brain Damage is frankly stunning, with endlessly inventive imagery and clever transitions that combine regular household objects with psychedelic hallucinations. Bruce Torbet, his DP on Basket Case, does a splendid job with the slick 35mm stock as opposed to the gritty 16mm of Basket Case. Interesting tidbit, Bruce Torbet would play a melting hobo in Jim Muro’s jaw-dropping Street Trash (1987). Brian’s bedroom fills with blue liquid and it flows over him. His bedroom light slowly becomes a veiny eyeball. He wakes up…and a strange little creature leans over his shoulder. Voiced by the legendary horror host of Shock Theater, John Zacherle, this weirdly cute monster who looks like a combination slug, snake, and frankly, a dildo, greets Brian with a jolly “Hi.”

This is Aylmer, not Elmer, thank you very much. It’s an old English word meaning “the awe-inspiring famous one.” His eyes are bright blue and quite friendly. He gets right to the point by offering Brian a deal. If Brian takes him for a “walk,” he’ll provide him with a strange blue liquid that stimulates the brain. Brian agrees and we get some wild puppet work as Aylmer’s jaw unhinges, revealing a mess of teeth and a stinger-type extension dripping dark blue liquid. He injects it directly into the back of Brian’s head, where we get an inside look at how the brain reacts when it gets a taste of the blue stuff. There’s electricity and Brian experiences immediate euphoria. He’s tripping and he’s hooked.

Many people point toward Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen as the quintessential New York directors. I think a strong argument could be made that Frank Henenlotter’s depiction of New York is right up there with the best. He portrays the city the way it was before Rudy “Sieg Heil” Giuliani cleaned it up with his Gestapo-like tactics. It’s dangerous, sleazy, and very shabby. To Brian, everything is rosy. Thanks to some eerily beautiful music by Clutch Reiser and Gus Russo, the world according to Brian is a technicolor dream.

Brian jumps a fence and runs amok in a junkyard through a maze of wrecked cars. There are some gorgeous tracking shots. I like to think Henenlotter was having a ball using a Steadicam here. In fact, his use of the camera in this film is very impressive. Take the Aylmer scenes, for instance. Thanks to the stellar work by Gabe Bartalos (Leprechaun), David Kindlon (The Blob), and Al Magliochetti (Jason Goes to Hell, The Addams Family), Aylmer is a convincingly real character in the film. The puppet work is spot-on and the stop-motion sequences work nicely as well. What makes Henenlotter’s camera work here stand out is the fluidity he employs during complex sequences. Most films which involve transformations or very elaborate puppet work are often done in static shots so the onscreen work is not only highlighted, but also because it’s frustrating if the effect worked but the camera got banged into. Here, we get several dolly shots during tricky effects work, heightening the tension and confirming the reality of the situation.

A night watchman hears Brian hooping and hollering, something which reminded me of Kenny in the “Major Boobage” episode of South Park. They claim that when Kenny was “cheesing his f’in balls off, he was just running around in circles cheering.” The watchman really takes his job seriously as he suits up in a dramatic fashion. When he tracks down Brian, Aylmer attacks the guard and burrows into his head to feast on his brains. Brian’s vision is still obscured and he can’t make out anything that’s happening. After Aylmer has his fill, Brian only asks, “Juice me again.”

“Things are getting real weird around here,” Mike informs Barbara. She’s arrived for a dinner date and sees there have been some “changes.” Four new locks are attached to the door, in a similar fashion to Morris and Martha’s set up. Brian has been in the bathroom for 3 hours and when he answers the phone, he just giggles. He’s also keeping pails of water in his room and changes them 4 times a day.

Brian explains his newfound lease on life without revealing its source to Barbara. As their spaghetti and meatballs are served, he explains that they need to spend some time apart and he’s also not going to work anymore. He looks down and sees the meatballs slowly mutating into pulsating brains. He needs to juice and rushes out, leaving Barbara in the lurch.

He stumbles into a hard metal/punk club called Hell and starts moshing. He catches the eye of a blonde woman (Vicki Darnell, Frankenhooker), who immediately comes on to him. She thinks he’s high as a kite (which he technically is) and that makes him irresistible, I guess. I’ve always found scenes like this to be a little ridiculous because characters who are acting incredibly weird are somehow attractive to the opposite sex. If that really worked, I’d’ve been at the club stumbling around like a nut job every damn night. Regardless, they make out for a bit and then she drops to her knees when she feels around and comments, “You got a real monster in there.” It’s funny ‘cause it’s true.

I’m pretty certain we can call this scene the most famous, but also most controversial of the film. The home video versions of Brain Damage excised this particular sequence. She unzips his pants to give him a blow job, but she’s greeted by Aylmer, who lunges into her mouth and begins to eat her brain. Although Brian isn’t really aware of what’s happening because of his high, he grabs her head and forces it closer to him, bringing to mind a rape scenario. I’m not prudish and I do find the scene to be original and even grotesquely funny. I admit though, it may be crossing a line. A line which certain members of the crew refused to cross since many of them walked off the set during the shooting of this scene, an occurrence which Henenlotter also went through on Basket Case.

The film moves with such confidence that it’s a wonder of economical and straight-forward storytelling. Brian finds blood in his underwear and has no idea where it came from. Before he can ask Aylmer, a voice calls out “You fool! You’re feeding him human brains! You’re making him strong!” Morris steps out of the shadows and demands Brian return Aylmer. He doesn’t look well. When Brian scoffs at Morris and his demand, we’re treated to a monologue of epic proportions. Henenlotter is highly intelligent, based off of the insane amount of complex dialogue he has his protagonists spout. The scientific jargon in Frankenhooker will make your head spin and it goes on for long stretches. Here, Morris delivers the convoluted but very cool origin story of Aylmer, which I will reprint here:

“For the Aylmer is a creature of endless histories. A living relic of civilizations long since forgotten. The Aylmer's origins can be traced back to the Fourth Crusade where he was snatched from the Emperor Alexius during the sack of Byzantium in 1203. It's believed a Venetian mercenary named Matteo Grimaldi brought the creature to Europe, but he had to surrender it almost immediately to a renegade cardinal, a Borgia who wanted the Aylmer all to himself. In 1699, the Aylmer reappeared in the possession of one Don Manuel Perolta, a Spanish viceroy and freelance corsair. He lost the Aylmer to a Portuguese admiral off the Barbary Coast who himself was murdered within days by a young midshipman who fled with his prize to Africa. There the Aylmer quickly fell into the hands of a Mabutu chief whose tribe placed a deep religious value in the Aylmer's many talents. Then, during the Second World War, a German munitions tycoon bribed a battalion commander to obtain the Aylmer for himself. It didn't work out that way. The Aylmer was brought to Berlin all right, but he passed from host to host for over three decades until I tracked him down. Until I paid for him in both money and blood. Until I made him mine.”

Holy shit. It’s an incredible speech, but Brian still runs off. He comes to the realization that finding blood in his underwear may be grounds for a little chat with Aylmer. Brian checks himself into a sleazy motel and puts Aylmer into the sink. This is one of the most quotable scenes in the film and a testament to Henenlotter’s fine talents as a writer. Brian asks about Morris and Aylmer replies that “they drained me like two shriveled parasites.” When he enquires about the well-being of the young lady with whom he shared an intimate moment, Aylmer matter-of-factly says “Of course she’s dead! Are you kidding?” Brian says he’s going to run the show now, but he has no idea with whom he’s dealing with. He’s addicted to Aylmer’s “juice” and as Aylmer puts it: “You’re mine now. I own you. I want you to beg for it now. We’ll just see who cracks first.” Brian tries to resist and hold out so Aylmer will become too hungry for brains to fight back, but his withdrawal annihilates him. The junkie aspects of the story are really driven home in this scene. He hallucinates that he’s pulling an endless line of bloody brain tissue out of his ear while Aylmer sings a jolly tune. He’s taunts him: “Ready to beg for it? When the pain gets so great, you’ll think you’re turning inside out.” Aylmer eventually wins and now Brian must take him to feed.

There’s a nice number of fake-out's here when Brian wanders around, looking for victims. A loud and boisterous biker dude and his withdrawn Latino boy-toy lock their door behind them. Joseph Gonzalez, the musclebound pimp Zorro from Frankenhooker, is taking a shower and although we see Aylmer slither down Brian’s leg, he doesn’t go for Gonzalez as we expect. Instead, he munches on a man reading a horror magazine in the toilet. There are copious spurts of blood above the stall, like a fountain, and Brian freaks.

Back at the apartment, Brian lays in bed while Mike moves in on Barbara. Funny side note, two white boxes on the top of the refrigerator that read ‘Frosted Flakes’ and ‘Grape Drink Mix’ look remarkably similar to the products in Alex Cox’s Repo Man (1984). Mike and Barbara sleep together in an extended, fairly realistic erotic scene. The capper here is that as Brian listens, it looks as though he has an erection under his sheets, but it turns out to be Aylmer. He has a bizarre dream of a threesome between him, Mike, and Barbara in which he has suckers on his chest and then yanks her brain out with his teeth. There's a neat transition as the popcorn ceiling he’s looking at become stars. He decides to leave in order to protect the two of them. He appears to be spouting nonsense and Barbara thinks he’s upset because she slept with his brother. Unfortunately, she’s dead wrong.

There’s a fabulous cross-over as Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) sits down across from Brian and Barbara, carrying “the basket.” They lock eyes for a moment and it would be absolutely fabulous for Belial and Aylmer to meet, but alas, Duane moves farther down the train. Aylmer keeps trying to push his way out of Brian’s mouth and finally gets what he wants when Brian kisses Barbara and her brain is eaten through her mouth. Brian lays her down gently on the seat and exits the train.

Finding himself back in the alley behind his building, Morris and Martha, looking worse-for-wear, threaten him with a gun and get Aylmer back. He’s definitely stronger now because he first eats Martha’s brain in a bloody mess of a scene, then nibbles on Morris’ noggin. Aylmer attaches himself to Brian and begins to administer the liquid, but Morris survives long enough to grab Aylmer in his fist and squeeze the life out of him, causing too much of Aylmer’s juice to flow into Brian’s brain. Brian grabs the gun and returns to the apartment while Aylmer dies on the pavement. His forehead develops a giant lump and blue liquid drips out of him. He shoots himself in the head and we see bright lights coming out of the apartment windows. Mike and the police rush in as a bright white light bursts through the top of Brian’s head. Electricity flows out of it and we’re reminded of something Aylmer said during his first appearance. “Listen to the light.” Cut to black. Credits.

Brain Damage is a film Henenlotter wanted to make. He was offered dozens of horror films, many slashers, and turned them all down. As a born filmmaker, it probably ate him up inside going so long without directing. He made up for it by making four films in just under four years. As a provocateur, his place among exploitation and horror enthusiasts is assured. There’s an artistry, however, that’s very rare in someone who delves into genre filmmaking. Frank Henenlotter can’t help but be a smart director even when his subject matter veers toward the outrageous, macabre, and downright vulgar. What he does is make fabulously entertaining films that also happen to be exploitative and more than a little disturbing. For those of us who like that sort of thing, he’ll always be our guy.