Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House
Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about the nineteen sixty two
Speaker 2: Mexican horror film The Brainiac, starring Abel Salazar Rosa, Maria
Speaker 2: Gallardo or Guyardo, and Rubin Rojo. And this is one
Speaker 2: that I saw many, many years ago. I think I
Speaker 2: watched this with a friend in high school. I remembered
Speaker 2: very little about it except the exquisitely bizarre design of
Speaker 2: the monster, and this was such a treat upon revisit.
Speaker 2: It is so absurd, but it also just takes your
Speaker 2: soul on a ride, and in counterintuitive ways, is more
Speaker 2: thought provoking than some viewers may think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had seen it previously, I think in a
Speaker 1: rift tracks form so on. I was not expecting expecting
Speaker 1: to have my thoughts provoked much at all, and yet
Speaker 1: that they were provoked, So I will agree with you
Speaker 1: on that. You know, I haven't referenced Michael Weldon's Psychotronic
Speaker 1: Encyclopedia film recently, so I made sure to bust it
Speaker 1: out to look up his entry for the Brainiac and
Speaker 1: sure enough he also praised the creature design as well
Speaker 1: as quote surprisingly surreal elements in the picture, and then
Speaker 1: also adds if you can't find it on television, rent
Speaker 1: the video cassette, which which which makes sense considering that
Speaker 1: this is a film that was widely seen on cable
Speaker 1: television at least back in the day, and probably pre
Speaker 1: cable television as well, so it had it has had
Speaker 1: a long long history of popping up unexpected on television
Speaker 1: sets and then as a rental across various formats.
Speaker 2: I think before there was as much of a market
Speaker 2: as there is today for weird, low budget horror film,
Speaker 2: this was one of the few. This was one of
Speaker 2: the ones that was on people's radar, along with maybe
Speaker 2: ed Wood and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean there are various references to it.
Speaker 1: For example, some of you may be familiar with it
Speaker 1: because Frank Zappa references it in a song from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five called Debra Cadabra. This is the one where
Speaker 1: he says, make Negro brainiact fingers but with more hair,
Speaker 1: and he also there's also a line in that says
Speaker 1: from the puffed and flabulent Mexican rubber goods mask, which
Speaker 1: I believe must also be referencing the monster in this picture.
Speaker 2: Now, if you at home are wondering what are Brainiact fingers,
Speaker 2: how are they different from regular fingers, you gotta stay
Speaker 2: tuned you'll find out.
Speaker 1: Essentially, what we have here is a resurrected warlock revenge picture,
Speaker 1: a subgenre that I honestly love. We've covered various examples
Speaker 1: of this on the show before, but there are some
Speaker 1: neat sci fi type. There's a there's some creative use
Speaker 1: of dissolve effects, and again a monster that is deliciously
Speaker 1: creative in conception and an execution is you know, at
Speaker 1: times comical, as low budget monsters often are, but also
Speaker 1: at times pretty terrifying and always absolutely weird.
Speaker 2: And this is also an example of inquisition'sploitation. Is the
Speaker 2: reshorter version of that word.
Speaker 1: No no, I think I think that's it in quisploitation, maybe,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I don't feel like that conveys the
Speaker 1: full meeting.
Speaker 2: Now, as far as resurrected warlock revenge films go, how
Speaker 2: does Brainiac square with your other favorites of the genre.
Speaker 2: I assume you the main one I would think you're
Speaker 2: referring to there is Horror Rises from the tomb Am.
Speaker 1: I wrong, That's That's one of my favorites. So though,
Speaker 1: there was also Piranha Mandir uh Parana Mandir the the
Speaker 1: the Bollywood horror film from the Ramsey Brothers, a very
Speaker 1: similar plotline, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some other ones,
Speaker 1: probably some major examples outside of the Weird House episode list.
Speaker 2: Now, there's a question that has really been interesting me
Speaker 2: since I rewatched Brainiac here, and that is how sympathetic
Speaker 2: is the baron we were talking? We just recently last
Speaker 2: week did an episode on Todd Browning's Dracula in which
Speaker 2: we discussed changes to the character of Dracula as he
Speaker 2: has been The story has been retold and reimagined through
Speaker 2: different adaptations and films over the years, and one of
Speaker 2: the big changes is that in the novel there's really
Speaker 2: nothing sympathetic about Dracula. You're not gonna like Dracula in
Speaker 2: the novel. He's just nasty, horrible, demonic. And then in
Speaker 2: these later versions you get a more tragic Dracula, Dracula
Speaker 2: who there are some good things about him, or maybe
Speaker 2: at least he's got a sad backstory and so you
Speaker 2: sympathize with him, even if it drives him to dark places.
Speaker 2: In this movie, I feel like the backstory really rides
Speaker 2: the knife's edge on whether we should consider the Barren
Speaker 2: character originally sympathetic or not. There are some things said
Speaker 2: about him that are both quite evil and quite good,
Speaker 2: and you don't know which ones to believe because we
Speaker 2: never see the truth of the matter, so we only
Speaker 2: see him in revenge mode, and we don't know if
Speaker 2: he's like truly a wronged man who was just suffering
Speaker 2: at the unjust hands of the Inquisition and then came
Speaker 2: back for revenge, or was he always a nasty warlock?
Speaker 1: True? True to what extent are these charges by the
Speaker 1: Inquisition valid at all? Again? Are they all just trumped
Speaker 1: up charges against a man who did some good in
Speaker 1: the world, And there's some strong questions regarding whether he
Speaker 1: was a man to begin with. Perhaps we have indeed
Speaker 1: an alien visitor here who does some good in the
Speaker 1: world and is punished for it, or it just doesn't
Speaker 1: know how humans work and does a mix of both,
Speaker 1: not really understanding how one act falls on the side
Speaker 1: of evil. In one act that it falls on the
Speaker 1: side of good.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I was gonna say, elevator pitch. This is
Speaker 2: not really an elevator pitch, but it might be a
Speaker 2: good tagline for like a repackaging of the film, and
Speaker 2: that is the Spanish Inquisition could not have expected this.
Speaker 1: Oh that's pretty good, pretty good. The only thing that
Speaker 1: came to my mind was Dracula. But make it weirder,
Speaker 1: not that it has much to do with Dracula other
Speaker 1: than the evil the baron. The Baron of Terror in
Speaker 1: this picture is dracula esque in some regards. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a suave dude who does weird eye hypnosis stuff,
Speaker 1: and you know, enjoys the ladies, enjoys not their blood
Speaker 1: but their brains. Loves them for their minds, but not
Speaker 1: in the good way.
Speaker 2: I think there are some fairly strong similarities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but not in terms of like plot or
Speaker 1: anything outside of that.
Speaker 2: I think one of the big differences is that clearly
Speaker 2: Crosses would not work on the Baron of Terror. Here.
Speaker 2: The brainiac would laugh at your at your crucifix.
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, Let's hear just a little bit
Speaker 1: of the trailer audio.
Speaker 3: The RADIANC, I.
Speaker 4: Shall return to your world within three hundred years. When
Speaker 4: that comment completes its cycle, it is once again in
Speaker 4: these latitudes. Three hundred years later, the Count returns to Earth.
Speaker 4: In The Brainier, see horrible and insane killings. As the
Speaker 4: Count turns into a monster and seeks his revenge, see
Speaker 4: that Count feast from human brains. Don't miss the most
Speaker 4: horror film film of.
Speaker 3: The scripture, The Radiac, The RADIANC, The RADIANC, The Rainier,
Speaker 3: B B B.
Speaker 1: All right, now, if you want to watch The Brainiac
Speaker 1: as well, certainly you can follow follow Michael Weldon's advice
Speaker 1: and watch it on TV or look for the video
Speaker 1: cassette upgrading that for today. There's a really nice looking
Speaker 1: blu ray from Indicator. But again, the film has a
Speaker 1: long history of playing on cable on television. It's been
Speaker 1: available on DVD for quite a while. The Riff Tracks
Speaker 1: guys covered it at one point. I didn't give myself
Speaker 1: enough time to get my hands on a physical copy,
Speaker 1: so I streamed it on Prime. But even though it
Speaker 1: was good quality, I could only pull up the non
Speaker 1: Rift Tracks version at first, and I had to go
Speaker 1: on the app on my phone to find the unriffed version,
Speaker 1: added it to my list, and then was able to
Speaker 1: pull it up in the big screen. I will also
Speaker 1: point out that the version I watched is is the
Speaker 1: English dub like the old Kay Gordon Murray English dub.
Speaker 1: But there's one scene that's completely in Spanish with no subtitles.
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, if we watched the same version, I had
Speaker 2: the exact same search problems as you like. Search often
Speaker 2: wouldn't bring it up. I had to get it like
Speaker 2: in my library on one device before I could actually
Speaker 2: view it on another one. So yeah, same issue. And also, yes,
Speaker 2: the scene in Spanish in the middle of the movie,
Speaker 2: it's the scene where the characters are like reading newspaper
Speaker 2: articles about the brain murders.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Luckily the context is pretty much implied. You don't
Speaker 1: need to speak Spanish or have a translation to know
Speaker 1: basically what's going on here.
Speaker 2: So maybe they were just trying to cut costs on
Speaker 2: the dub, you know, the scenes that are just a
Speaker 2: recap of what you've already seen anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and or if you see enough of movies like this,
Speaker 1: you essentially know what's going on. All right. Let's get
Speaker 1: into the people behind this film. The director is Chano Iwerta,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen oh five through nineteen seventy nine. Mexican
Speaker 1: film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor active behind the camera
Speaker 1: from nineteen twenty eight through nineteen seventy four. So while
Speaker 1: certainly active during the golden age of Mexican cinema, which
Speaker 1: is roughly thirty six through fifty six, his career expands
Speaker 1: beyond it in both temporal directions. Among his most well
Speaker 1: regarded films or nineteen fifties Legotta di Sangria, fifty two's
Speaker 1: Labestia Magnifica, and fifty seven's El Raton. His genre films
Speaker 1: include nineteen fifty four As the Witch, nineteen sixties The
Speaker 1: Witch's Mirror, sixty three is the Living Head, That's a
Speaker 1: Living Severed Head film, and several Blue Demon Luca movies,
Speaker 1: beginning with nineteen sixty five's Blue Demon and also including
Speaker 1: Blue Demon Versus The Satanic Power from sixty six that
Speaker 1: one co starred El Santo, and then there are two
Speaker 1: sixty eight films, Blue Demon Versus The Diabolical Women and
Speaker 1: Blue Demon Versus The Infernal Brains.
Speaker 2: I think I've gone looking for a couple of these
Speaker 2: in the past.
Speaker 1: He also acted again, especially later in life. His credits
Speaker 1: on this front include two Sam Peckinpah films, The Wild
Speaker 1: Bunch from sixty nine and Bring Me the Head of
Speaker 1: Alfredo Garcia from seventy four. All Right, in terms of
Speaker 1: the script and the story, here we have Fredrico Kiel,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen seventeen through nineteen eighty five. Adaptation story
Speaker 1: credit here Mexican writer who also directed in the early sixties,
Speaker 1: kicking things off with the first Neutron movie in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty that we referenced this in one of our recent
Speaker 1: episodes because this starred Wolf Ruvinsky's and co starred Claudio Brook. No.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Wolf Rovinski's was one of the bad guys, one
Speaker 2: of the Martians in Santo Versus the Martian Invasion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a luchador turned actor, but not a mass lucidor
Speaker 1: too handsome for.
Speaker 2: That, so he played kind of like Kirk Douglas.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's another Neutron film in sixty three, and
Speaker 1: career also wrote and directed several Santo and Blue Demon films,
Speaker 1: as well as some Nostra Damis films and vampire films.
Speaker 1: He's also acted and is in fact one of the
Speaker 1: detectives in this film. He was also a cartoonist. Oh,
Speaker 1: which of the detectives is he? Is he the comic
Speaker 1: relief one or the serious one? I am not sure.
Speaker 1: I've will had a note getting it. When we get
Speaker 1: into the cast here, I found some contradictions on the
Speaker 1: cast lists between two of the major movie databases, specifically
Speaker 1: concerning the actresses. I think I got it straightened out,
Speaker 1: but it also led to me not going as in
Speaker 1: depth on the supporting cast here.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: The other adaptation story credit goes to Aldolfo Lopez Portillo
Speaker 1: dates unknown, credited on several films from the sixty seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties, mostly westerns, but also including sixties. There's The
Speaker 1: Living Head. And then, according to IMDb, Antonio Arelana nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty three through twenty eighteen, uncredited writer on this one.
Speaker 1: Mexican writer, actor and occasional director. He wrote on several
Speaker 1: Santo films, including sixty two Santo Versus The Vampire Women.
Speaker 1: I also have to single out a title from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one called El Ninja Mexicano, and that has Germain,
Speaker 1: Roeblis and Roberto Canito. One name that's going to come
Speaker 1: up in a minute, and another name we've referenced in
Speaker 1: multiple episodes on Mexican films. Okay, all right, but the
Speaker 1: star of this picture the Baron of Terror himself, and
Speaker 1: I guess the brainiac playing Baron Vastilius Destera and also
Speaker 1: the producer of the picture. We have Abel Salazar, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen seventeen through nineteen ninety five. He also directed
Speaker 1: fourteen pictures. He played vampire hunter doctor Enriquez in fifty
Speaker 1: seven's The Vampire and also in fifty eight's The Vampire's Coffin.
Speaker 1: He also acts in two well regarded old school Mexican
Speaker 1: horror films, fifty nine's Black Pit of Doctor m and
Speaker 1: sixty three's Curse of the Crying Woman. He's also in
Speaker 1: The Living Head and nineteen fifty nine's The Man and
Speaker 1: the Monster. He produced several of those as well.
Speaker 2: The Living Head keeps coming up. Maybe this is a
Speaker 2: sign that we need to go to that.
Speaker 1: Next Yeah, yeah, the posters look cool.
Speaker 2: I've also seen a lot of references to the Curse
Speaker 2: of the Crying Woman. Is the Urona movie? Yeah, I
Speaker 2: actually I just looked it up. The Malediction de la Youurona.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is not a film I've seen, but I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with it just by reputation. It shows up in
Speaker 1: a lot of lists of films that I've considered checking out.
Speaker 2: So this guy really kept reminding me of somebody. He's
Speaker 2: great in the film. He's got a lot of scenes
Speaker 2: where he actually just doesn't say anything, like other characters
Speaker 2: are talking at him and he is sitting there silently,
Speaker 2: either staring at them menacingly or just king and laughing
Speaker 2: and you know, scoffing at whatever they're throwing in his face.
Speaker 2: And so he does a lot of that. But also
Speaker 2: he's got some some some swagger when he talks. But
Speaker 2: the face he makes, especially when he kind of looks
Speaker 2: skeptical with one raised eyebrow, he was really really reminding
Speaker 2: me of Garrett Graham as Beef in The Phantom of
Speaker 2: the Paradise. Do you see the comparison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can see some Garrett Graham there. I
Speaker 1: also kept thinking of the actor, contemporary actor Patrick Fischler,
Speaker 1: who's in like Mulholland Drive and a ton of other things.
Speaker 1: I can see that too, but with more swaggering charisma.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but also disdain, just judgment, looking at people who
Speaker 2: he who are who are lesser than him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so we'll talk more about this performance.
Speaker 1: On the good guy side of things. We have again
Speaker 1: Rubin Rojo playing a role. Again. This is a this
Speaker 1: is there's a revenge element to this, but it's a
Speaker 1: revenge across time, which we sometimes see with undead Warlock pictures.
Speaker 1: So in the past he plays Ronaldo Miranda and in
Speaker 1: the present he plays Marcos Miranda or any other way around.
Speaker 2: Okay, Marcos is the one in the seventeenth century, the
Speaker 2: modern one. They say Rinaldo online. I don't remember if
Speaker 2: they ever say that in the movie. In the movie
Speaker 2: they call him Ronnie.
Speaker 1: Okay, dub at least that's the thing about the dove
Speaker 1: they do. They do streamline some things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the dub he's Ronnie and Victoria Contreras is Vicky.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well. Rojo lived nineteen twenty two through nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: three Mexican actor, perhaps best known for his award winning
Speaker 1: supporting role in nineteen forty eight Soldad. He also played
Speaker 1: Matthew in the nineteen sixty one American Bible epic King
Speaker 1: of Kings, which I think mostly it had a large
Speaker 1: American cast, but also made use of multiple Mexican actors
Speaker 1: as well. Rip Torn plays Judas in That By the Way.
Speaker 1: Rojo's other credits include fifty six is Alexander the Great,
Speaker 1: sixty three Santo in the Wax Museum, seventy nine's The
Speaker 1: Whip Versus Satan, and nineteen sixty nine's Romero starring Roald Julia.
Speaker 2: I feel like we haven't seen the last of him.
Speaker 2: No offense to to Ruben, but he's not really the
Speaker 2: highlight of this film. He is there to just be
Speaker 2: the good guy. He doesn't have a whole lot to
Speaker 2: do often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the kind of ghosts for most of the
Speaker 1: rest of the cast. Really, I mean everyone is this
Speaker 1: kind of fulfilling a basic role and you know, doing
Speaker 1: a good job within those roles. But yeah, this is
Speaker 1: about our villain and our monster.
Speaker 2: It's Brainiac's world. We're just in it, that's right.
Speaker 1: Okay. We have Vicky as you referenced earlier, or Victoria
Speaker 1: Contrena's contreras. This is our leading lady. This is one
Speaker 1: of the situations where I found some confusing casting information
Speaker 1: between the databases, but I believe I have it correct here.
Speaker 1: Played by Rosa Marie Gallardo. Her other films include sixty
Speaker 1: one's Mark of the dead Man, sixty five's Creature of
Speaker 1: the Walking Dead, sixty fives she Wolves of the Ring.
Speaker 1: That's a luchadora movie. In nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: Ruby Okay, so she is usually going to be in
Speaker 2: the same scenes as Ruben Rojo. Again, they're mostly they're
Speaker 2: the good characters, but they're mostly just reactive. They're like
Speaker 2: young people who are studying astronomy and they're just sucked
Speaker 2: into the world of the Baron of Terror, and they
Speaker 2: kind of hang around in that world until finally he
Speaker 2: tries to suck their brains out, and fortunately they're saved
Speaker 2: at the last minute.
Speaker 1: That's right now. One of the victims is noteworthy, at
Speaker 1: least one of the victims credited just as bar Girl.
Speaker 1: She is the you'll know when we come to this scene.
Speaker 1: She is a lady hanging out at the bar that
Speaker 1: the baron ends up killing and brain gobbling. Played by
Speaker 1: Erodny Welter. She lived nineteen thirty through nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Mexican actress with a ton of Golden age credits. She
Speaker 1: was in the Lewis Bunnell film The Criminal Life of
Speaker 1: Archibaldo de la Cruz from fifty five, but she pops
Speaker 1: up in various horror films. She's in the Lucidora film
Speaker 1: The Panther Women from sixty seven. Her other credits include
Speaker 1: El Gampiro sixty one's The Devil's Hand and The Vampire's Coffin.
Speaker 2: She has a good scene in fact, one of the
Speaker 2: ones I was just talking about in a minute ago,
Speaker 2: where people talk at the baron and he doesn't say
Speaker 2: anything back to them. She's drunk at a bar and
Speaker 2: is I guess, falling in love with him while he
Speaker 2: just stands there staring at some place like behind her head,
Speaker 2: over her shoulder, and then suddenly he brainiacts out, and
Speaker 2: we'll describe what happens.
Speaker 1: Later, but yeah, she gets a great scream in, that's
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a brainiac process. He goes into processing mode.
Speaker 1: All right. The lead detective, the Commandant, is played by
Speaker 1: David Silva, who lived nineteen seventeen through nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: Pretty standard performance here, but he was an opera singer
Speaker 1: and actor with some great connections, connections to some shining
Speaker 1: gems of Mexican weird cinema. He pops up in The
Speaker 1: Batwoman from sixty eight, which we previously referenced.
Speaker 2: Really fun flick starring one of the Martians from zetto
Speaker 2: in Yes, the Martian Invasion. Yeah, yeah, it's little Lichadora
Speaker 2: film with fish people in it. But Silva also appears
Speaker 2: in both Alejandro Jodowski's Al Topo from seventy and Holy
Speaker 2: Mountain from seventy three. I don't recall him in that,
Speaker 2: but that would make sense. He feels like he's from
Speaker 2: a different world than most of the cast. This is
Speaker 2: the serious one, right, not the comic relief cop. The
Speaker 2: comic relief cop is Benny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the serious one. I'm pretty sure. He's
Speaker 1: also in a pair of weird films from Juan Lopez Montezuma,
Speaker 1: The Mention of Madness from seventy one and Alokarda from
Speaker 1: seventy seven. They are both those both star Claudio Brook.
Speaker 1: I have not seen Alacarta yet. It's supposed to be
Speaker 1: pretty terrific. I've seen The Mansion of Madness and it
Speaker 1: is super weird as well. I would say almost Holy
Speaker 1: mountain Es, well, not Holy mountain esk its. Holy Mountain
Speaker 1: is kind of on its own level, but let's say
Speaker 1: it has a lot of surreal elements. It is a
Speaker 1: film in which the inmates run an asylum, and the
Speaker 1: leader of the of the asylum folk is played by
Speaker 1: Claudio Brook in a very spirited performance.
Speaker 2: That's a recipe for fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, now, just a few other characters. There's
Speaker 1: another double role here, someone who is an inquisitor in
Speaker 1: the past and is a victim in the present. This
Speaker 1: is the one that gets to make some really crazy eyes.
Speaker 1: Played by Germain Roeblis Live nineteen twenty nine through twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: Mexican actor in horror movie legend in his own right,
Speaker 1: the Vampiro movies that I mentioned, well, he plays Count
Speaker 1: Caro di luvade Le Lavoud in those. He plays Nostradamus
Speaker 1: in the Nostradamus films, which I don't know much about,
Speaker 1: but it looks like they center around an evil Nostradamus,
Speaker 1: and he's in the Living Head as well. Also pops
Speaker 1: up in the Jess Franco film from seventy one, She
Speaker 1: Killed in Ecstasy.
Speaker 2: This is the guy who plays in his modern of course,
Speaker 2: he's one of the inquisitors, as you said, but in
Speaker 2: his modern form he is the professor. He's a professor
Speaker 2: of history, and he gets to invite the baron over
Speaker 2: to his house to meet his beautiful daughter and then
Speaker 2: talk about the history of the Inquisition. What do you know,
Speaker 2: it's just his area of specialty.
Speaker 1: It's not going to go well. And one, I'll say
Speaker 1: a couple of others here. This film was not directed
Speaker 1: by Renee Cardona, but just because he didn't direct it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean he can't show up anyway. He also plays
Speaker 1: one of the inquisitors, slashed like doomed aristocrats that is
Speaker 1: ultimately killed by the baron.
Speaker 2: He's like the head inquisitor. And then in the modern
Speaker 2: day he's the guy who's an industrialist coming up with
Speaker 2: new metal alloys.
Speaker 1: Yes, let me show you my alloys in the basement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you want to see my alloys?
Speaker 1: Bro. And then there's there's one more one of the
Speaker 1: let's say. Senora Mensis is played by Ophilia Gomin. She
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty one through two thousand and five, Spanish
Speaker 1: actress whose other films include sixty two Is the Exterminating
Speaker 1: Angel and The Man in the Monster. Now. I mentioned
Speaker 1: Kay Gordon Murray earlier, who lived nineteen twenty two through
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, producer and distributor of the English dub
Speaker 1: of this film. Murray is a familiar name here because
Speaker 1: he was responsible for the US theatrical distribution of several
Speaker 1: different Mexican films back in the day, including fifty nine
Speaker 1: Santa Claus and sixty three's Doctor of Doom. I think
Speaker 1: that's maybe his voice is the inquisitor during the opening sequence.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, I was gonna say, it's very similar. The
Speaker 2: so we get some narra in the prologue of the film,
Speaker 2: and I'll talk about this in a bit, but it
Speaker 2: felt familiar. It felt like the narrator from Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, like it would be. The voice should be saying, Lupita,
Speaker 1: do not sentence the baron to death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And then finally, the composer on this picture is Gustavo
Speaker 1: Caesar Carrion, who lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: Mexican film composer who worked on a number of horror films,
Speaker 1: including several of the titles we already mentioned, The Witch
Speaker 1: Is Mirror, El Vampiro, Curse of the Crying Woman, and more. Now,
Speaker 1: this guy recently came up on my radar because I
Speaker 1: was reading a twenty twenty four interview with jess Oborn
Speaker 1: of Electric Wizard in Psychedelic Baby magazine, and they're asking
Speaker 1: him a lot of questions about, you know, old horror
Speaker 1: movies as these as they tend to and he said, quote,
Speaker 1: I'm really into the music from Mexican horror films. It
Speaker 1: has a strange mix of sinister orchestral music with primitive
Speaker 1: electronic noise like Gustava Caesar, carry on. It's really cool stuff.
Speaker 1: And I have to say I think that largely pans
Speaker 1: out at least early on in the film. The music
Speaker 1: is certainly very sinister and orchestral, very dramatic. But then
Speaker 1: when the sci fi elements start bleeding into the picture,
Speaker 1: we do get some electronic elements, like a little dash
Speaker 1: of space music here and there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I can see how that's also a change
Speaker 2: from the kind of core of that band's musical musical
Speaker 2: movie kind of crossover space, which I would say is
Speaker 2: something like The Witchfinder General.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Having said, I am curious to check out
Speaker 1: some of his scores for these other films of note,
Speaker 1: like Curse of the Crying Woman. I wonder if if
Speaker 1: those have any of these electronic elements, or if this
Speaker 1: is just a case where's he's scoring this film and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, a comet shows up astronomy factors into
Speaker 1: the picture, so we need to add some sci fi noises.
Speaker 1: I wonder if those are present in these other pictures
Speaker 1: or not. So I would say, for myn a more
Speaker 1: memorable score than a lot of the Mexican genre films
Speaker 1: from this period have been in that we viewed for
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. Well, they're not counting Santa Claus. Santa
Speaker 1: Claus has very memorable music, but in a different way.
Speaker 2: You know, a really great ending of this film would
Speaker 2: have been if instead of death for the baron, he
Speaker 2: just became Santa Claus. Did you see that transition? It
Speaker 2: would make sense Santa Brainiac. Yeah, I think it would work.
Speaker 2: Someone should do it. He sees you when you're sleeping,
Speaker 2: he knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been
Speaker 2: bad or good. I mean Brainiac would know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you need to leave a bowl of brains out
Speaker 1: for him in a little spin.
Speaker 2: All right, you ready to talk about the plot.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: So the credits play over some very nice Goyademonia illustrations.
Speaker 2: We've got some kind of winged imp with a lion
Speaker 2: head sprouting out of his crotch, who appears to be
Speaker 2: swooping around in the air or terrorizing the peasantry. There's
Speaker 2: also imagery of the tortures of the damned. We get
Speaker 2: penitents writhing in agony and these naked wretches fusing into trees.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a bit of Dante stuff going
Speaker 2: on here. Also, there's a really good one under at
Speaker 2: one point in the credits of two Witches. So of
Speaker 2: these witches cruising on a broom, two on one broom,
Speaker 2: and then an owl in the background looking at them
Speaker 2: like you're overloading that broom, and then the title, of
Speaker 2: course appears. It's not Brainiac in the original. The original
Speaker 2: title is El Baron del Terror, The Baron of Terror.
Speaker 2: But plenty of sick six sketches with the credits, also
Speaker 2: witches with melting mask faces, a lady with breasts on
Speaker 2: her back, more gargoyles, feathers and talons in places they
Speaker 2: shouldn't be, and predator head groins. Now, when we come
Speaker 2: to the action, we're told it is the year sixteen
Speaker 2: sixty one in a bleeding type face. I like the
Speaker 2: what do you call it, the kind of glowing white,
Speaker 2: bleeding type script that appears in this because it's also
Speaker 2: kind of italic. So it's like swooping away from the camera. Yes,
Speaker 2: And we're in a hall under great stone arches and
Speaker 2: a hanging crucifix, and there's a chair in the middle
Speaker 2: of the room in which sits a man in shackles
Speaker 2: and leg irons, the kind of the ball and chain
Speaker 2: that drags behind you. This we will learn is Baron
Speaker 2: Vitellius Desterra. He is surrounded by frightening figures covered crowned
Speaker 2: ankle and black cloaks and hoods with their faces hidden
Speaker 2: behind masks. So these are the Inquisitors. And then begins
Speaker 2: this monologue from a booming, reverberating voice, which again reminds
Speaker 2: me of the narrator in Santa Claus. It's like, you
Speaker 2: take that, but you replace the Christmas chair with pontifical menace.
Speaker 2: And the voice says lou Pita, No, says we the
Speaker 2: grand Inquisitors, protector of the faith against heretic sins of
Speaker 2: apostasy in the city of Mexico, and all the states
Speaker 2: and dominions in the Province of New Spain and its
Speaker 2: vice royalties in governing bodies through royal audiences in all
Speaker 2: the cities and states, do proclaim that the other inquisitors
Speaker 2: and I have attended this hearing in the secret Chamber
Speaker 2: of the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition in Mexico to
Speaker 2: do justice in the trial that has been initiated against
Speaker 2: the aforementioned Baron Vitellius of Astera of unknown origin, who
Speaker 2: has repeatedly refused to state same, aware of the edicts
Speaker 2: and merits of this trial and the evidence and suspicion
Speaker 2: resulting thereof. And my lord, this is like a real legal,
Speaker 2: legal kind of contract language reading of the fine print quality,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like c Span for the Inquisition.
Speaker 2: Here, and it will go on and on. There is
Speaker 2: a Macaw absurdity to the sheer volume of text we
Speaker 2: get in these verdicts and proclamations. In the opening scene here,
Speaker 2: there are even moments where it feels like the voiceover
Speaker 2: artist is like reading fast to try to get through
Speaker 2: it all. And originally I was torn on whether to
Speaker 2: like actually read everything from the scene, because I did
Speaker 2: transcribe it or just summarize. I think I'm just going
Speaker 2: to summarize, starting at one point because it's too much
Speaker 2: to read. But by the way, I do just want
Speaker 2: to say before I go on, I love the posture
Speaker 2: of the inquisitors because it's almost a superhero pose. You
Speaker 2: get multiple of them standing there in the black cloaks
Speaker 2: with like their you know, facing forward, feet at shoulder width,
Speaker 2: and then the arms folded. What do you call that?
Speaker 2: You know, they're on their hips, the hands on the hips.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, very judgmental.
Speaker 2: So this part I will read. The prosecutor comes in
Speaker 2: and he reads from a scroll and it says the
Speaker 2: following report on the sentence and the trial by torment,
Speaker 2: that this Tribunal of the Holy Inquisition instituted against said
Speaker 2: Baron Vitelius for heresy and the instigation of heresy for
Speaker 2: practicing dogmatism. And I was like, huh, and that what
Speaker 2: they're doing. But like, even with that line for practicing dogmatism,
Speaker 2: even the voice actor sounds a little confused, like he
Speaker 2: just stops for a second as if to check and
Speaker 2: make sure that's really what the script said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, does that mean magnetism with dogs?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, no, so there's kind of a pause. He's like,
Speaker 2: for practicing dogmatism, and then he goes on for having
Speaker 2: used witchcraft, superstitions and conjurations for depraved and dishonest ends,
Speaker 2: for having employed the art of necromancy, invoking the dead
Speaker 2: and trying to foretell the future through the use of corpses,
Speaker 2: which I think that's the same thing as necromancy. And
Speaker 2: then there's a long pause and he says for having
Speaker 2: seduced married women and maidens. And here we cut to
Speaker 2: Vitellius and he gives a big old smile. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: So to summarize what follows, Vitelius gets sentenced to torture
Speaker 2: and told that if he should be maimed or have
Speaker 2: blood drawn or die during the torture, that's going to
Speaker 2: be divine proof of his guilt. Then they read he
Speaker 2: doesn't say this. They read out that they previously sentenced
Speaker 2: him to torture, and he told them that he welcomed
Speaker 2: as much torture as they were, you know, as much
Speaker 2: as they could give him. He was like, bring it on.
Speaker 2: And then they describe all the tortures they did on him.
Speaker 2: It sounds like they did some form of strepato as
Speaker 2: well as stretching on the rack quote, and with his
Speaker 2: arms and legs almost torn from his body, he continued
Speaker 2: to make jest of our holy authority, which doesn't make
Speaker 2: you sound cool when you say that. It makes the
Speaker 2: inquisitors sound like the loser. But they decide he needs
Speaker 2: more punishment, has not had enough yet. But before they
Speaker 2: get to that punishment, there is a twist because, as
Speaker 2: the person presiding over this trial says, and now, as
Speaker 2: if our justice had not been sufficiently ridiculed, a witness
Speaker 2: has come before this tribunal to defend the accused. This
Speaker 2: is the epitome of all brazen defiance. Lord inquisitors, now
Speaker 2: tell me, are we going to stand for it? But
Speaker 2: then they just bring the witness in anyway, and it's
Speaker 2: Ruben Rojo, who's going to play another character later on,
Speaker 2: but he comes in as the character Marcos Miranda. He's
Speaker 2: a guy dressed in a black doublet and a puffy
Speaker 2: caller who is here to vouch for Baron Vitellius's character.
Speaker 2: Now here's where things I think get kind of interesting,
Speaker 2: because up until this point I hadn't really thought about
Speaker 2: whether the Inquisition's accusations were supposed to be true or not.
Speaker 2: But this guy comes in and says, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: the baron is a good guy. He says that, he
Speaker 2: says that the baron has helped the downtrodden people in
Speaker 2: this new land of Mexico, and that he has dedicated
Speaker 2: himself to the promotion of the fine arts and sciences.
Speaker 2: And I was just thinking, oh, yeah, I'm sure these
Speaker 2: hooded inquisitors are greatly put at ease by that love
Speaker 2: it when you help the downtrodden and promote the arts
Speaker 2: and sciences. That's what they're into.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, like, there's no reason this guy
Speaker 1: would We're given no reason to believe he would be
Speaker 1: lying here, Like he seems like a you know, a
Speaker 1: complete babyface. He's like, yeah, he's I knew him back
Speaker 1: in Europe, and he's yeah, he's he's a good guy.
Speaker 1: He seems like he's, uh, he's really tried to help people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But then so immediately from the end of the testimony,
Speaker 2: without a moment's pause, the head inquisitor says, Marcos Miranda,
Speaker 2: the force that you have tried to perpetrate has earned
Speaker 2: you the punishment of two hundred lashes. What Yeah, which
Speaker 2: she'll be applied immediately in the torture chamber.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. And so then he's just taken off to
Speaker 1: be whipped, and the trial two hundred lashes.
Speaker 2: I think, I think that is a death sentence. And
Speaker 2: before he's led away, Miranda and Vitellius make brief eye contact,
Speaker 2: but they never talk to each other, so we don't
Speaker 2: know anything about their relationship. So the inquisitors very briefly
Speaker 2: compare notes and then render a guilty verdict. But didn't
Speaker 2: they already I thought that was part of the proclamation.
Speaker 2: It was already like he's guilty. But they do it again,
Speaker 2: and they sentence him quote to be dressed in the
Speaker 2: clothing of shame, bearing symbols of fire. He will undergo
Speaker 2: personal debasement before the people, All his lands and his
Speaker 2: possessions will be confiscated, and finally he will be burned
Speaker 2: to death in an open field. So, okay, things are
Speaker 2: not looking good for the baron. But then ooh, there's
Speaker 2: an interesting twist. Vittelius, who has not really said anything yet,
Speaker 2: hits them with some sublime truculence. He says, if my
Speaker 2: body is to be burned, it will be without chains. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then he uses sorcery to make the chas on
Speaker 2: his legs disappear and reappear around the legs of his captors.
Speaker 2: So he like stands up to walk out of the room,
Speaker 2: and the captors awkwardly hobble after him, dragging the iron balls.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. I mean, we're overthinking it. We might
Speaker 1: wonder why he hasn't used these powers to escape already,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you know he's using it to dramatic effect
Speaker 1: here at any rate.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it does kind of suggest that if he
Speaker 2: were so inclined, he would be able to magically escape
Speaker 2: his punishment altogether, but he chooses not to. It's implying
Speaker 2: that the baron is willingly facing this unjust sentence. He's
Speaker 2: willingly going out to be burned at the stake. And
Speaker 2: when I realized that, I started noticing a number of
Speaker 2: parallels here. This might sound crazy, but are the filmmakers
Speaker 2: trying to tap into some kind of parallel between Baron
Speaker 2: Vitelius and Jesus at his trial before Pilot. We can
Speaker 2: think about all this, okay, think about the similar these
Speaker 2: in the stories he helps the downtrodden, he is accused
Speaker 2: of sorcery and immorality by the religious leaders of his time.
Speaker 2: He faces an unfair trial, faces torture, and then cruel execution,
Speaker 2: during which he is dressed in garments of mockery. So
Speaker 2: I think a crown of thorns versus the clothing of
Speaker 2: shame that they just talked about. And then to get
Speaker 2: to what we know is coming in the movie, these
Speaker 2: characters will die and then later rise again to render judgment.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of a shocking number of similarities here.
Speaker 2: But then I don't know exactly how it would connect
Speaker 2: the passion of Christ to the fact that this guy
Speaker 2: has tube fingers and eats people's brains.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that may be separate from this, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: think these are strong points. I mean, this wouldn't be
Speaker 1: the only example we can look to where a Spanish
Speaker 1: filmmaker has incorporated some elements of Catholicism, be they thematic
Speaker 1: or visual, into some sort of a horror picture.
Speaker 2: So at this point in the story, what are you thinking, Rob,
Speaker 2: Are you thinking that the baron is actually he's what
Speaker 2: his friend said here, that he's actually somebody who is
Speaker 2: a nice guy who's trying to help the downtrodden and
Speaker 2: is mostly just doing things to help people and is
Speaker 2: being unjustly accused by the Inquisition or is he actually
Speaker 2: a wicked warlock and sorcerer who is manipulating people and
Speaker 2: so forth. I mean, the strange parallels to Jesus would
Speaker 2: imply that the filmmakers had the former in mind, but
Speaker 2: that also doesn't really square very well with the rest
Speaker 2: of what happens in the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't give us anything to build upon this
Speaker 1: idea that he may have any decency to him, you know,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a missed opportunity. Or I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe they weren't permitted to go there, But that would
Speaker 1: have been rather interesting if we hit later on, when
Speaker 1: we see his return in the nineteen sixties, if we
Speaker 1: see him at least in small all moments reaching out
Speaker 1: to the poor and helping the downtroten instead of just
Speaker 1: just making social calls and getting seeking revenge and eating brains.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, the staging of the execution is pretty cool.
Speaker 2: So it's an indoor for outdoor shot sets with creepy
Speaker 2: crooked trees, this big crowd of onlookers in the night.
Speaker 2: They're all huddled together behind hooded inquisitors carrying luminous torches,
Speaker 2: each one putting off this huge tower of flame, and
Speaker 2: they have Vitelius dressed up in mockery as some kind
Speaker 2: of anti pope in a pointed hat.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, all the all the hallmarks of of a
Speaker 1: classic cinematic witch burning here, you know, vengeful Christianity in
Speaker 1: its most base and dark form, the withered trees kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, matching up with this idea that here is
Speaker 1: just a fruitless, decadent, degregated faith before us.
Speaker 2: There are bunch of movies I can think of from
Speaker 2: the sixties and seventies that have this as their prologue,
Speaker 2: like somebody gets executed by the Inquisition and it looks
Speaker 2: soften like this. I'm thinking of Mario Bava's Black Sunday. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and of course horror rises from the two. Well it's
Speaker 2: time to burn in then, that's right. Well, so he's
Speaker 2: at the stake and Vitellius makes eye contact with Marcos
Speaker 2: Miranda in the crowd. I guess Miranda already got the
Speaker 2: two hundred lashes and now he's just out there watching.
Speaker 1: I guess he has to watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we hear chatter from some people in the crowd,
Speaker 2: so like, there's one guy who's standing there with some
Speaker 2: ladies next to him, and he says to one of
Speaker 2: the ladies that fiend will pay dearly for all his
Speaker 2: sins now for what he did to you. But the
Speaker 2: lady doesn't say anything, so I don't know what she
Speaker 2: thinks about it. We also see a couple of older
Speaker 2: ladies apparently filled with glee. They're just excited to see
Speaker 2: this witch burning, and they're gossiping about how quote the
Speaker 2: Viceroy's baby is in tears because they're burning her boy friend.
Speaker 2: But then the other one says, be quiet or they'll
Speaker 2: burn you too, so climb it of fear, I guess.
Speaker 2: But then they go on to burn the baron and
Speaker 2: we get some great dramatic music here. It's it feels
Speaker 2: very similar to Night on Bald Mountain, like with the fluttering,
Speaker 2: bat wing kind of violins, and Vitelius is a pretty
Speaker 2: darn calm while getting burned at the stake. For the
Speaker 2: first half of the cook he mostly keeps a straight
Speaker 2: face but occasionally looks amused. Then suddenly on the score
Speaker 2: there is a familiar musico dramatic cliche that I'm not
Speaker 2: sure I've ever given much thought to before I would
Speaker 2: call it something like the sound of magic. You probably
Speaker 2: recognize what I'm talking about, rob It's often done on
Speaker 2: the harp with a kind of rolling glissando up and
Speaker 2: down the scale on the harp that lets you know
Speaker 2: that we're often that we're entering a dream world, or
Speaker 2: that a magical train information is taking place here. It
Speaker 2: doesn't sound like a harp. I think it's some kind
Speaker 2: of mallet instrument, like a marimba. It's kind of a
Speaker 2: soft mallet sound. But now I'm curious, people listening with
Speaker 2: musical knowledge, is there a name for this convention like
Speaker 2: the dreamy rolling glissando that lets us know that something
Speaker 2: magical is taking place?
Speaker 1: Yeah, magical or surreal, dream like and so forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's certainly a common musical cue anyway.
Speaker 2: What it corresponds to here is that the baron suddenly
Speaker 2: looks up in the night sky and happens to see
Speaker 2: a comet from our point of view, a very blurry comet.
Speaker 2: This is not the best special effects in this part,
Speaker 2: because it looks more like a dead bug on a
Speaker 2: car windshield that got smeared by the wiper blades. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we've seen some better space effects in movies from this period.
Speaker 2: But Marcus Miranda, the Baron's character witness, sees the comet too.
Speaker 2: Does this mean something like? What's his role here? And
Speaker 2: again doesn't seem at all in pain or bothered by
Speaker 2: the two hundred lashes? And so they both see the
Speaker 2: comet and there's kind of an exchange like what does
Speaker 2: it mean? Something's happening? And then comes the I Curse
Speaker 2: You sequence, in which the Baron changes his He shifts
Speaker 2: his attention from the comet to one by one, each
Speaker 2: of the four primary inquisitors, So, looking between them, he
Speaker 2: uses his powers of sorcery to see through their masks
Speaker 2: and to learn their true identities. And then he promises
Speaker 2: that he will return in three hundred years, riding upon
Speaker 2: the comet above to punish their descendants. And the enemies
Speaker 2: are in order. Baltasar of Menaces, who is wearing a
Speaker 2: hilarious puffy barrister wig. I think this is Renee Cardona.
Speaker 2: There's Alvaro Contreras who looks like a cool dude. Actually
Speaker 2: he looks like he could. He kind of has a
Speaker 2: biker look, okay. Sebastian of Pinoa, who's kind of weasily
Speaker 2: looking guy with a goatee and another big white wig.
Speaker 2: This guy gives a nasty little smile. This is the
Speaker 2: guy who's a descendant will be the professor. And then
Speaker 2: Helendo of Vivar who no wig, no smile, don't don't
Speaker 2: remember a lot about this guy. And you know, the
Speaker 2: Baron promises. He says, I shall exponge your foul lineage
Speaker 2: from this earth. So here we get. Suddenly some years
Speaker 2: flash up on the screen and so it says sixteen
Speaker 2: sixty one, that's where we are. Then it says seventeen
Speaker 2: sixty one, and I was like, oh, is it going
Speaker 2: to show us this same place at each of those years,
Speaker 2: Like we'll see it across the different centuries time machine style.
Speaker 2: But no, for some reason, it just counts each century
Speaker 2: on the screen with the number and doesn't change anything.
Speaker 2: It shows us seventeen sixty one, eighteen sixty one, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty one aka modern day. That's right. So we arrive
Speaker 2: in modern Mexico nineteen sixty one at a hip Nike
Speaker 2: club with couples out dancing to soft jazz music. And
Speaker 2: here we're going to meet our main characters in the
Speaker 2: modern day. Who wouldn't you know, it are both descendants
Speaker 2: of characters from the violent prologue. We get Victoria Contreras Vicky,
Speaker 2: who is descended from one of the inquisitors, and Ronnie Miranda,
Speaker 2: descended from the baron's friend or character witness, who we
Speaker 2: never really learned anything about, so as we will find
Speaker 2: out the two. These two are both young astronomers, but
Speaker 2: they're also an item. So they're dancing to the music
Speaker 2: in a close embrace, and they're so entranced by each
Speaker 2: other's company that they almost forget they have a date
Speaker 2: at the observatory, so they notice the time, and then
Speaker 2: they kind of rush out of the place. They explain
Speaker 2: to some friends that they've got to go leave the
Speaker 2: club to meet their mentor, Professor Milan, who is helping
Speaker 2: them search for what Ronnie calls a real star tonight
Speaker 2: because the weather is very clear, So they go to
Speaker 2: the observatory, where the professor begins quizzing them on comets
Speaker 2: with the patronizing tone. I'm gonna say, on one hand,
Speaker 2: I appreciate the presence of the astronomy and the observatory
Speaker 2: plot line in the movie because I like the themes
Speaker 2: of sort of crossing the streams of fantasy and science
Speaker 2: fiction in horror that it brings in, So I like
Speaker 2: what it does for the atmosphere of the film. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, I have to say that the observatory
Speaker 2: scenes are by far the most boring thing in the movie.
Speaker 2: Every time we go back to Professor Milan, I am
Speaker 2: not excited. Usually he's going to spend most of the
Speaker 2: movie just opening letters from people who do not confirm
Speaker 2: that they saw the same comment as him, and just
Speaker 2: acting forlorn about that.
Speaker 1: It kind of comes back to something we said in
Speaker 1: a recent episode of Weird House Cinema, a film like this,
Speaker 1: you need various middle aged experts that you go to
Speaker 1: to get just additional tidbits on what you may or
Speaker 1: may not be facing in your monster.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this setting and the character they kind of
Speaker 2: indirectly infuse the plot with some nice scientific energy, but
Speaker 2: at the same time that it doesn't make for great
Speaker 2: moments on screen generally, Like when the two younger characters
Speaker 2: first arrived there with Professor Malan, he just starts quizzing
Speaker 2: them about comments. He's like, how many miles you know?
Speaker 2: How many miles close does the Halle? Does Halle's comment
Speaker 2: come to the earth? And you know, the guy says,
Speaker 2: and he's like, oh, good job, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: your comment trivia. But also he's treating them like kids,
Speaker 2: but they're adults and they're also supposed to be astronomers themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's talking to them like their high school
Speaker 1: students or something.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Professor's on the hunt tonight. He's got a big
Speaker 2: stack of decaying cottices on his desk that he shows them.
Speaker 2: He explains he's been looking through them, and they all
Speaker 2: tell of a comet that appeared three hundred years ago
Speaker 2: in sixteen sixty one, and based on Professor Milan's calculations,
Speaker 2: the comet should appear again tonight at two thirty six
Speaker 2: am local time, which means right now. So they go
Speaker 2: to look through the telescope. It seems not correctly aligned.
Speaker 2: The first thing they see is the Andromeda galaxy, and
Speaker 2: then eventually they're looking around and finally Victoria locates the
Speaker 2: comet while the other two are complaining about not being
Speaker 2: able to find it. We get some dramatic horn stings
Speaker 2: in the soundtrack and the comet. First it looks like
Speaker 2: a comet, then it suddenly turns into a firework. It's
Speaker 2: shooting sparks everywhere, and it crashes down in a field nearby.
Speaker 2: And so we see a local man driving a car.
Speaker 2: He comes to a stop to watch an astonishment as
Speaker 2: the as the comet comes down, and the way it
Speaker 2: falls is pretty funny. It's a big paper mache boulder
Speaker 2: with jagged edges, and it just falls straight down and
Speaker 2: hits the ground like a sack of flower. But then
Speaker 2: something you might not expect happens. Slowly, the comet itself dematerializes,
Speaker 2: leaving in its place a being a beast of unspeakable horror. Uh,
Speaker 2: this is the part where we're going to have to
Speaker 2: describe what the titular brainiac looks like. So rob, let
Speaker 2: me know if I leave out any important details, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to I'm gonna try to run down.
Speaker 1: A list, all right, Here we go.
Speaker 2: So the brainiac is bipedal size of a tall man
Speaker 2: with a loose fitting rubber mask of a goblinoid character.
Speaker 2: And I have to emphasize loose fitting on the mask.
Speaker 2: This is not a this is not a tightly organized
Speaker 2: monster makeup face. Like the mask is dangling and jiggling
Speaker 2: off of the head.
Speaker 1: But also pulsating which I really like. Yes, and I
Speaker 1: would say in addition to goblin esque, it also has
Speaker 1: certain satanic elements to it. Like it feels, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like a you know, a classic illustration of
Speaker 1: a death.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a goblin baphomet so like
Speaker 2: long pointy ears drooping at the tips, a long, sharp
Speaker 2: beak like nose, shaggy black hair and beard, and it's
Speaker 2: kind of patchy, doesn't look healthy, but it is. Also
Speaker 2: there's a lot of it, a lot of hair, deep hollow,
Speaker 2: empty eyes that are just sagging, like it's not tight
Speaker 2: around the eyes of the actor underneath. Instead you just
Speaker 2: see that there are spaces behind the eye holes. And
Speaker 2: then at the mouth there are two narrow fangs like
Speaker 2: those of a venomous snake, protruding from the upper jaw.
Speaker 2: The mouth is often hanging open, and then out of
Speaker 2: the mouth extends a foot long, floppy, forked rubber tongue,
Speaker 2: again like that of a snake, except usually not flicking
Speaker 2: in and out of the mouth to taste the air
Speaker 2: like a snake's tongue. It's just hanging there, just jiggling
Speaker 2: when the guy moves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ye, there are elements of this creature that also
Speaker 1: remind me a bit of crampus, you know, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, the lolling tongue, though in this case again
Speaker 1: it is forked and that'll be key.
Speaker 2: So then we got to go down to the hands.
Speaker 2: Each hand is a sort of flesh clamp with exactly
Speaker 2: two fingers per hand that can close together in a
Speaker 2: pincer motion. These fingers are, as we see, not solid
Speaker 2: but hollow. They are some kind of flaccid tube fingers,
Speaker 2: so think soft, squishy tube claws.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they are. They're the most bizarre detail of
Speaker 1: this creature design. And they're completely mysterious because we have
Speaker 1: no idea what if anything they're doing, Like does he
Speaker 1: breathe through those holes the ends of the fingers, are
Speaker 1: they indeed finger I mean, he does use them to
Speaker 1: grasp and to grab, but are those indeed apertures for
Speaker 1: you know, anything he doesn't see. He doesn't feed with them.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're for drinking water. Maybe he hears through them.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But he also has ears on his head.
Speaker 1: So many questions all unanswered.
Speaker 2: Do liquids come in or go out through the tips
Speaker 2: of those fingers?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Or what goes in? And now I don't know
Speaker 1: it's but it's you know, it's bizarre and strange, and
Speaker 1: I love it. It's because again, it's just a monster
Speaker 1: design that is really going for it. They just really
Speaker 1: set out to create something here that is unlike anything
Speaker 1: we've seen before. And I don't know that we've seen
Speaker 1: much like this since it's as bizarre as anything that
Speaker 1: has been in a monster movie in the subsequent decades
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: So when the Brainy act first appears, he's wearing the
Speaker 2: Barren's clothes from sixteen sixty one, but they're very tattered,
Speaker 2: so I guess it's been a rough ride on the comet,
Speaker 2: assuming that's where he was. I'll have questions about that.
Speaker 2: But he quickly fixes his clothing situation via the terminator method.
Speaker 2: He steals clothes from a chronolocal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he kind of like teleports the clothes off of
Speaker 1: the guy onto himself, but not the underwear because Brainiac
Speaker 1: goes commando.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. So the Beast advances on the man
Speaker 2: who pulled over to see the comet crash down. He
Speaker 2: then begins to hypnotize him, and we will see that
Speaker 2: the Brainiac has some of the same powers as Dracula,
Speaker 2: including a hypnotizing glare, which interestingly is signaled on screen
Speaker 2: with the same effect we highlighted in Todd Browning's Dracula
Speaker 2: last week, where the face is mostly kept in shadow,
Speaker 2: but a focused beam of light falls over the eyes
Speaker 2: that lets you know that the hypnotizing is going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say it's not quite as like it's perfectly
Speaker 1: executed in Dracula. Here it feels less perfected, but it's
Speaker 1: still it's still great.
Speaker 2: But there's also a difference because in Dracula it's a
Speaker 2: static light. This effect is like just a that goes
Speaker 2: over Dracula's own face when he's working his evil magic.
Speaker 2: In Brainiac, the light flashes on and off, so it's
Speaker 2: a pulsing light. But also we see the focused light
Speaker 2: effect on both the monster and sometimes on his victim. Also,
Speaker 2: you alluded to this earlier rob In time with the
Speaker 2: flashing hypnotic light, there is another pulsing effect, which is
Speaker 2: a rhythmic inflation and deflation of the monster's rubber mask.
Speaker 2: So the same way that a sleeping person's chest may
Speaker 2: rise and fall as they breathe, the Brainiac's face slightly
Speaker 2: balloons and then collapses on a pulse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty ambitious for the time. I mean, this kind
Speaker 1: of thing would become more of a hallmark later on.
Speaker 1: You and I both recently rewatched Joe Dante's The Howling,
Speaker 1: which makes great use of this kind of like pulsating
Speaker 1: you know, bladders inside of you monster mask. You know,
Speaker 1: this is a lot cruder, but it is kind of
Speaker 1: a sign of things to come.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. One last thing we should know. Brainiac does
Speaker 2: make noises. They are essentially the growls of a lion
Speaker 2: or a big cat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're very effective, though I thought they were quite creepy.
Speaker 2: So, in an attack pattern that we will see repeated
Speaker 2: many times, the brainiac approaches his terrified victim, who is
Speaker 2: somewhat hypnotized or frozen in place, grabs him about the
Speaker 2: neck and shoulders with his tube fingers, and then goes
Speaker 2: around behind the victim and then pokes him in the
Speaker 2: back of the head with his floppy forked reptile tongue.
Speaker 1: And then, as we'll find out, this is how he
Speaker 1: sucks out the brains of his victims, which course, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is fabulous. Again, they really went for it, they
Speaker 1: went They took sort of the basic vampire myth, and
Speaker 1: they're like, they said, well, what can we do to
Speaker 1: make this stranger? What can we do to make this
Speaker 1: more grotesque? And yeah they pulled it off. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the big questions that I end up asking myself
Speaker 1: throughout the rest the picture, is this what we see
Speaker 1: here the brainiac? Is this the Baron's true form, his
Speaker 1: true alien form? Or is this something? Or is this
Speaker 1: his transformed body from having been taken up to the
Speaker 1: comet and been in space aboard a commet for decades
Speaker 1: and then return to Earth.
Speaker 2: This is such a good question. I had the exact
Speaker 2: same thoughts. I actually made a list of questions here
Speaker 2: or ideas. So my question was what is the brainiac
Speaker 2: or the baron? What is his nature? And what is
Speaker 2: the source of his power? So to review what we
Speaker 2: know before execution in sixteen sixty one, the Baron had
Speaker 2: at least some powers of sorcery. Some of these powers
Speaker 2: we see directly, such as the power to dematerialize and
Speaker 2: materialize objects like the chains on his legs, remember that,
Speaker 2: and then also the power to see behind masks. He
Speaker 2: is alleged to have other powers by the inquisitors. We
Speaker 2: never see whether that's true or not, but powers like
Speaker 2: necromancy and using some kind of seductive entransment, though that
Speaker 2: could be a parallel of the hypnotism we see later.
Speaker 2: Then he gets burned at the stake with a comet
Speaker 2: flying overhead. Then when the comet returns, it lands on
Speaker 2: Earth and transforms into him or releases him. Now he
Speaker 2: has something we've never seen before, a secondary brain goblin form,
Speaker 2: and can transform back and forth between the humanoid barren
Speaker 2: form and the brainiac form at will. Now he can
Speaker 2: also turn invisible, He can hypnotize people, and he can
Speaker 2: do the tongue thing and suck out people's brains. So
Speaker 2: the question is, did something about him change on the
Speaker 2: comet journey or was he always the brainiac? Did he
Speaker 2: physically ride the comet all that time? In which case,
Speaker 2: did he encounter something in space or did the return
Speaker 2: of the comet simply resurrect him here? Is it like
Speaker 2: he's been here the comet coming back brought him back.
Speaker 2: So and also I guess secondary from all this is
Speaker 2: his power based on fantasy or science fiction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we have no idea. These questions are never answered,
Speaker 1: but I think that's part of the appeal of the film.
Speaker 1: I think is is just such a bizarre character, such
Speaker 1: a bizarre monster, and we're just left to wonder at
Speaker 1: how it all pieces together. And maybe that's quite accidental.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, I'm timpto to say that
Speaker 2: he was merely a master of some minor tricks and
Speaker 2: you know, master of the arts and sciences back in
Speaker 2: the seventeenth century. Then he somehow got himself aboard a
Speaker 2: comet rode it around space a long time and encountered
Speaker 2: strange alien beings who gave him these additional powers. He
Speaker 2: brought them back, Maybe he fused with them and brought
Speaker 2: all that back to Earth with him.
Speaker 1: I like that, that is. I lean towards that explanation.
Speaker 1: But we also have the whole thing about him being
Speaker 1: of unknown origin.
Speaker 2: That's true, yeah.
Speaker 1: And that could just mean that he was a foreigner,
Speaker 1: but he could also mean he could be from space.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's one part later where he claims that he never
Speaker 2: had any ancestors, and I didn't know if that's just
Speaker 2: a weird translation of a line or if he means
Speaker 2: that literally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that he's not of this.
Speaker 2: Earth anyway, So brainiac. In this scene he steals the
Speaker 2: guy's clothes via like clothes teleportation, victims clothes under his body,
Speaker 2: and also of course transforms himself out of brainiac mode,
Speaker 2: so he's no longer a giant Harry Reptilian brain goblin.
Speaker 2: Now he has the suave face of the original Baron Vitilius.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's good to go. Now he has the tools,
Speaker 1: he has a mission. He's in the wilderness, but you
Speaker 1: know he can remedy that pretty quickly. I think.
Speaker 2: Also right here, Victoria and Ronnie arrive on the scene
Speaker 2: because they're looking for where the comet landed, and they
Speaker 2: run into Baron Vitellius, and they just stand there saying nothing,
Speaker 2: looking at each other for a long time.
Speaker 1: Yes, but then we get we get some excellent dialogue here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The Baron is like, allow me to explain myself.
Speaker 2: I always just walks at this hour of the night.
Speaker 2: And then Ronnie explains that he and Vicky are astronomers
Speaker 2: and they're hunting a meteor, and I think Vicky is like, oh,
Speaker 2: don't bore him. There's no way he'll understand what you
Speaker 2: mean talking about a meteor. But then Baron Vitellius is like, no, no,
Speaker 2: I too have great interest in astronomy, so I know
Speaker 2: what meteors are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, astronomy is actually my weakness, which is
Speaker 1: is At first I had to at for a second.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, does that mean it's like garlic? And
Speaker 1: I'm like no, No, that just means he's like, that's
Speaker 1: how into astronomy he is. Yeah, that's his weakness. So
Speaker 1: that's something to keep in mind for, you know, any
Speaker 1: job interviews folks have coming up. If you get to
Speaker 1: asked that question, well, what's your biggest short following or
Speaker 1: your weakness or whatever, you can say astronomy. I'm just
Speaker 1: too into the stars.
Speaker 2: I'm a brainiac.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At first they exchange information one they give each other
Speaker 2: their cards. But the baron goes out after this to
Speaker 2: prowl the city. He's on a brain hunt. So he
Speaker 2: goes to a restaurant which appears to still be open
Speaker 2: at three am or whenever. This is the bar crowd
Speaker 2: is winding down. This place does look very cool. There's
Speaker 2: a backsplash behind the bar that's like this big, round,
Speaker 2: kind of translucent window with these weird symbols on it
Speaker 2: and an upside down brandy bottle. It's cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, like what we see of presumably Mexico city
Speaker 1: nightlife is very very swap and charming here.
Speaker 2: So in this place, there is a single woman drinking
Speaker 2: by herself at the bar. All the other patrons have left,
Speaker 2: and there are a manager and a bartender closing up
Speaker 2: for the night, like drying glasses and counting money, and
Speaker 2: the baron walks into the place. He approaches the woman
Speaker 2: for some reason, he turns invisible as he's walking up,
Speaker 2: and then he appears again, like becomes solid again when
Speaker 2: he reaches his destination, which is standing right next to her.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure what the point of this was, but
Speaker 2: I think it's just to show off another one of
Speaker 2: the baron's powers he can turn invisible.
Speaker 1: And of course to highlight again that the effects guys
Speaker 1: can do dissolve shots.
Speaker 2: Yea, they use this.
Speaker 1: All the time, whether it's stripping the clothes from a
Speaker 1: victim in a field or just making him go invisible
Speaker 1: for no real reason. We also saw it earlier when
Speaker 1: he was seeing the faces of the hooded judges.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So the woman talks to the bartender into
Speaker 2: giving this new guy a drink even though they're trying
Speaker 2: to close, and he didn't ask for one. In fact,
Speaker 2: not only did he not ask for a drink. The
Speaker 2: baron says nothing in the scene. He doesn't talk, but
Speaker 2: the lady at the bar starts talking to him and
Speaker 2: then seemingly forms a very intimate connection without him saying
Speaker 2: anything back. He just stares and drinks kangnac out of
Speaker 2: this very cute tiny glass, and she's like, you don't
Speaker 2: say anything, You're just looking at me, and then she says,
Speaker 2: I don't want you to stop looking at me, and
Speaker 2: he's obviously not looking at her. He's like staring over
Speaker 2: her shoulder at the wall, and then she goes in
Speaker 2: for a kiss dramatic music sting. He doesn't react at all.
Speaker 2: Finally she gets mad and tries to walk away, so
Speaker 2: it's brainiact time, nothing else to do. The light flashes
Speaker 2: on the baron's eyes and he transforms. The woman at
Speaker 2: the bar screams in terror and he grabs her and
Speaker 2: he does the tongue to the back of the head
Speaker 2: thing and then drops her body to the floor with
Speaker 2: a thud.
Speaker 1: So more brains for the brainiact.
Speaker 2: Right, And then we got straight to the morgue, so
Speaker 2: we're seeing bodies on slabs, and here we meet several
Speaker 2: more recurring characters. There's the Morgue attendant, who I think
Speaker 2: shows up a couple of times. Surprisingly handsome and cool
Speaker 2: looking fellow with horn rimmed glasses, a thin mustache, and
Speaker 2: very neatly parted hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know why this guy is in our star,
Speaker 1: because he has all the hallmarks of one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then the two cops we mentioned, the inspector detective,
Speaker 2: the gruff, stoic bald man. He's very strongly built, with
Speaker 2: a fedora low over his eyes. He's serious. And then
Speaker 2: there is Benny, his partner or subordinate, who's the goofy
Speaker 2: comic relief cop. And the first action we get of
Speaker 2: this guy is him offering impossible theories to explain the crimes,
Speaker 2: and then when his partner's like, no, that doesn't make
Speaker 2: any sense, he desires to quit the investigation. But while
Speaker 2: they're looking at the bodies here, the morgatendant tells them
Speaker 2: that he's never seen murders like this in all of
Speaker 2: his career. He says, quote, the skulls of these two
Speaker 2: victims show two perforations. Possibly the murderer used an electric drill.
Speaker 2: I say this because the person who did it was
Speaker 2: quite skilled. Just look at these two orifices, and they
Speaker 2: look he really there is a tone of admiration here,
Speaker 2: like he's appreciating the work. And then he tells them
Speaker 2: the most amazing thing has happened to both of these
Speaker 2: bodies of brains were sucked out through the two holes.
Speaker 2: And the doctor tells them that this means the person
Speaker 2: who did it must be an expert in anatomy. And
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, yeah, because how else would they know that
Speaker 2: the brains are inside the skull?
Speaker 1: I mean, it is interesting to think there are other
Speaker 1: ways to get to the brain, but the brainiac chooses
Speaker 1: to just make his own holes, not to use any
Speaker 1: of the various other holes that are there, and in
Speaker 1: a roundabout way, do lead to the brain. The police
Speaker 1: with a little help, with a.
Speaker 2: Little Yeah, well, one of the police inspector responds to
Speaker 2: this by saying, I wish they'd find some way to
Speaker 2: control the subjects of man's studies. A maniac with a
Speaker 2: lot of knowledge is a threat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly that's the problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective, Like the most important part
Speaker 2: of law and order is preventing maniacs from doing research.
Speaker 2: We also learned from the two cops that last night
Speaker 2: there was a major bank robbery, and I think we
Speaker 2: can assume it was the Bear and acquiring funds for
Speaker 2: his mission of revenge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of feel cheated. We didn't get to
Speaker 1: see that sequence though.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's kind of like in the face behind the mask, right,
Speaker 2: we never actually see the heist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to see the heist, don't skip the heist.
Speaker 1: But they're like, they know what a heist is.
Speaker 2: Okay. So from here, the rest of the movie I
Speaker 2: think can be split up into like two or three
Speaker 2: main plots. You're going to have the baron locating and
Speaker 2: then getting revenge on the descendants of all of his enemies,
Speaker 2: generally by sucking their brains out, sometimes by other means.
Speaker 2: Then you're going to have the police investigators trying to
Speaker 2: solve the case. And then you also have Ronnie and
Speaker 2: Vicki being brought into the Baron's high society social circle
Speaker 2: and then being in danger. Of course, because Vicky is
Speaker 2: a descendant of one of the judges.
Speaker 1: Two of these plots are more interesting than the other.
Speaker 1: I would have to say that the police investigation, aside
Speaker 1: from one kind of hammy bit of comedic relief. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I always felt a little slow for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. The police scenes are usually over pretty quick.
Speaker 2: At least they're sprightly.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: There is a scene where Baron Vitellius visits the local
Speaker 2: historical site of the inquisition executions. He goes to the
Speaker 2: place I guess where he was burned, and then he
Speaker 2: also goes to the city archives and learns the names
Speaker 2: of the judges in his trial. But I was like,
Speaker 2: what is the point of the scene. I thought he
Speaker 2: already knew them. He said these names three hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Now he was three hundred years ago. Maybe he for kayle, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean i'd seen this movie before and
Speaker 1: it was less than three hundred years ago, and I
Speaker 1: forgot everybody's name, but they weren't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't your inquisition trial.
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 2: After this, he goes out on the street and then
Speaker 2: he meets a sex worker on the sidewalk, lights a
Speaker 2: cigarette for her. They make out a little bit, but
Speaker 2: then he turns into brainiac and eats her brains.
Speaker 1: I feel like he's missing out on so many moments
Speaker 1: for like authentic connection with people. Yeah, and or to
Speaker 1: help the downtrodden, you know, Yeah, these would have been
Speaker 1: good seeds for that.
Speaker 2: He goes brainiac mode too early, Like if he got
Speaker 2: to know people, maybe he wouldn't want to suck their
Speaker 2: brains out. He could then again, maybe this is his
Speaker 2: way of getting to know people, if we go with
Speaker 2: the alien theory. Actually, this raises a question. When Brainiac
Speaker 2: eats people's brains, does he gain their knowledge?
Speaker 1: Hmmm, maybe maybe he does? Or yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I would like to think that maybe it's just sustenance.
Speaker 1: Though there's so much I feel like like a Gimmel
Speaker 1: del Toro or someone like that could could really have
Speaker 1: come in and done like a really thoughtful, heartfelt remake
Speaker 1: of Brainiac and explored some of these questions.
Speaker 2: Hmm, yeah, like the Chronos take on Brainiac.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, After this, there's a scene with the two cops
Speaker 2: having lunch in a cafe while they talk about the case.
Speaker 2: There's one I took a screenshot here of one of
Speaker 2: the cops says, as usual, Benny, his brains have been
Speaker 2: sucked out, and then Benny Wheelern has ordered calf brains
Speaker 2: to eat at the cafe. That's just on the menu here,
Speaker 2: but then when the waitress brings his plate, it seems
Speaker 2: he has lost his appetite. Yuck, yuck.
Speaker 1: They don't play this scene up as much as I
Speaker 1: feel like other movies would have, but I still appreciate it.
Speaker 2: The inspector also concludes, based on the fact that the
Speaker 2: brains have been sucked out that quote, the killer must
Speaker 2: be a schizophrenic.
Speaker 1: Okay to doing throwing anything at the wall here to
Speaker 1: see what sticks.
Speaker 2: I guess, okay, and then oh. We also get the
Speaker 2: first of these mini scenes, the recurring subplot where Professor
Speaker 2: Miland can't get any other observatory in the world to
Speaker 2: confirm his his sighting of the comet. So he's like
Speaker 2: opening letters from Moscow, from Paris, from everywhere, and they're
Speaker 2: all saying Nope, didn't see a comet. But anyway. In
Speaker 2: this first scene, while the three astronomer characters are opening
Speaker 2: all the letters from around the world, they also get
Speaker 2: an invitation to attend a fancy party at the home
Speaker 2: of Baron Vitellius. So let's go to the party. It
Speaker 2: is a fancy black tie affair with champagne and caviar.
Speaker 2: The butler keeps announcing the arrival of new guests, including
Speaker 2: all of the descendants of the inquisitors who condemned the baron. Yep,
Speaker 2: so one is a young lady about to get married,
Speaker 2: one is an older dude who's a professor of history,
Speaker 2: one is an industrial magnate. And then of course our
Speaker 2: heroes arrive. I got to laugh here at first at
Speaker 2: the picture of our astronomers arriving, because first of all,
Speaker 2: Vicky's outfit it looks like she works at the toy
Speaker 2: factory at the North Pole. And then she also has
Speaker 2: two dates. She has both of the astronomer guys, one
Speaker 2: on each.
Speaker 1: Arm, representing the sciences.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, at some point during this fancy party, the
Speaker 2: baron has to sneak away to the coat closet basically
Speaker 2: to an adjoining room room to eat brains out of
Speaker 2: a big golden chalice. The spoon. He's just got a
Speaker 2: it's like locked inside a chest. He just has a
Speaker 2: big old grail of brains.
Speaker 1: I love this, but it also just raises more questions.
Speaker 1: Whose brains are these? When has he been harvesting or
Speaker 1: did he harvest these? Like he did he maybe buy
Speaker 1: these off the black market or you know, got them
Speaker 1: from a morgue or something. We don't know, but he
Speaker 1: has a sizeable little cauldron, little bowl of brains here.
Speaker 2: And they're basically intact, which would not be the case
Speaker 2: if you sucked out the brains through those tiny holes
Speaker 2: in the back of the head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's constantly going in for little nibbles and bites.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's like it's like I do
Speaker 1: when I'm working here at the house. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: just constantly snacking on snacknecks or something, and he's the
Speaker 1: same with his brains.
Speaker 2: So there's a scene at the end of the party
Speaker 2: where everybody tells the baron what a wonderful time they've had,
Speaker 2: and they all make plans to see him again. It's like, oh, Baron,
Speaker 2: once't you please be at our wedding And he's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: I will be there. So I think we can run
Speaker 2: kind of quickly through the various revenge scenarios. The first
Speaker 2: one is maybe my favorite one. The Professor of History Depentoha.
Speaker 1: This one's really good. This one's legitimately creepy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the guy just happens to be a scholar
Speaker 2: of the Inquisition, and also, wouldn't you know it his
Speaker 2: beautiful daughter Maria, also a brilliant historian of the Inquisition.
Speaker 2: So like, they bring the baron to their house and
Speaker 2: they're like, look at these papers we have about the
Speaker 2: trial of the whoa baron Vitilius. He had the same
Speaker 2: name as you. That's that's pretty weird, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's one line where the professor says religion was not
Speaker 2: extremely enlightened at that time. Baron.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Baron's like, yeah, I know, quite.
Speaker 2: Aware anyway, So they're like, hey, you know he had
Speaker 2: the same name as you. This guy must have been
Speaker 2: one of your ancestors. And then, in a kind of
Speaker 2: shocking twist, the baron just straight up announces himself. He's
Speaker 2: like he said, this is the scene where he says,
Speaker 2: I never had any ancestors. I am the Baron Itilius Destera,
Speaker 2: and you are the descendants of one of the inquisitorial judges,
Speaker 2: and now I will destroy you.
Speaker 1: And this is a great revenge sequence. Again legitimately creepy
Speaker 1: because he hypnotizes petrifies the father, and then I mean
Speaker 1: he hypnotizes them both. But he's just frozen there, wide eyed.
Speaker 1: This is your Maine roadless that referenced earlier, but he's
Speaker 1: just frozen in place, petrified with these wide eyes as
Speaker 1: he watches the baron feast on the brain of his daughter.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Well, first he kisses the daughter and she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm in love with the baron now makes a face
Speaker 2: indicating that I guess she's probably hypnotized. And then he
Speaker 2: turns into the brainiac and then sucks her brains out,
Speaker 2: and the guy and the professor is just standing there
Speaker 2: with like his eyes are like they're like a mile tall.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this this scene hits pretty hard, like even today,
Speaker 1: so I feel this must have terrified folks back in
Speaker 1: the sixties.
Speaker 2: And then Brainiac burns down the house.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, he the trashes the office. Let's you know,
Speaker 1: we don't see a lot of like really overt rage
Speaker 1: from him over all of this, but here we do.
Speaker 2: Later, the cops are on the scene and the inspector says,
Speaker 2: the line is quote these people were burned. Only that
Speaker 2: doesn't fool me. It's clear that the madmen extracted their
Speaker 2: brains as well.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Also at this scene, this is where we get some
Speaker 2: more comic relief with Benny. He he's like yelling at
Speaker 2: the people who are doing the forensics, and he's like,
Speaker 2: I've got to examine these bodies to find out who
Speaker 2: drilled those holes in their skulls. It was probably some
Speaker 2: maniac who thought he was cracking a safe.
Speaker 1: Maybe that joke lands a little better in the original Spanish,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe The next murder is that of the industrialist Manaises,
Speaker 2: the one descended from Baltazar Demoneses. So they're in his
Speaker 2: lab with he and with him and his wife, and
Speaker 2: they're talking about collaborating on a new alloy. And then
Speaker 2: the BRAINI act does a similar thing here. He's like, hypnotize,
Speaker 2: kiss the lady, turn into beast mode, eat the wife's brain,
Speaker 2: except in this case, instead of eating Maneesa's his brain,
Speaker 2: he hypnotizes him to jump into his own industrial furnace
Speaker 2: ugh ooh yeah. And then skipping more lightly along toward
Speaker 2: the end, we get a third revenge scene, which occurs
Speaker 2: after the wedding of the targeted individual. It's a young
Speaker 2: lady getting married. It's going to be eating some brains
Speaker 2: as well. But this is all building up to the
Speaker 2: final confrontation, because we know in the back of our
Speaker 2: minds all the time that one of the descendants today
Speaker 2: is Victoria Contreras, and so he's going to be coming
Speaker 2: for Vicky soon. So in the final showdown, the baron
Speaker 2: invites Vicky and Ronnie to his house. And now how
Speaker 2: does he get them separated? Like he sends Ronnie to
Speaker 2: the other room to look for something or.
Speaker 1: Oh, he says, I would like to give Vicky some
Speaker 1: jewel and it should just be her that comes with
Speaker 1: me into my study where I keep all the jewelry.
Speaker 1: It would be wrong for you to try to influence
Speaker 1: her on which piece of jewelry she chooses. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, Ronnie's like, well it makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: Carry on, then that's normal. Yeah. So of course he
Speaker 1: gets there into the into his study or his office there,
Speaker 1: and I don't even remember if there were any jewels,
Speaker 1: because he almost immediately launches into villain dialogue and an
Speaker 1: attempt to seduce, slash, hypnotize, slash ultimately eat her brains,
Speaker 1: we assume.
Speaker 2: But she is saved, so this turns into a scuffle.
Speaker 2: Of course, Ronnie hears her screams and comes running. But then,
Speaker 2: in a really surprisingly brutal twist on the side of
Speaker 2: the good guys. The cops show up. Our inspectors, both
Speaker 2: Benny and the more serious cop arrive on the scene,
Speaker 2: both wearing backpack flame throwers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like full blown space movie flamethrowers on their back
Speaker 1: and yeah they and then just light him up. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I was about to say, unfortunately, sadly, from
Speaker 1: some perspectives, the baron dies a second death by fire.
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it when I saw the flamethrowers. They're
Speaker 2: running in like it's like Drake and Vasquez, like.
Speaker 1: Rock wearing a huge honking flamethrower apparatus.
Speaker 4: Is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no setup for there's no like, there's no like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no bit where they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: we just got those new flame throwers in over the precinct.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we did all that training on them,
Speaker 1: and we're probably never going to use them. There's nothing
Speaker 1: like that's just suddenly they're here, a turbo team with
Speaker 1: flamethrowers ready to go.
Speaker 2: And the baron is not part of the turbo team.
Speaker 1: No, he's not. He gets toasted, burned to a crisp
Speaker 1: and brainiac form. Then we get a like a dissolve
Speaker 1: effect into do we go right to skeleton or you
Speaker 1: go to I like, charred humanoid form?
Speaker 2: First, I think it's charred skeleton with like no feet, right, no.
Speaker 1: Feed or hands. That really threw me, and it made
Speaker 1: me think about the brainiac fingers all over again. I
Speaker 1: was like, were those maybe those are just he had
Speaker 1: no hands in their tubes? Yeah, like there were no
Speaker 1: bones in there. And then again a million questions about
Speaker 1: exactly how all of this works.
Speaker 2: So question, did we miss something? I wanted to compare
Speaker 2: notes with you? Was there something I missed in the
Speaker 2: movie that explains more about what the brainiac is and
Speaker 2: where he comes from? Did that scene just go buy me?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Now I am to understand there's
Speaker 1: a director's cut of this, but I also have not
Speaker 1: read anything to imply that it really answers any of
Speaker 1: the questions we actually have. I think it was maybe
Speaker 1: just some more character stuff, But I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: But it's my understanding that none of these outstanding questions
Speaker 1: about the nature of the beast are really answered.
Speaker 2: Listeners, If there are answers to our questions about the brainiac,
Speaker 2: things we don't know, but you do right in let
Speaker 2: us know. Contact at stuff to blow your mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Tell us what are we missing about The Brainiac?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I also wish I'd been able to see it
Speaker 1: in the original span, in the original Spanish with subtitles.
Speaker 1: Not that something like that couldn't be lost in the
Speaker 1: subtitles as well, but you know there's always the possibility.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, sometimes I like the original language, but
Speaker 2: a movie like this, I love a dub. Dub really
Speaker 2: works well for Brainiac.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you are right, And also the dub
Speaker 1: is a part of this film's history. This is the
Speaker 1: way so many English speaking moviegoers actually saw the picture
Speaker 1: over the years on television late at night, trying, you know,
Speaker 1: themselves flabbergasted by this strange monster that shows up and
Speaker 1: starts sucking brains out of people's necks with a fork tongue.
Speaker 1: As is sometimes the case, after we watch a film
Speaker 1: discuss it on Weird House, we have even more thoughts
Speaker 1: about the film and maybe we dig into some additional resources.
Speaker 1: That was the case here with The Brainiac.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's the subject.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, there's the matter of the inquisition. Now,
Speaker 1: some of you might be wondering, well, okay, the inquisition
Speaker 1: that was obviously active in Europe and certainly in Spain.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Mexico here, we're talking about New Spain. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Tribunal of the Holy Office, the Inquisition in New
Speaker 1: Spain was established in fifteen seventy one and wasn't entirely
Speaker 1: disbanded till eighteen twenty. So the basic time frame we
Speaker 1: see in the early part of the picture here is reasonable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now this doesn't answer the questions that we
Speaker 2: have about whether, within the narrative logic of the film,
Speaker 2: the baron is actually supposed to be guilty of the
Speaker 2: crime he's accused of. But on the question of real history,
Speaker 2: I did want to quickly note that the people who
Speaker 2: were in reality persecuted by the Mexican Inquisition the Inquisition
Speaker 2: in New Spain were generally not accused, not certainly not
Speaker 2: guilty of, and generally not even accused of the kind
Speaker 2: of unspeakable occult crimes we see in inquisitionsploitation movies, you know,
Speaker 2: demonic lechery and violence, you used warlock powers to do
Speaker 2: murder and that kind of thing. Instead, it's a much
Speaker 2: sadder and more tragic thing that these were just generally
Speaker 2: religiously non conforming people, primarily people who were accused of
Speaker 2: secretly adhering to a religion other than Catholicism, such as
Speaker 2: pre Hispanic Aztec religion or Judaism. A big target of
Speaker 2: the Mexican Inquisition were people who were called conversos, Jewish
Speaker 2: people who had been first forcibly converted to Catholicism, but
Speaker 2: then subsequently were suspected of continuing to practice Judaism in private.
Speaker 2: So for an example of the latter, you can look
Speaker 2: up the story of a guy I was just reading about,
Speaker 2: a guy named Luis Carva Hall, the younger, notable for
Speaker 2: keeping memoirs of his experiences which were just recently recovered
Speaker 2: I believe in twenty sixteen. He was a member of
Speaker 2: a prominent family in New Spain, the Carva Hall family,
Speaker 2: which were governors of part of the colony at one point,
Speaker 2: and he in fifteen ninety six was tortured and executed
Speaker 2: at the age of thirty for keeping the Jewish faith
Speaker 2: in secret, along with many members of his family. But
Speaker 2: you can also look up the story of Carlos Omotokschin,
Speaker 2: a man who was burned at the stake by the
Speaker 2: Inquisition in fifteen thirty nine for practicing the traditional Aztec religion.
Speaker 2: So they're basically religiously non conforming people of various sorts
Speaker 2: and just general heresy. What the inquisitors decided was heresy
Speaker 2: not having the right religious beliefs and practices.
Speaker 1: Now for a little additional context about the use of
Speaker 1: history in this picture and this picture's place in the
Speaker 1: history of Mexican cinema, I turned to Doyle Green's Exploitation Cinema,
Speaker 1: A Critical History of Mexican Vampire, Wrestler, ape Man and
Speaker 1: similar Films nineteen fifty seven through nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2: That's an enticing title to me, But I was trying
Speaker 2: to think, have we watched a movie that covers all
Speaker 2: three of those? I think Doctor of Doom might that
Speaker 2: would definitely include Wrestler and ape Man, maybe also Mexican
Speaker 2: Vampire sort of Yeah, I don't know, brain ish.
Speaker 1: That we need to be on the lookout. We need
Speaker 1: to be on the lookout for that special picture, the
Speaker 1: Goldilocks picture. Anyway, I was reading through this book, and
Speaker 1: Green has a couple of books dealing with weird Mexican cinema,
Speaker 1: and so I've added them both to my card. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to pick them up to really dive in
Speaker 1: in greater depth. But his general thesis here is that
Speaker 1: while many may be quick to dismiss Mexican genre films
Speaker 1: of this era as mirror cheap entertainment and as responses
Speaker 1: to American and British cinema trends, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: going on here. So again, the golden age of Mexican
Speaker 1: cinema blossoms during the end of the Second World War
Speaker 1: and into the post war era, followed roughly by the
Speaker 1: period of cinema explored in his book, and during this time,
Speaker 1: he argues, Mexico is wrestling with its identity, seeking to
Speaker 1: forge a modern future free from the shackles of its past,
Speaker 1: many of which are tied to European colonialism. As such,
Speaker 1: the threats in these movies are often creatures of the past,
Speaker 1: interwoven with historic horrors, be they vengeful inquisition, burned warlocks,
Speaker 1: as tech mummies, or something else. And on the flip side,
Speaker 1: we see the emergence of a new sort of hero
Speaker 1: in icon El Santo, as well as his Luchador and
Speaker 1: Lucidora kin like blue demon mil Mascaris, Glory of Venus
Speaker 1: the Batwoman neutron and maybe, if we're being generous cops
Speaker 1: with flamethrowers and also astronomers.
Speaker 2: But let's be real, brainiac is not about the good
Speaker 2: guys right.
Speaker 1: Now. Specifically, on the topic of the Brainiac, Green has
Speaker 1: this to say. He writes, quote, the past is a
Speaker 1: period of unchanging violence rooted in irrational superstition, reflected in
Speaker 1: both Baron Vitilius's use of black magic and the oppressive
Speaker 1: religious dogma of the Inquisition in New Spain. Again, the
Speaker 1: Baron's resurrection does not simply represent the dangerous return of
Speaker 1: superstition and irrationality, but carries with it the reminders of
Speaker 1: an unfortunate chapter of Mexican history, the Inquisition and Spanish colonialism,
Speaker 1: and their dangerous legacy for the present. And of course
Speaker 1: this makes the use of Goya's art prints from Los
Speaker 1: Copricos the Whims series. I think it's like a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of different illustrations which I think has come up
Speaker 1: on the show before that harshly satirized religion, superstition, and
Speaker 1: a seeming decline of rationality in Gloya's modern world.
Speaker 2: I do think it's interesting what Green points out in
Speaker 2: this passage. You read about the vision sort of the
Speaker 2: worldview of Brainiac being one of a kind of total
Speaker 2: rejection of the past, that in the prologue there are
Speaker 2: no good guys. Really, assuming that we take the side
Speaker 2: that the Baron was not actually like the nice of
Speaker 2: Jesus figure who was just railroaded, that if it is
Speaker 2: more what it looks like, where the Baron is a
Speaker 2: bad evil warlock and the inquisitors are also bad. It's
Speaker 2: just a place of oppressive superstition and dogma beating you
Speaker 2: down from both sides. And really the only hope is
Speaker 2: a kind of modern future. And so it is a
Speaker 2: very modernist kind of worldview that comes through in the
Speaker 2: film that does actually seem to have positive views about
Speaker 2: like about science and humanism and so forth.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And we have to remember that the barons
Speaker 1: the mission of vengeance here is against the descendants of
Speaker 1: the people who wronged him, you know, so, like everything
Speaker 1: he does in the present is completely vested in the
Speaker 1: past and its horrors.
Speaker 2: I guess one question that raises is how are we
Speaker 2: supposed to feel about those descendants. We like Victoria Contreras,
Speaker 2: we like Vicky, but the other targets of his vengeance plot.
Speaker 2: What kind of feelings are we supposed to have about them?
Speaker 2: I feel like the movie doesn't really nudge us very
Speaker 2: far one way or the other. They're presented kind of neutrally.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, in retrospect, it would have been perhaps more
Speaker 1: interesting if we'd explored ideas in either direction. You know,
Speaker 1: like maybe some of them are horrible and entitled and
Speaker 1: are like you know they and you know, we see
Speaker 1: like the accumulation of vast wealth over generations, while you know,
Speaker 1: others are our heroes and so forth. And in many ways,
Speaker 1: that would also fit the pattern we've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of revenge films. Right, start with vengeance against those who
Speaker 1: seem most deserving of it. Then you work up to
Speaker 1: the ones that seem least deserving of it, and that's
Speaker 1: where our revenger meets their downfall. Yeah, not to take
Speaker 1: away from the Brainiac. Still still a marvelous picture.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's all I've got on Brainiac.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, it's a fun one. Like I say,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the most unique monsters in
Speaker 1: all of horror cinema. I think it's quite a quite
Speaker 1: an accomplishment there, because you know, there there have been
Speaker 1: so many strange monsters over the years. Obviously, there's also
Speaker 1: a lot of sameness, and while the Brainiac creature certainly
Speaker 1: riffs on various existing monster tropes, it really goes off
Speaker 1: in its own ludicrousal direction and it is to be
Speaker 1: celebrated for that. All Right, we're gonna goe and close
Speaker 1: this episode out, but we'd love to hear from everyone
Speaker 1: out there, Yes, share your thoughts on the Brainiac and
Speaker 1: also just you know, Mexicans honor a cinema in general.
Speaker 1: We've been on something of a kick with these recently,
Speaker 1: so there are any favorites you have that you'd like
Speaker 1: us to consider for the future, just write in and
Speaker 1: recommend those titles. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with
Speaker 1: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short episodes on Wednesdays
Speaker 1: and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: You can go to letterbox dot com if you want
Speaker 1: to follow us there that our username is weird House
Speaker 1: and we have a list of all the movies we've
Speaker 1: watched thus far, and sometimes a peek ahead at what
Speaker 1: comes up next.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.
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