Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I'm Jie McCormick. In today, it's all brains.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of brain content going on elsewhere
Speaker 2: in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed this week,
Speaker 2: so we figured, well, we got to do a brain film.
Speaker 2: There have plenty to choose from. It was actually quite
Speaker 2: difficult to decide on one, but we're we're also this
Speaker 2: is kind of double purpose though, because we've been we've
Speaker 2: been trying to hit some other countries in our Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema selections, and today's Weird House Cinema selection allows
Speaker 2: us to check Canada off the list.
Speaker 3: So our Canadian movie, yeah.
Speaker 4: I believe it is.
Speaker 2: I believe it's our first Canadian film, and you can
Speaker 2: you can taste the Canadian sensibilities in it, I feel yeah.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, one thing to get out of the
Speaker 3: way right at the beginning is that this is a
Speaker 3: brain monster movie. And yes, you know who can deny
Speaker 3: a good brain monster movie. You know you got Fiend
Speaker 3: without a Face, you got the classics, and this one
Speaker 3: is a sort of updated version of that fifties vibe.
Speaker 3: But the other way to look at The Brain nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty eight is that it is a pretty much perfect
Speaker 3: mix of videodrome and final sacrifice.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is kind of yeah, definitely with video drum.
Speaker 2: We'll come back to that again and again. This is
Speaker 2: in many ways, your discount video drome. This is your
Speaker 2: your bottom shelf video drome selection.
Speaker 4: This is your.
Speaker 2: We have video drome at home, Timmy moments.
Speaker 3: There's got plenty of Cronenberg back at home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we got plenty chromeber back at home. None
Speaker 2: of this is to say that this film is terrible
Speaker 2: that you should watch it. I found this to be
Speaker 2: very enjoyable. But no, get that sense.
Speaker 3: This was very fun be horror. Yeah, thumbs up to
Speaker 3: this one though, it absolutely is. It has very Cronenberg
Speaker 3: ripoff vibes. Should we do the elevator pitch to help
Speaker 3: ground us here? Yeah, let's do it, Okay, So the
Speaker 3: elevator pitch for The Brain nineteen eighty eight is a
Speaker 3: self help guru and a giant alien brain with pointy
Speaker 3: teeth come together to create a cult of mindless psychic
Speaker 3: thralls through the influence of a Canadian local access TV show,
Speaker 3: and it is up to one extremely immature teen Rascal
Speaker 3: and his girl Friday to defeat the teleneural conspiracy before
Speaker 3: it takes over planet Earth.
Speaker 2: YEP, that's absolutely accurate. Again, the video drone vibes are
Speaker 2: strong and it definitely pays homage to pass Killer Brain films.
Speaker 2: You mentioned, Feed with a Fiend Without a Face nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty eight, a horror film, one of the few horror films,
Speaker 2: or a certain select number of horror films, so you
Speaker 2: can find in the Criterion collection that one is about
Speaker 2: brains and spinal columns being taken over by outside alien
Speaker 2: minds and then coming alive and crawling out of people's bodies.
Speaker 2: The other key film that it clearly was inspired by
Speaker 2: is the nineteen fifty seven film The Brain from Planet Auros,
Speaker 2: which features this big old alien brain with eyes floating around.
Speaker 2: So in many ways, this film feels like a love
Speaker 2: letter to those two films, and in particular.
Speaker 3: Especially Brain from Planet a Roosts, because it's just a
Speaker 3: giant brain, like the Fiend without a Face has brains
Speaker 3: that are normal sized brains coming out of people's bodies.
Speaker 3: I think they turn invisible somehow and they attack it,
Speaker 3: so they're literally there are scenes of people like shooting it,
Speaker 3: swarms of brains flying at them. But this one is
Speaker 3: one giant brain. And it's very confusing because the giant
Speaker 3: brain has a face. It has eyes, and it has
Speaker 3: a nose, and it has a mouth with pointy teeth.
Speaker 3: But a brain with a face is generally just a head.
Speaker 3: So what this actually is is a head without a
Speaker 3: skull or skin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what it is is they probably saw a fiend
Speaker 2: without a face, and you know, they're like, this is good,
Speaker 2: but you know what, it's lacking face on it face.
Speaker 2: It kind of looks like a big gorilla face too,
Speaker 2: especially in the poster art for this film. I remember
Speaker 2: seeing that years and years ago, and I got the
Speaker 2: sense of a monster gorilla as opposed to a brain.
Speaker 3: And then this movie is all about the brain. You
Speaker 3: can tell that the director was in love with the
Speaker 3: brain puppet they have created because it starts with the brain,
Speaker 3: it ends with the brain. It's not like Jaws where
Speaker 3: there's a long, slow build up to it. They're just
Speaker 3: like instantly throwing the brain right at you and they
Speaker 3: let you get a long, good look at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before you see a single human character. You see
Speaker 2: the brain writhing around. I think it's preface at this point,
Speaker 2: I didn't have a face yet, but writhing around and
Speaker 2: its nutrient bay flog in its tentacles and or spinal
Speaker 2: column around. Yeah, and then it just gets so much
Speaker 2: screen time, so much screen time, and it looks good.
Speaker 2: It looks it's definitely that, like you've made the distinction before.
Speaker 2: It looks shlock monster movie good. There's never any doubt
Speaker 2: that this is something that was lovingly created in somebody's garage.
Speaker 2: But but it's always entertaining to look at.
Speaker 3: I Like, one thing about the face of the brain
Speaker 3: is that the brain grows a face right after it
Speaker 3: eats a human, and so you kind of wonder if
Speaker 3: like it learned how to do face by taking a
Speaker 3: human inside of it. There's one part where it, like
Speaker 3: the lobes of the brain kind of peel open like lips.
Speaker 3: The two hemispheres open up along the fissure in the middle,
Speaker 3: and then the cerebrum just gobbles up this lady. And
Speaker 3: then right after that it just kind of poops a
Speaker 3: face out of the front of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a film that it doesn't help
Speaker 2: you a lot. It doesn't give you a lot of
Speaker 2: details to go on, which means there's not a lot
Speaker 2: of you know, exposition to bog you down. So if
Speaker 2: you like watching a weird film and trying to figure
Speaker 2: out on your own what's happening, then this, this may
Speaker 2: be the film for you.
Speaker 3: Yes, if you're thinking, I would like a Canadian horror
Speaker 3: thriller with media and brainwashing vibes, something along the lines
Speaker 3: of early eighties Cronenberg like Scanners or Videodrome, but less interesting,
Speaker 3: less subversive, less depressing and dark and grimy and more
Speaker 3: just kind of rubber monster and slime fun. This is
Speaker 3: what you're looking for.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: Well, let's have just a sample of the audio here.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that we even have a bit from
Speaker 2: a trailer, because I was having a hard time finding
Speaker 2: an actual English language trailer for this film, But we're
Speaker 2: going to play something for you right now.
Speaker 5: Your mediocre mind cannot begin to comprehend the importance of
Speaker 5: my work. I suggest you look into your own neurotic behavior.
Speaker 5: Then perhaps you will understand your continuing negativity.
Speaker 4: You have to stop this insane research.
Speaker 5: That thing isn't satisfied. Just controlling the minds of the
Speaker 5: people who watch your TV show. It's apparent you and
Speaker 5: I will no longer be able to work together. Fine
Speaker 5: with me, but wait till I tell people what's really
Speaker 5: going on around here. Now take that thing and bury
Speaker 5: it where a.
Speaker 3: Belongs, all right, So who made this thing?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 2: So let's start at the top with the director, ed
Speaker 2: Hunt or Edward Hunt as I think they may be
Speaker 2: actually excited on this. Raised in la but moved to
Speaker 2: Canada in nineteen sixty nine and clearly brought the B
Speaker 2: movie bug with.
Speaker 4: Him in that move.
Speaker 2: He made a film in nineteen seventy seven titled Starship Invasions,
Speaker 2: which starred Robert Vaughan of Bullet and Lawyer commercial fame.
Speaker 2: And you've actually, oh.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, well no, did you know in our house
Speaker 3: we've got a magnet on our fridge that's got Robert
Speaker 3: Vaughan on it that's for some local personal injury lawyer
Speaker 3: in Atlanta. And it doesn't identify like it's not. It
Speaker 3: makes it look like this is a guy who works
Speaker 3: for the law firm. He's like pointing a stern finger.
Speaker 3: He kind of looks like pouy w nuts from the
Speaker 3: sopranos like he's going to beat you up. He's dressed
Speaker 3: in a suit and he looks like tough, he's gonna
Speaker 3: fight for you. But then right underneath it, it says Robert
Speaker 3: Vaughan spokesperson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. They used to air these on television
Speaker 2: Atlanta all the time. Maybe they still do, and I
Speaker 2: just don't see them because I don't, you know, just
Speaker 2: because Robert Vaughn's dead doesn't mean you can't still, you know,
Speaker 2: be the spokesman for a law firm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they put fred as Stare in a vacuum commercial
Speaker 3: after he died. They can put Lyndon Johnson and Forrest Gump.
Speaker 3: Why not get Robert Vaughan to just make lawyer commercials
Speaker 3: from beyond the Grave until a million years from now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, Christopher Lee, his co star in that film, as
Speaker 2: far as I know, has not done lawyer commercials. But
Speaker 2: that would be impressive if you had so. Anyway, ed Hunt,
Speaker 2: he did a nineteen eighty one horror movie called Bloody
Speaker 2: Birthday and the Brain was really the tail end of
Speaker 2: his main period, his heyday of making films, as he
Speaker 2: didn't direct another film until twenty fourteen's Halloween Hell, which
Speaker 2: apparently starred Eric Roberts as Dracula, which I think is
Speaker 2: all you really need to know about that film. If
Speaker 2: it starred Eric Roberts in the twenty first century, then.
Speaker 4: You know, draw your own conclusions.
Speaker 3: Wait, but that would also count out the Christopher Nolan
Speaker 3: Batman films.
Speaker 2: That didn't star Eric Roberts. But no, Eric Roberts. His
Speaker 2: presence in a film is not necessarily a good sign.
Speaker 2: But he's been in some things that I love, so yeah,
Speaker 2: he was. He was probably in the best for my
Speaker 2: money HP Lovecraft film. I forget what it was called, Callbough,
Speaker 2: but he played like a wizard in it.
Speaker 4: It was pretty good.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, wait a minute, blind choice right now, two
Speaker 3: movies you haven't seen, one in which Eric Roberts plays Dracula,
Speaker 3: another in which post two thousands Rutger Hower plays Dracula.
Speaker 3: Which one do you?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: See? Those are both?
Speaker 2: These are similar omens, right, because they were both in
Speaker 2: some horrible films, But individually I like them both as
Speaker 2: perform forms, as actors. I guess I'd go with rutger
Speaker 2: I'd probably suffer for it, but I would go with
Speaker 2: rugger Hower.
Speaker 3: Then what you are looking for. Is the Dario Argento
Speaker 3: Dracula movie that I have never managed to watch more
Speaker 3: than about thirty seconds off?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know that exists.
Speaker 3: Doesn't look good. Okay, So here's the big question that
Speaker 3: was just haunting me while I was watching this. I
Speaker 3: tried to google it and I couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 3: But somehow you must have come across an information source
Speaker 3: that I couldn't Where was this filmed? Because this movie
Speaker 3: features some very familiar looking Canadian highways. You ever driven
Speaker 3: around in Canada, you will see some familiar looking sort
Speaker 3: of architecture, you know, residential architecture and highway signs and stuff.
Speaker 3: But also there's this big building in it that is
Speaker 3: sort of the brainwashing cult center in the movie. And
Speaker 3: I was wondering, what is this building? Is this some
Speaker 3: like school with cool architecture? Were you able to figure
Speaker 3: this out?
Speaker 2: Yes, it is the headquarters or one of the headquarters
Speaker 2: of a nefarious organization that wants to make exact copies
Speaker 2: of things. It's that it's the Xerox Research Center of Canada.
Speaker 2: It's it's in Ontario or outside of Ontario some way,
Speaker 2: it's in within Ontario. Sorry, okay, but yeah, that's what
Speaker 2: it is. I'm definitely the outsides. And I suspect the
Speaker 2: interiors in this film as well, because there are some
Speaker 2: fabulous factory interiors that look very authentic and in use.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there are also these interesting a trio with
Speaker 3: these very high ceilings and these terrorists is zigzagging walkways
Speaker 3: with interesting looking railings. It's just a cool building.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That and some some suburbs that look like Freddy Krueger
Speaker 2: should show.
Speaker 4: Up in any moment, you know.
Speaker 2: It's just like that, that that eighties level of XS
Speaker 2: in housing.
Speaker 5: Ye.
Speaker 3: But now now that you say Ontario, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: It does somehow look a little bit more eastern than
Speaker 3: the areas I was thinking of, like in Alberta.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I can't remember the exact city in Ontario,
Speaker 2: but it's in Ontario. Okay, you can go visit it.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they want people to show up and ask
Speaker 2: about the brain, right, you take the brain to her.
Speaker 2: All right, let's move on to the writer on this
Speaker 2: one briefly, an individual by the name of the name
Speaker 2: of Barry Pearson who wrote various things, but the one
Speaker 2: that looked most interesting looking at the filmography is Iron
Speaker 2: Road at two thousand and nine TV mini series directed
Speaker 2: by David wu and starring Lee Soon, Sam Neil, and
Speaker 2: Peter O'Toole. What Yeah, And this is the summary from
Speaker 2: IMDb quote. A poor but feisty Chinese woman disguised as
Speaker 2: a boy joins the railroad crew in the Rocky Mountains
Speaker 2: to search for her long lost father and falls in
Speaker 2: love with the son of the railroad tycoon. Sounds kind
Speaker 2: of neat.
Speaker 3: Is Sam Neil the son of the railroad tycoon? Or
Speaker 3: is he the railroad tycoon?
Speaker 2: I guess he must be The two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: seems kind of late for Sam Neil to be playing
Speaker 2: the love interest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but who knows? And then who Puho's Peter o'tool play.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure?
Speaker 3: Let us place the train is he is the locomotive
Speaker 3: Peter two.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's talk about some of the humans that
Speaker 2: are acting in this film though, because, first of all,
Speaker 2: the really big one this is a film that has
Speaker 2: a mad scientist type character in it. We have a
Speaker 2: lot of questions about their identity, but the actor playing
Speaker 2: them is awesome. It is David Gayle, and the character
Speaker 2: that David Gaale was playing is doctor Anthony either Blake
Speaker 2: or Blakelee depending on who you're asking.
Speaker 3: Everything on the internet said BLAKELYE like Blake l Why
Speaker 3: but I watched this movie. I am certain they were
Speaker 3: saying Blake unless they were just unless the l y
Speaker 3: was silent. Did you ever hear anybody in the movie
Speaker 3: say Blake Lee.
Speaker 2: I never heard anyone say Blakely And in fact, I
Speaker 2: fooled myself into thinking they were saying doctor Gail at
Speaker 2: one point, just because the actor's name was doctor was
Speaker 2: David Kale.
Speaker 3: So David Gail is a tremendous villainous character actor. I
Speaker 3: don't know a lot of his work other than that
Speaker 3: he was in Reanimator, but he was the villain and Reanimator,
Speaker 3: and he has this excellent, conceited, smug, elderly patrician character energy.
Speaker 3: He in some ways he by having a kind of
Speaker 3: like elongated face and very upper crust yale mannerisms. He
Speaker 3: kind of reminds me of John Kerry, former US Senator
Speaker 3: and Secretary of State, but with a with a more
Speaker 3: like nah, you know, like he's always like rubbing his
Speaker 3: twiddling his mustache, though he doesn't have one. He's very
Speaker 3: clean shaven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has his great presence because he has this
Speaker 2: wonderfully expressive gaunt face. He has these piercing eyes, great voice,
Speaker 2: and he has this smile that when he's he seems
Speaker 2: like his natural smile is for one side to sort
Speaker 2: of sneer, like he has an anatomical sneer just built
Speaker 2: into to his countenance, which I really like. And as
Speaker 2: far as actress, he reminds me of there's like a
Speaker 2: little bit of Christopher Lee there, I feel, and also
Speaker 2: a little bit of what's his name, Dan O'Herlihy was.
Speaker 3: Oh Dan O'Hurley, Yeah, the old man from RoboCop or
Speaker 3: the villain from Halloween three.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, Gail was younger than both of those actors I
Speaker 2: just mentioned. Gail lived nineteen thirty six through nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: so he sadly died way too young. He died due
Speaker 2: to heart surgery complications. He managed to cubment himself as
Speaker 2: a B movie icon before that, largely due to Reanimator,
Speaker 2: in which he played Doctor Hill, and I think spends
Speaker 2: most of the first movie and all of the second
Speaker 2: movie as just a head in a pan like literally
Speaker 2: chewing scenery. At times.
Speaker 3: You can just imagine that, like, even after his head
Speaker 3: is removed, he is getting immense pleasure from denying younger
Speaker 3: scientists tenure. Yeah, you will never be accepted at this university.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's in the part of the tragedy is
Speaker 2: like you look at his filmography prior to re Animator,
Speaker 2: and you know, he did a fair amount of TV work.
Speaker 2: I think he worked in the New York stage before that,
Speaker 2: British born, but sort of came up in the New
Speaker 2: York stage. And after re Animator, you can see that
Speaker 2: he's suddenly getting all these horror parts because now he's
Speaker 2: branched off.
Speaker 4: Into this new world.
Speaker 2: You know, you see him show up in Pulse Pounders,
Speaker 2: Tales from the dark Side. He was in the movie
Speaker 2: The Guyver that we've mentioned before that was screaming mad
Speaker 2: George's film. He was in a film called The Engineer.
Speaker 2: I guess it's like Sinn Engineer or something from nineteen ninety. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was really like cementing himself as this genre staple.
Speaker 2: I even read that he was going to be the
Speaker 2: villain in Kicks, that monster movie that we've both seen
Speaker 2: about Killer Ticks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh we rented that from video Drome at some point,
Speaker 3: but I don't remember who the villain in the movie was.
Speaker 3: I just remember ticks.
Speaker 2: I was looking at it, and I guess it was
Speaker 2: the Clint Howard role. Though Clint Howard and David Gale
Speaker 2: are two actors that are just miles apart, Like they're
Speaker 2: both tremendous fun but I don't think of think of
Speaker 2: them as competing for the same part, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So anyway, Yeah, Gale didn't ultimately didn't have that many
Speaker 2: horror B movie credits, that many weird roles, but the
Speaker 2: ones he did have certainly stuck with us, and in
Speaker 2: this movie's no exception, he really has quite a fun
Speaker 2: presence in this.
Speaker 3: I would say this movie is all about the villains
Speaker 3: because we haven't even gotten to the young heroes yet,
Speaker 3: the main characters, because they almost don't matter. This movie
Speaker 3: is just about the villains. So you've got doctor Blake
Speaker 3: played by David Gailee here is like the top villain
Speaker 3: under the brain of course. Yeah, and then you've got
Speaker 3: the Henchman character, who I absolutely adored, is played by
Speaker 3: this actor in to George Buza b u z A
Speaker 3: maybe Buzza, but I guess it would be Buza, and
Speaker 3: I had this this tickling mental experience where every time
Speaker 3: Buza was on screen, I was like, he looks so familiar.
Speaker 3: I must know him from seeing him in things throughout
Speaker 3: the years, but I couldn't really figure out from.
Speaker 2: What Buza is Like, you know, you hear about figures
Speaker 2: that show up at all, like these pivotal moments in history,
Speaker 2: but are largely unobserved. Like Buza is is that like
Speaker 2: he's he has been in everything he and not only
Speaker 2: is an actor, he's also done a ton of voice acting.
Speaker 2: So for instance, one of his most well known roles
Speaker 2: was voicing a beast on the nineties X Men cartoon.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay, but he.
Speaker 2: Also did he was in both Droids and and Ewoks,
Speaker 2: both of the Star Wars animated series back in the day,
Speaker 2: the old ones before they were you know good uh so,
Speaker 2: so yeah, he's just been in been all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: But the weird thing is, like watching this film, I
Speaker 2: recognized him and yet could not place a single thing
Speaker 2: that I'd actually seen him in.
Speaker 4: Like it was weird.
Speaker 3: Exactly the same mental experience here, but I also realized
Speaker 3: that George Buza is a type we need to discuss this.
Speaker 3: This is a very important category of older male character actor,
Speaker 3: the Buza face. And so I know there are other
Speaker 3: examples that aren't coming to mind, but a few that
Speaker 3: do would be like George buck Flower, who's in you
Speaker 3: all kind of like old Westerns and in They Live,
Speaker 3: and then William Tokarski of Too Many Cooks fame. There
Speaker 3: is something to do with like a like an older
Speaker 3: male with like very strong facial hair and usually a
Speaker 3: very heavy eyebrow line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the brow is key with this actor, and so
Speaker 2: it should come as no surprise to anyone that he
Speaker 2: had a bit part one of his early roles in
Speaker 2: Jean Jacques Ennode's nineteen eighty one cave man picture The
Speaker 2: Quest for Fire, alongside far far better known brow based
Speaker 2: actors Ron Pearlman and Everett McGill.
Speaker 3: Well, I've never put those guys together before on the
Speaker 3: on the strong brow, but yes, you're right, I.
Speaker 2: Mean it's a caveman picture, so you know, that's clearly
Speaker 2: on the brain. As far as his physicality, though, he
Speaker 2: is a he's a big fella. Yeah, you know, he's
Speaker 2: he's a bit rotun. But he is also very tall.
Speaker 2: I think his height that was listened on the internet
Speaker 2: is six four. So this guy's a monster.
Speaker 3: So you know how some people love scenes in movies
Speaker 3: where Tom Cruise runs. That's a particular cinematic fetish some
Speaker 3: people have is the Tom Cruise running scene. And he
Speaker 3: does it in most of his scenes. There's just extended
Speaker 3: shots of him sprinting across flat spaces. I mean, really,
Speaker 3: I feel like that. But for George Buza. This movie
Speaker 3: has several George Buza running scenes and I literally had
Speaker 3: to rewind them. I just wanted to watch them over
Speaker 3: and over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're so weird because he's Buzza's just booking it
Speaker 2: and these scenes just straight out flat sprinting. In you
Speaker 2: get the impression that maybe add the director didn't know
Speaker 2: how to instruct people running, or there was some breakdown
Speaker 2: in communication, because I feel like you don't really need
Speaker 2: to run that fast to get the sense of chasing
Speaker 2: after somebody in the film. But he's just booking it.
Speaker 2: And he's wearing all white, which doesn't help. It just
Speaker 2: makes him look even larger and maybe even more like
Speaker 2: he shouldn't be running that fast, you know, like I
Speaker 2: get concerned for his health.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's wearing like a nurse's scrubs, like this
Speaker 3: all white outfit. His we should mention also his facial hair.
Speaker 3: He has a goatee that is so thick and luxurious.
Speaker 3: It's like a mink stole. You know. It just looks
Speaker 3: absolutely glossy and super thick and like the warm fur
Speaker 3: code of a northern region's dwelling animal.
Speaker 4: Yea.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so all of that, all of that glory
Speaker 3: at full sprint. Yeah, sometimes carrying an act. Yeah, yeah. Indeed,
Speaker 3: his facial hair is glorious. And you know, I was
Speaker 3: looking at his his tremendous filmography, and I noticed that
Speaker 3: he he's voice Santa Claus before. But he also played
Speaker 3: Santa in the twenty fifteen horror movie A Christmas Horror Story,
Speaker 3: in which he fights Crampis. I haven't seen this, Joe.
Speaker 3: I have watched this with my dad one year for Christmas.
Speaker 3: We arrived at my parents' house and my dad, I
Speaker 3: think he had just finished watching it and like backed
Speaker 3: it up to the beginning. He was like, you've got
Speaker 3: to see this and George Buza as Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll have more to say about Buza as
Speaker 2: we progress here, But I guess just to run through
Speaker 2: a few other people. Let's see. Tom Bresnan plays Jim.
Speaker 2: Jim is our our hero. He's the main male kid.
Speaker 3: He's he's identified more in the movie by his last name.
Speaker 3: His character is James Jim Magaluski or Magicvski, and everybody's
Speaker 3: usually calling him Majielevski. And there is at least one
Speaker 3: point in the movie where I caught the movie spelling
Speaker 3: its own main character's name wrong, because so the evil
Speaker 3: brain monster communicates through it through a computer screen to
Speaker 3: its henchmen with words on the screen. And there's one
Speaker 3: part where it spells his name and it's spelled wrong.
Speaker 3: It spells it like Magio well Luski.
Speaker 2: Well, Tom does a good job playing Jim. Nothing really
Speaker 2: to write home about, but it's fine. Likewise, the actor
Speaker 2: Cynthia Preston plays his love interest, Janet, and again perfectly fine.
Speaker 2: Nothing really to write home about here, but she is
Speaker 2: a Canadian actress that's been in a lot of things,
Speaker 2: including the recent Jack Ryan series on Amazon. She was
Speaker 2: in the twenty thirteen Carrie remake, and she's popped up
Speaker 2: on the TV series American Gods.
Speaker 3: The main thing I remember about her is actually just
Speaker 3: the color scheme of her sweater in the second half
Speaker 3: of the movie, which is very Miami Vice. It's this
Speaker 3: combination of like light blue and pink. Yeah, you know
Speaker 3: that Miami Vice color scheme.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, yeah, So yeah, her sweater does as good
Speaker 2: a job as she does in this thing.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I didn't mean to. I mean she's fine.
Speaker 2: No, no, she's fine. I legitimately mean that both of
Speaker 2: these actors do a good job, young actors getting it
Speaker 2: done in a movie that's, you know, not meant for
Speaker 2: the top shelf, but you know it's fine.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: Now, there's an actress in the film named Christine Cossack
Speaker 3: who has the distinct honor of being the first character
Speaker 3: in the film to be eaten alive by the hemispheres
Speaker 3: of the brain.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: She plays Vivian, who is the the brain crew's other
Speaker 2: minion she pops up.
Speaker 3: She seems to be like a real medical professional, like
Speaker 3: she's just trying to do her job. Meanwhile her co
Speaker 3: workers are trying to hypnotize people with brain poison.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she didn't last too long. But while she's
Speaker 2: on screen and then she pops up later is kind
Speaker 2: of a hallucination like an avatar taken on by the
Speaker 2: brain when it's messing with Jim. While when she's in
Speaker 2: the film, though, she she has this kind of like
Speaker 2: solid B movie vixen vibe to her, so she's, you know,
Speaker 2: she's entertaining, and then she's eaten by that brain. It
Speaker 2: looks like the actor Cossack. She she wasn't in much
Speaker 2: besides this. I think she has two other credits, and
Speaker 2: if you look her up on IMDb, her IMDb photo
Speaker 2: is her being eaten by the brain.
Speaker 3: Whether that was her choice or her agent's choice or well,
Speaker 3: I don't know who edits those IMDb pages, whoever made
Speaker 3: that choice. It's a good one thumbs out. But she's
Speaker 3: good at it, good sense of humor. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: One thing I liked about this movie was the music.
Speaker 3: The opening credits had some fun, had some fun, kind
Speaker 3: of kicking into high gear electronic music that was paired
Speaker 3: with a red blade runner title style text that set
Speaker 3: the pretty well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the music, and this one is actually quite good.
Speaker 2: It's an electronic score by Paul Zaza, a Canadian musician
Speaker 2: who's done a lot of film and TV work over
Speaker 2: the years. He composed the score for nineteen eighty one's
Speaker 2: My Bloody Valentine, nineteen eighties prom night, and of course
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three is a Christmas story.
Speaker 4: Real a few.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he seems to be you know, diverse talent here.
Speaker 2: He can do a lot of different types of scores,
Speaker 2: but this one in particular has a lot of like
Speaker 2: glittering synth cascades and some spooky drum machine beats you know,
Speaker 2: in the background, that.
Speaker 4: Kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So like, yeah, it's cheesy eighties movie music, but it's
Speaker 3: it's the good version of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So I actually listened to this all morning
Speaker 2: while I was working on notes for this, and well
Speaker 2: not all morning, but the period of the morning which
Speaker 2: I worked on notes for this, I played it because
Speaker 2: it's on Spotify you can and pretty much anywhere you
Speaker 2: get digital music these days. You can look up the
Speaker 2: soundtrack by Paul Zaza for The Brain and it's al tremendous.
Speaker 2: But then there's also this vocal track on there titled
Speaker 2: right Now, and there's like a female vocalist singing and
Speaker 2: the full chorus is right now you better show me
Speaker 2: your mind, which wait, great because it's the Brain.
Speaker 3: So it's like a pop single for the film. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that is a thing I miss is the It was
Speaker 3: a big thing in the nineties to have a pop
Speaker 3: song from the original motion picture soundtrack, So a will
Speaker 3: Smith movie would have a track that went with it,
Speaker 3: like Wild Wild West or something, or Men in Black,
Speaker 3: and I miss things like that. I like it when
Speaker 3: there is an original pop song for the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gives you something to play immediately over the
Speaker 2: end credits oftentimes.
Speaker 4: I really like that too.
Speaker 2: Now, speaking of the sound in this movie, I just
Speaker 2: have to say, this is one of those where I
Speaker 2: had to put subtitles on just because there was so
Speaker 2: many either low talkers or like the audio for the dialogue.
Speaker 4: Was just so much lower weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I not when Gail was talking, not
Speaker 2: when people were screaming, but the rest of the time,
Speaker 2: like anytime a teenager is talking to another teen I
Speaker 2: just couldn't understand a word of it and had to
Speaker 2: you know, it's either turn up the volume to where
Speaker 2: the neighbors are complaining about the subsequent screams, or it's
Speaker 2: just read stuff as it happens.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, their friend Willie, I don't think I heard
Speaker 3: a word he said in the movie. Yeah, Okay, should
Speaker 3: we do the full plot breakdown.
Speaker 4: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: So one of the first things we get in the
Speaker 3: film is just a brain in a big dish with
Speaker 3: green liquid bubbling all over the place. So they let
Speaker 3: you know right from the beginning this is a brain
Speaker 3: monster movie.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: And then we cut to a standard Canadian suburban household
Speaker 3: and there is a I guess a mom watching TV
Speaker 3: while her sort of moody teen daughter is up in
Speaker 3: her room, I think, putting on Emo makeup. And this
Speaker 3: thing comes on TV and it's this guy played by
Speaker 3: David Gail. He comes out and it shows a sign
Speaker 3: displaying to the audience that says applaud more, smile more,
Speaker 3: which was pretty good. And the title of this TV
Speaker 3: show is Independent Thinkers. We get a voiceover that says,
Speaker 3: here's your guide to independent thinking, doctor Anthony Blake, and
Speaker 3: Gail comes out and he's doing a self help guru routine.
Speaker 3: It is the kind of thing you might have seen
Speaker 3: for I don't know, it's probably kind of like the
Speaker 3: Anthony Robins seminars of the nineteen eighties or something, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: But so he's this self help guru who runs this
Speaker 3: place called the psychological Research Institute. It seems to be
Speaker 3: some kind of combination of a psyche like an actual
Speaker 3: psychiatric care facility, but it's also like the scientology celebrity center.
Speaker 3: It's like both of those things together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, except in an enormous industrial complex.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is actually here. This is the Xerox Center. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And so doctor Blake on TV said, is that
Speaker 3: this is the biggest show in the metro area. They
Speaker 3: don't say the name of the city, but it seems
Speaker 3: like it's a local show, and they're saying, you know,
Speaker 3: pretty soon we're going to go nationwide and worldwide. And
Speaker 3: he's selling solutions to the problems faced by everyday households.
Speaker 3: He says, you know, we face problems in this nation
Speaker 3: of teenage alienation, drugs, alcohol, suicide, and what's the answer. Well,
Speaker 3: the answer seems to be watching his tapes and watching
Speaker 3: his show. Was there another answer beside that he might
Speaker 3: have said something, but I don't quite recall.
Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of kind of left it as
Speaker 2: if maybe if you were to watch the full show,
Speaker 2: you know, there would be more answers. But we're just
Speaker 2: getting a glimpse of it because it's ultimately not important like,
Speaker 2: we just assume that there's lots of additional content.
Speaker 3: Right well, I think it is absolutely authentic to self
Speaker 3: help literature and self help and that includes video content
Speaker 3: and stuff that at least half of the content of
Speaker 3: self help literature is promises being made about how this
Speaker 3: is going to help you, rather than the actual help content.
Speaker 2: Right though, he's not selling vitamins or anything, no, that
Speaker 2: I could tell.
Speaker 3: One thing I liked in the screen was it had
Speaker 3: that old thing where somebody's watching a TV screen and
Speaker 3: it's clear that this is just really being filmed on
Speaker 3: the TV because you get that flickering effect across the
Speaker 3: screen in the film that I'm not positive, but I
Speaker 3: believe that's a problem of synchronization between the shutter speed
Speaker 3: of the film camera and the refresh rate of the TV.
Speaker 3: So if they get synced up in a weird or
Speaker 3: off way, you get these flickers or rolling lines and whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I admired that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I always like to see it. But so anyway,
Speaker 3: it's clear that everybody watches the show. Everybody's parents are
Speaker 3: tuning in to Independent Thinkers with doctor Anthony Blake, and
Speaker 3: the main thing that seems to happen on Independent Thinkers
Speaker 3: is everybody watches and then they just repeat verbatim whatever
Speaker 3: doctor Anthony Blake said said to tell them to think
Speaker 3: independently about. So the teen girl goes up to her
Speaker 3: room and she's putting on makeup, and she's clearly, you know,
Speaker 3: I think she's experiencing some of this teenage alienation that
Speaker 3: is being talked about on the show. But then she
Speaker 3: starts seeing crazy stuff in her room. Her teddy bear
Speaker 3: starts weeping blood. And then these clawed hands burst out
Speaker 3: of the TV set in her room and then out
Speaker 3: of the closet door, and then there are wall tentacles
Speaker 3: everywhere and they're all flopping around and I like that
Speaker 3: there are these nice, slimy real puppets I'll just flopping
Speaker 3: all over the place. Her mom, oh, Zul like Zeel,
Speaker 3: like yes, yeah, no, Dana, only Zuel, only Zuel coming
Speaker 3: out of the closet and the TV. And then her
Speaker 3: mom comes up to her room and her and a
Speaker 3: tentacle from out of the wall attacks her mom and
Speaker 3: starts choking her mom. And the girl tries to help
Speaker 3: her mom by like stabbing at the tentacle with some scissors.
Speaker 3: But then there's this like realization that actually this was
Speaker 3: all a hallucination and actually she has just stabbed her
Speaker 3: own mom. And then we see like the mirror that
Speaker 3: she'd been putting on makeup in, there's a brain on
Speaker 3: the other side of it, hammering at the glass, and
Speaker 3: then she just jumps out the window. So I think
Speaker 3: we're getting some kind of brainwashing and doctrination process that
Speaker 3: is causing people to hallucinate tentacles and monsters all over
Speaker 3: the place that will cause them to stab their parents.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The what I got from it, and I think maybe
Speaker 2: they flesh it out a bit later, is that the
Speaker 2: mind control that's going on is that if you accept it,
Speaker 2: if you give into the mind control, then you just control.
Speaker 2: You're just like all the parents. You're like one of
Speaker 2: the zombies. But if you're a true freethinker, if you're
Speaker 2: resisting the brainwashing, then that's when the hallucinations occur because
Speaker 2: your mind is fighting back. So you know, she's an
Speaker 2: emo teenager, she's not going with the script, and since
Speaker 2: that's not happening, the hallucinations kick in.
Speaker 4: She's killed by the whole process.
Speaker 3: Right because she's like, I don't want to watch doctor Blake.
Speaker 3: Mom I just want to listen to the curor, and
Speaker 3: of course ends in tragedy. So then we cut to
Speaker 3: our We meet our young hero, Jim Madilevski, and he
Speaker 3: is a turbotwerp. He is very The way I would
Speaker 3: describe him is that his personality he has two personality characteristics,
Speaker 3: and those are lust and pranks. I was watching with
Speaker 3: Rachel and she said he was radicalized by Mad magazine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he does have that vibe to him. And yet
Speaker 2: at the same time, we're told that he is one
Speaker 2: of the smartest children, one of the smartest teens in
Speaker 2: this in the school, like he's brilliant. He's like, it's
Speaker 2: almost like he's too brilliant to fire, even though he's
Speaker 2: a complete pain in the butt.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There's a point later on where one of the
Speaker 3: vice principals is meeting with his parents because James has
Speaker 3: been naughty at school again, and they're like, he has
Speaker 3: one of the highest IQ's in the school, but he
Speaker 3: is bad. And I'm like, wait a minute, you're comparing
Speaker 3: all of the students IQ's in this school. I didn't
Speaker 3: realize that was a common practice in high schools.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe the Canadian school system I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe well, so anyway, when we first meet Jim Madgielevski,
Speaker 3: he gets into his car in the morning to drive
Speaker 3: to school, and I think he drives by the house
Speaker 3: where this horrible scene we just saw had taken place
Speaker 3: the night before, and their police everywhere, and the announcer
Speaker 3: on the radio, the DJ is like, well, we just
Speaker 3: had three more murder suicides and now here's Joan Jet
Speaker 3: and we get a rock song, And then I thought
Speaker 3: this was funny. When Jim actually arrives at school, these
Speaker 3: scenes are so quiet it is really unnerving. So you
Speaker 3: see lots of students standing around, but there's no chatter
Speaker 3: sound effects to fill out the environmental noise of the scene.
Speaker 3: You could just hear a pin drop. So it's really
Speaker 3: unsettling in a way that I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: It was supposed to be interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But also, so we meet Jim Madgelevski's girlfriend, Janet, and
Speaker 3: and despite Mazhelevsky us being told that he is very
Speaker 3: smart and an actual independent thinker, he is not smart
Speaker 3: enough or at least not disciplined enough to do his
Speaker 3: own homework and he has to copy his girlfriend's homework.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's not a lot to love about this guy.
Speaker 2: During the introduction.
Speaker 3: Here, yeah. Oh, and then also before he goes to class,
Speaker 3: he goes into the bathroom and he gets out of
Speaker 3: his pocket a container that is labeled like pure elemental
Speaker 3: sodium so metallic sodium, which I'm sure we've talked about
Speaker 3: this on the show before that if you combine pure
Speaker 3: elemental sodium with water, there will be extremely I guess
Speaker 3: you would call it an exothermic reaction. It will cause
Speaker 3: it will basically explode, catch on fire, and it's really bad.
Speaker 3: He gets out this pure sodium tablet and just puts
Speaker 3: it in the toilet and flushes it, which causes the
Speaker 3: vice principle in the bathroom to become doused in water.
Speaker 3: And the vice principal suspects Majelewski of being responsible for this,
Speaker 3: but he's just like, hey, what about innocent till proven guilty?
Speaker 2: We should stress just like the movie itself stresses that
Speaker 2: you should not try this at home.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: The closing credits, it's the first thing you see, like
Speaker 3: not even a before you see a single human credit.
Speaker 3: There's a disclaimer at the end of the movie that
Speaker 3: is like, do not put sodium in your plumbing, extreme
Speaker 3: injury could result.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so seriously, don't do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's funny to imagine. So who is the
Speaker 3: legal council for production of The Brain nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 3: who told them they had to put that in there.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm guessing just is another big brain
Speaker 2: in a tank. That's just like watching the film. It's like, nope, nope,
Speaker 2: disclaimer on that.
Speaker 4: That's all right.
Speaker 3: But I guess it is actually the sodium in the
Speaker 3: toilet sequence that leads to the parent teacher conference where
Speaker 3: we find out that James has one of the highest
Speaker 3: IQ's in the school, but he is very badly behaved,
Speaker 3: and they tell him that it is your attitude that
Speaker 3: is causing your anti social behavior. But fortunately the teachers
Speaker 3: and administrators they've got an answer, and the answer is
Speaker 3: he's got to watch doctor Blake's tapes.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really it's it's it's a this was
Speaker 2: gonna work out great. We have the like a leading
Speaker 2: figure in self help. It's based in the same city,
Speaker 2: and he has these tapes. He has this center. Let's
Speaker 2: hook Jim up with some help.
Speaker 3: At some point, somebody says doctor Blake wouldn't be on
Speaker 3: TV if he wasn't good.
Speaker 4: Valid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's perfect logic. Yeah, And so they send Majelevski
Speaker 3: to the Psychological Research Institute. This is where we first
Speaker 3: get into this big, interesting building, and of course while
Speaker 3: he's there, he's wandering around trying to get you know,
Speaker 3: get processed, to get his paperwork done, to meet with
Speaker 3: doctor Blake and I don't know, get diagnosed, or find
Speaker 3: out how he can have better behavior at school. And
Speaker 3: so we meet a few characters along the way. There.
Speaker 3: We meet a person who is a patient at the
Speaker 3: PRI who seems to be suffering from some kind of hallucination.
Speaker 3: And then we also meet George Bouza, who what is
Speaker 3: the character's name, Actually.
Speaker 2: It is Verna, I believe, hmm.
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't remember that. I just thought of him
Speaker 3: as Booza throughout the movie.
Speaker 4: But yeah, Booze is better.
Speaker 3: We meet Bouza and then Magjelevsky goes in for his session,
Speaker 3: and it's hard to describe exactly what happens here. So
Speaker 3: he meets Christine Cossack, the nurse there, and they hook
Speaker 3: electrodes up to his head and do you remember the
Speaker 3: sequence of what exactly happens here. I'm a little fuzzy
Speaker 3: on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a weird sequence. It's it's actually pretty pretty
Speaker 2: effective because, yeah, they're hooking him up. There's some she's
Speaker 2: asking him questions and they're showing him a video, right,
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 3: Oh, I know they're trying to brainwash him. Actually, they
Speaker 3: hook him up to the electrodes that are secretly, unbeknownst
Speaker 3: to him in the other room, hooked up to the
Speaker 3: giant killer brain. Though I guess we haven't seen the
Speaker 3: brain kill anybody, and so I think what they're trying
Speaker 3: to do is just like indoctrinate him into becoming a
Speaker 3: psychic thrall of the giant brain creature. So they've got
Speaker 3: the electrodes on him and they're showing him a video
Speaker 3: of Vivian this lady like holding an apple. But then
Speaker 3: they're trying to make him see it as a baseball.
Speaker 3: But I think the implication is that because Madgielewski thinks
Speaker 3: for himself and doesn't just do what other people tell him,
Speaker 3: he doesn't see the baseball. He just sees the apple
Speaker 3: in her hand. And then instead he starts having horny hallucinations.
Speaker 2: Right suddenly, she's topless, but then she's also stepping out
Speaker 2: of the television into his physical space. And this is
Speaker 2: definitely a moment where we get very videodromy you know,
Speaker 2: definitely strong videodrone vibes in this sequence.
Speaker 3: And somehow he ends up meeting doctor Blake here and
Speaker 3: it's clear that this kid is not going to be
Speaker 3: effectively indoctrinated, and he gets creeped out and he leaves.
Speaker 3: And then back in the brain room, we have doctor
Speaker 3: Blake and Vivian and Bouza and they're all hanging out
Speaker 3: around the brain and it's green tub and talking about
Speaker 3: what's what's just happened and why the indoctrination did not
Speaker 3: take effect, and she gets frustrated. She's like starts complaining
Speaker 3: about the working conditions in the brain lab and is like, well,
Speaker 3: we can no longer work together. I'm leaving. And so
Speaker 3: you're thinking, like, oh, good for her, she should go
Speaker 3: get a job in a non you know, brain psychic
Speaker 3: thrall center. But then the brain whoops, It opens up
Speaker 3: its mouth, it's two hemispheres, and it just gobbles her
Speaker 3: up and then grows a face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how it goes down pretty much cover it. Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 2: no no, but it's it's it's a great sequence. Like
Speaker 2: it's a sequence where a monta rubber monster suit eats
Speaker 2: a woman entirely, like with her legs, you know, kicking
Speaker 2: out the back. It's very reminiscent of a lot of
Speaker 2: old horror monster movies. So it's again a sequence where
Speaker 2: you can really, you can really see how much love
Speaker 2: they had for these older, like fifties and sixties monster films.
Speaker 3: Does the brain burp?
Speaker 2: I don't think it burps, but it well could have,
Speaker 2: and it would have been totally appropriate.
Speaker 3: Okay, So after this, we see Mandzelewski leaving and he
Speaker 3: is driving his car and there is a steering wheel
Speaker 3: tongue attack. I think what's happening here is that now
Speaker 3: that he has resisted the brain's attempts to indoctrinate him
Speaker 3: with the electrodes, now he's just gonna have continuous hallucinations
Speaker 3: of the brain trying to kill him that will in
Speaker 3: reality cause him to actually like wreck cars and stuff.
Speaker 3: So the steering wheel comes off in his hands and
Speaker 3: it starts spitting out a tentacle tongue at him, and
Speaker 3: it causes him to wreck his car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty much's pretty much what's happening, which which
Speaker 2: is a great I think it's a pretty great little premise,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, tying into two actual issues of
Speaker 2: like teen alienation, you know that we often see reflected
Speaker 2: in these horror films where teenagers are going up against
Speaker 2: the adult system of their local town. You know, it's
Speaker 2: it's pretty you know, wisely put together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Majeleowski goes to meet his friends. He goes
Speaker 3: to meet Janet at the burger bar where she works,
Speaker 3: and he's just the immediately hallucinating tentacles in the pickle
Speaker 3: jar and stuff. And also their other friends are there.
Speaker 3: They've got a couple of other friends, I think one
Speaker 3: of them is named Willie, and he's freaking out in
Speaker 3: the burger bar, but George Buza catches up to him,
Speaker 3: and Buza comes in and drugs him, takes him back
Speaker 3: to pri I.
Speaker 2: This was a whole sequence where my wife was briefly
Speaker 2: tolerating this film. I was watching it and I commented
Speaker 2: to her as like, I don't think Jim's gonna be
Speaker 2: able to defeat this brain, Like Jim is losing hard
Speaker 2: to team Brain at this point.
Speaker 3: But he's an independent thinker, so we can at least
Speaker 3: count on him to come up with outside the box solutions,
Speaker 3: but she does in the end sort of.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we're back at pri I again where we just were,
Speaker 3: and this time Janet has to come to the rescue
Speaker 3: with Willy to get him out, and so somehow he
Speaker 3: escapes his room. I think he runs into the patient
Speaker 3: that he was talking to earlier, who sneaks into his
Speaker 3: room and trades places with him, letting him out.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then Janet and I think Willy are busting him out,
Speaker 3: and then Willy gets eaten by the brain, right, Like,
Speaker 3: the brain attacks them in the boiler room of this
Speaker 3: place and it just gobbles him up.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The brain requires underlings, clearly, but yet is very confident
Speaker 2: on its own if it needs to lash out at
Speaker 2: somebody within the Xerox facilities here, right.
Speaker 3: And then we get we get a part of the
Speaker 3: movie that I thought was just maybe my favorite part,
Speaker 3: which is just George Buza chasing Janet and Madgelevski for
Speaker 3: I don't know, solid fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is that full bore running.
Speaker 3: Yes, just running after them. And then they get in
Speaker 3: the car and flee and he's chasing them in the car.
Speaker 3: At one point, George Buza chops off a CoP's head
Speaker 3: with an axe, and then another police car arrives on
Speaker 3: the scene and he start Booza's flagging them down, but
Speaker 3: he's got the axe in his hand.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You get the impression that David Gayle's character that the
Speaker 2: doctor just told him like, look, we got it. This
Speaker 2: town is brainwashed. You can do absolutely whatever you need
Speaker 2: to do. You need to chop the head off of
Speaker 2: a cop and brought daylight by the roadside, do it
Speaker 2: because the brain has your back on this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so he flags down the cops and seems
Speaker 3: to get I think he's like, Jim did it. It
Speaker 3: was Majielevski last. So they're on the run for a while.
Speaker 3: They go into a house and they come across a
Speaker 3: lady who is just happens to be watching Independent Thinkers
Speaker 3: on TV. Again, it seems like all anybody in this
Speaker 3: town does is just watch the show all day. And
Speaker 3: it's David Gail, through the tear starts psychically communicating directly
Speaker 3: with her, saying like, how many times has your husband
Speaker 3: refused to watch this show? If he wants you he
Speaker 3: must watch me.
Speaker 2: I think this should be our next next time they
Speaker 2: ask us to do a promo for the podcast, we
Speaker 2: should do it like that. We should say how many
Speaker 2: times has your spouse refused to listen to the Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema episodes?
Speaker 4: Assertive?
Speaker 3: Right, we should enforce like cult separation policies on our listeners.
Speaker 3: Like fans, you either bring all of your friends and
Speaker 3: family in as listeners themselves, or you cut them off.
Speaker 4: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3: Don't please, don't do that.
Speaker 4: Don't do that.
Speaker 2: But but this is missus Woods and so did we
Speaker 2: next see her go outside and try and convince mister Woods?
Speaker 3: Oh, this was the vice principal earlier that Madjelevski did
Speaker 3: his Mad magazine sodium bomb on and was telling his
Speaker 3: parents about his bad behavior. So now he's out building
Speaker 3: a deck in his backyard and it turns out he
Speaker 3: won't watch this show with his wife, and then his
Speaker 3: wife comes out and kills him by shoving a chainsaw
Speaker 3: into like his stomach crotch area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he refused to listen because he's like, look,
Speaker 2: I told you, I just don't like it, and she's
Speaker 2: like all right, and then she kills them with a chainsaw.
Speaker 2: A fine little extra bit of connections on these two.
Speaker 2: The actor playing mister Woods was in the two thousand
Speaker 2: adaptation of The X Men. Oh, and he played like
Speaker 2: somebody attending the Magneto at some point. It's just some
Speaker 2: bit part I believe. But Buza was also in that
Speaker 2: as a truck driver. And I can't help but wonder
Speaker 2: if they put Buza in it since he was, you know,
Speaker 2: the voice of Beast in the Cometoon. But then oh,
Speaker 2: go ahead, no, no, no, I was gonna say. The other
Speaker 2: connection is that the actor playing Missus Woods here was
Speaker 2: actually in a David Cronenberg film. Really, she was in
Speaker 2: The Fly and she played a nurse.
Speaker 3: Wow. Interesting, well, I like how after she kills her
Speaker 3: husband with the chainsaw, she starts like she flags down
Speaker 3: a police car. I guess they're just driving by all
Speaker 3: the time, and she's like, Madgielevski cut my husband in half.
Speaker 3: So they're just blaming all crime on Magelevski. He's omnipresent.
Speaker 3: Everything that happens goes wrong in the city. It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: light bulb burned out, must have been Majelevski.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the brain really is controlling everything.
Speaker 3: So they end up Janet and uh, what's his name?
Speaker 3: And Magjelevski end up going to their high school, which
Speaker 3: should be empty because it's a Saturday, and there's a
Speaker 3: scene where Janet calls her dad on the on the phone,
Speaker 3: who is a fan of the Doctor Blake Show, and
Speaker 3: she's like, Dad, we're on the run and he's been brainwashed.
Speaker 3: He's just like that boy is dangerous. He's a psycho killer.
Speaker 3: Despite being on the run for their lives. In standard
Speaker 3: movie logic, they decide to stop and have some romance
Speaker 3: on the floor of the chemistry lab, and then there
Speaker 3: is a brain attack, but it turns out it's just
Speaker 3: a dream and Madgelevsky wakes up on the floor at
Speaker 3: the school. Unfortunately, when he goes looking for Janet, he
Speaker 3: finds her watching Independent Thinkers on TV. I don't know
Speaker 3: why she decided to do that, but she has now
Speaker 3: been hypnotized and she thinks he's a murderer, so she
Speaker 3: pulls the alarm summons the police, and then there's another
Speaker 3: chase scene and this gives rise to I think the
Speaker 3: weakest part of the movie, which is a long, padded
Speaker 3: out car chase that you can tell it looks like
Speaker 3: they shot additional footage for to make it even longer.
Speaker 3: Magielewski grabs a car, I think from the auto shop
Speaker 3: class and drives away, and then the cops are chasing
Speaker 3: him and they just drive for a long time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's easy to kind of tune out during this
Speaker 2: part of the film, but it's leading to something great.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, well, he eventually drives his car off of
Speaker 3: I don't know what this cliff was supposed to be.
Speaker 3: He drives his car off of like a ten thousand
Speaker 3: foot drap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we almost get that classic car exploding at the
Speaker 2: bottom of a canyon scene. Tunes is the driving cat moment.
Speaker 3: I'm a little skeptical that there are drop offs this
Speaker 3: far in Ontario, but of course this is a standard,
Speaker 3: you know, horror thriller structure, so you know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 3: They've got to go back to pri and face the brain.
Speaker 3: So Magic goes back and they're about to do a
Speaker 3: big broadcast at this place that will send the brain's
Speaker 3: control signal out into millions of viewers and seemingly hypnotize
Speaker 3: the whole world. And the brain is communicating with doctor
Speaker 3: Blake and Buza through these readoubts on a screen and
Speaker 3: it's like Madjaluvski is here, but it spells his name
Speaker 3: wrong like I mentioned earlier, and I love how it
Speaker 3: it's got this interesting syntax. The brain says things like
Speaker 3: words are the tools of any fool. I want action.
Speaker 3: Three exclamation points.
Speaker 2: Really, those are the type of signals that your brain
Speaker 2: is sending to your feet, your hands, in any part
Speaker 2: of your body at any point. It's just like fools move.
Speaker 3: For me, yeah, yeah, motor control. So the brain tries
Speaker 3: to do a few things. It tries to give Madjialuvski
Speaker 3: more like Randy hallucinations in order to throw him off course,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't work, and then he somehow Matjielevski runs
Speaker 3: into his parents. It looks like they're having a party
Speaker 3: in this place, but they're fully brainwashed. Now they're just
Speaker 3: like my son the psycho killer get him. And so
Speaker 3: it all comes down to a big confrontation where finally,
Speaker 3: in the end, how do you think, if you just
Speaker 3: had to guess you the listener, how does Madjelevsky kill
Speaker 3: the brain In the end.
Speaker 2: If you guessed sodium, then you are absolutely correct.
Speaker 3: So what does he do well?
Speaker 2: Well? For one of the first things that happened is
Speaker 2: there's a big showdown on the set of an independent thing.
Speaker 3: I can't believe I almost.
Speaker 4: Get to that.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, No, what happens here?
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's it's the big moment, right, this is
Speaker 2: the big broadcast. This is gonna be the one that
Speaker 2: takes over the world. So Jim mage here. He gets
Speaker 2: on the stage and confronts him, and you know, Gail
Speaker 2: tries to the doctor, tries to to, you know, to
Speaker 2: win him over one last time with a small evil monologue,
Speaker 2: but he's not having any of it. So Jim punches
Speaker 2: him and it's a real humdinger of a punch because
Speaker 2: it punches his head completely off his body and there's
Speaker 2: green goop everywhere, and then we realize that he's not
Speaker 2: even human. Where we're not sure, because there's at least
Speaker 2: one point in the film where someone's saying, what would
Speaker 2: I told you if I told you that Doctor Blake
Speaker 2: is an alien? So maybe he's an alien. Maybe he's
Speaker 2: some sort of like flesh android made by the brain
Speaker 2: or serving the brain. Or perhaps doctor Blake is an
Speaker 2: alien and the brain is actually his brain. I don't know.
Speaker 2: You work it out for yourselves. We're only we're only
Speaker 2: given so many pieces to play with to try and
Speaker 2: build this puzzle. But at any rate, his head is
Speaker 2: punched off and it rolls over and it's in a
Speaker 2: puddle of green goop and reminds us all of Reanimator,
Speaker 2: in which David Gayla is often just a head as well.
Speaker 3: Wait, I can't remember what happens to Buza in the end.
Speaker 2: Does something It's eaten by the brain.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, Yeah, so he wasn't whatever doctor Blake was.
Speaker 3: Buza was not like that. Buza was just an earth
Speaker 3: human with red blood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was just an eager, perhaps brain washed underling.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he ends up he's chasing him, chasing the kids,
Speaker 2: and the brain's after the kids, and for some reason
Speaker 2: he runs into the brain and the brain is like,
Speaker 2: I can't take it any more. Your soda delicious. I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna eat you, and he eats Buza.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the elemental sodium goes into the brain's mouth and
Speaker 3: it explodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a big, fiery like fireworks explosion.
Speaker 4: It's pretty great.
Speaker 3: Oh and of course he u Majaluski rescues his girlfriend
Speaker 3: Janet so they're okay in the end, but then we
Speaker 3: get a stinger after that when it seems like evil
Speaker 3: has been conquered and everything's okay again, But then we
Speaker 3: just get a stinger of it's like a it's like
Speaker 3: a triangle shaped wipe on the screen that just fills
Speaker 3: the screen with the brain going like a right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, chasing it lungeon at y out of.
Speaker 3: The dark, and I don't know what it's supposed to mean.
Speaker 3: This is like, wait, was it not killed? After all?
Speaker 3: It's not presented in the context of any scene or anything.
Speaker 3: It just shows you the brain at the end.
Speaker 2: I feel like it was like it's kind of like
Speaker 2: a casting cause, like Ladies and Gentlemen one more time.
Speaker 4: The brain.
Speaker 2: What an awesome wasn't it the best part of this film?
Speaker 2: And everyone's like yeah, and then you're.
Speaker 3: Just roll credits really really good. But before it gets
Speaker 3: to the credits, of course, there's the warning about not
Speaker 3: using sodium like you saw in this film. Yeah, especially
Speaker 3: because the very ending of Videodrome, if you'll recall, is
Speaker 3: that the main character dies by imitating an act of
Speaker 3: violence that he saw on television.
Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, yeah, but Ben wil since I've seen
Speaker 2: Video Drome in full. I have a copy of it
Speaker 2: Criterion Collection in Facts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got that too. Okay, monster science.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, you know, there's not a lot to
Speaker 2: go on here. We've got a big old brain with tentacles,
Speaker 2: and as it grows it develops eyes and teeth as well,
Speaker 2: and so to a large extent. You know, again, it's
Speaker 2: just a great schlocky monster suit. It's a manifestation of
Speaker 2: humanity's terror at being a brain. But then the film
Speaker 2: does seem to be flirting with the idea of humans
Speaker 2: versus brains as well, you know, you versus your own brain,
Speaker 2: you versus the brains of others, especially on the other
Speaker 2: side of.
Speaker 4: The media lens. Here.
Speaker 2: So when considering a brain that grows eyes and teeth,
Speaker 2: I can't help but think of this little like rather
Speaker 2: crude little bit of dialogue and william S Burrows make
Speaker 2: it lunch this applying to another part of the anatomy,
Speaker 2: but here we could easily apply it to the brain.
Speaker 2: Like the brain is getting to where it can eat,
Speaker 2: it can see, it can chew, it doesn't need the
Speaker 2: rest of us anymore. Like we're seeing this brain evolve
Speaker 2: and in doing so, like the brain is kind of
Speaker 2: becoming less dependent upon the on bodies, and so it's
Speaker 2: like we're almost like we're watching the film not as
Speaker 2: brains but as bodies.
Speaker 3: Oh what if the brain in this film is not
Speaker 3: an alien from another planet, but it is just straightforwardly
Speaker 3: a human brain. It is a human brain that has
Speaker 3: been freed of the constraints of the rest of its
Speaker 3: body and is thus as alien to us as a
Speaker 3: creature from another planet would.
Speaker 2: Be righted, And you need, it's going to end up
Speaker 2: going up against creatures that are more ruled by their body,
Speaker 2: like teens. You know, they're going to all those changes.
Speaker 2: You know, they're hard to control.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: I do like that the movie has decided there is
Speaker 3: essentially an equivalence between actual independent thinking because Madjeleevsky resists
Speaker 3: the brainwashing that everybody else succumbs to, and like having
Speaker 3: a mad magazine style sensibility, you know, being into pranks
Speaker 3: and bad behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and in a way it is kind of well,
Speaker 2: it's kind of well done in the film that the
Speaker 2: idea of of some of someone being really upfront about
Speaker 2: being an independent thinker and encouraging you to be an
Speaker 2: independent Thinker could conceivably be a way of trying you
Speaker 2: to think a very particular way that yeah, lines up
Speaker 2: with the speaker's wishes.
Speaker 3: Well, that's so this movie is in many ways very dumb.
Speaker 3: It is very dumb down Cronenberg in a way, I
Speaker 3: would agree with that. But I think one aspect of
Speaker 3: it that's actually pretty perceptive and good is the satirical
Speaker 3: aspect about the TV show being called Independent Thinkers. It's
Speaker 3: a show that is just straight brainwashing telling viewers that
Speaker 3: they're practicing independent thought. And that kind of thing happens
Speaker 3: in reality all the time. I think about how often
Speaker 3: you run it. I just pick one example. On a
Speaker 3: certain issue, you often find people who are repeating totally
Speaker 3: false disinformation talking points, like against climate change, you know,
Speaker 3: saying climate change is not real. And you'll often find
Speaker 3: that these people are repeating talking points verbatim that you've
Speaker 3: read elsewhere, as if they're just copying and pasting them.
Speaker 3: But it's all couched within. I'm the person who's practicing
Speaker 3: independent critical thought, and all you people who believe in
Speaker 3: climate change are just brainwashed to go with the mainstream,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like if someone refers to other people as sheeple.
Speaker 2: You can often guess exactly what the key bullet points
Speaker 2: of their worldview are, right, and it's generally just a
Speaker 2: matter of reversing other bullet points, right.
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, I mean, of course, in reality, we are
Speaker 3: big fans of independent critical thinking. I think that's one
Speaker 3: of the most important parts of having a good life.
Speaker 3: But talking about the fact that you practice independent critical
Speaker 3: thinking is no guaranteed that that's actually what you're doing,
Speaker 3: and sometimes it means exactly the opposite.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I mean to a certain extent. It's just
Speaker 2: like any term can become then used by a disinformation
Speaker 2: campaign or being or used to sell something, etc.
Speaker 3: So I absolutely by this satirical aspect of the movie.
Speaker 3: The world, especially today, is just full of people who
Speaker 3: are constantly, almost mindlessly, repeating talking points that have been
Speaker 3: prepared by other people without thinking about them critically, and
Speaker 3: while doing so, they are congratulating themselves for being able
Speaker 3: to think independently, unlike the people who disagree with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be interesting if they remade this today,
Speaker 2: If somebody remade it and they, you know, they put
Speaker 2: some thought into some of these themes, I wonder what
Speaker 2: direction they could go in would doctor Blake have a podcast.
Speaker 4: That would be interesting?
Speaker 3: Oh god?
Speaker 2: Or maybe he'd be on YouTube. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Well, one pretty dead dead on signal that you're dealing
Speaker 3: with somebody who is not actually encouraging you to practice
Speaker 3: independent thinking and may only be using the rhetoric of
Speaker 3: independent thinking without that being the substance of their message.
Speaker 3: Is someone who presents themselves as the answer to all
Speaker 3: your problems, as doctor Blake does in the movie That's
Speaker 3: Your your Number one red flag?
Speaker 2: Really yeah, yeah, doctor Blake has all of the answers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so be afraid because there's probably a giant brain in
Speaker 2: a vat somewhere just itching to gobble you up. All right,
Speaker 2: So nineteen eighty eight's the brain. If you've listened to
Speaker 2: all this and you're asking yourself, how can I see
Speaker 2: this wonderful film? Well Shop Factory has a really nice
Speaker 2: Blu ray of it out that's you know that. You
Speaker 2: can order its imprint, seemingly complete with commentary tracks from
Speaker 2: hunt Zaza Rebrisonean, plus some other interviews and features. It
Speaker 2: looks really solid. It looks like a really jam packed
Speaker 2: special edition Blu ray. You can also rent or buy
Speaker 2: this one digitally wherever you get your movies. I rented
Speaker 2: it on Amazon Prime, but yeah, you can find it
Speaker 2: pretty much anywhere you get that stuff these days.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 3: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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