Saturday, August 9, 2008

THE BRAIN EATERS - Tom Jonson - "Puppet Masters" (1958)

It's Saturday night, and that means it's time for "The Brain Eaters!"

There's no turnin' back til we get to the end!!

Once again I'm going to quote from the original 1964 "Dwrayger Dungeon's 25 Worst Movies" article, "# 7 "The Brain Eaters" was also a dud. The story was about little animals who ran amok getting on the backs of everyone; but not the hero. While destroying the pipe cleaner antannaed nut brain eaters, the hero killed himself. Everyone proclaimed a new hero, the dead mayor's son, who never did nothing throughout the whole ignorant movie."

I just watched this movie again, and I stand with the original review. Here we have the hero Ed Nelson, sporting the classic wifebeater hospital outfit!

Lenoard Nimoy or Nemoy as he is called here plays the weird old space hippie dude in the smoke filled chamber long before they had hippies, more of a Jesus complex I guess!

Sweet '57 white T-Bird!

The Mayor's son's wife, hot rod girl Jody Fair lets one rip!!

To be fair, in retrospect, this is a very trippy little film. Veteran actor turned director, Bruno VeSota's work on such films as "Dementia" gave him a keen insight into the weird side of movie making and Dungeon hero Ed Nelson's talent runs rampant throughout the whole affair!

Get this!! The Mayor's screctary Alice portrayed by Joanna Lee, was a writer for such sitcoms as "Gilligan's Island" and "Gidget!" Not too funny here as she shoots and kills hero doctor lover Ed Nelson!!! I totally lost respect for her for letting those little space beggars take charge of her overly endowed brain!

Much cooler title card from the video release!!

6 comments:

  1. One of my favorite lines from Fright Night horror movie host Larry "Seymour" Vincent ever uttered was during this film when he said, "Here comes the parade of bunny slippers!" How could you forget Joanna's star turn in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE?

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  2. Thank you so much greg! I have the impression that you're really keeping an eye open for me...

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  3. In "Son of Golden Turkey Awards", Harry & Michael Medved give "The Brain Eaters" the prize for The Least Classy Use of Classical Music in Movie History".

    Seems "Tom Jonson" ripped off works by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Wagner. Not merely adapting or paraphrasing, but ripping out whole chunks and sticking them together willy-nilly.

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  4. Everybody has their own special talent!!

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  5. The Brain Eaters certainly deserved the award for The Least Classy Use of Classical Music in Movie History.

    First of all, the Finale of Shostakovich's 5th symphony has way too many underlying meanings to ignore. The bits and pieces that were taken were used completely inappropriately, so much so that I stopped paying attention to the movie to take in just how poorly incorporated this grand movement was. Jonson was credited for the film score but it was mostly plagiarism and bad plagiarism at that.

    And, I might add that Shostakovich tried to sue Twentieth Century Fox for use of his music. I wonder why.....

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  6. BRAIN EATERS! One of the cheapest-but-coolest examples of "sci-fi noir" ever made! Love it! Scared the crap outta me as a kiddo,and helped confirm my opinion that Bruno VeSota is one of THE most unsung directors of b-cinema!

    I literally hadn't seen it in decades when I got a 4th (or 40th) generation VHS copy and it propelled me into a tsunami of cinegasmic ecstasy!!! =8D

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