Friday, June 24, 2016

Brain of Blood (1971)



Further proof that Al Adamson’s movies are akin to the slime that pools on the floors of movie theaters as beverages and butter congeal with body fluids, Brain of Blood has some moments of unintentional humor simply because it’s so spectacularly stupid, but slogging through 90-ish minutes of schlock is too high a price to pay for an occasional chuckle. Title notwithstanding, the plot is best described as brainless. In the fictional country of Khaleed, a ruler named Amir recruits an American surgeon to transplant Amir’s brain from his own dying body into a healthy new one. Inexplicably, the doctor doesn’t bother to line up a fresh body before Amir dies, so he’s forced to deposit the brain into the skull of a hulking murderer. Meanwhile, conspirators try to prevent Amir’s resurrection, Amir’s bimbo girlfriend schemes with the doctor, and the murderer stalks women. Full disclosure: It’s highly probable the preceding description contains inaccuracies, since Brain of Blood is so discombobulated and uninteresting that tracking the story is challenging. Anyway, here are some of the ironic delights that Brain of Blood has to offer. Amir’s body is stored in head-to-toe tinfoil. The disembodied brain looks like (and probably is) a clump of hamburger. The murderer’s post-surgery facial look resembles a cottage-cheese-textured skullcap. Amir’s lover is played by a woman who looks like a retired Las Vegas stripper, thanks to her helmet of bleach-blonde hair and leathery skin. There’s a dwarf assistant who periodically sports a jaunty golf cap. The doctor chases after the murderer while carrying a gadget that resembles a Dustbuster. And so on. Although Brain of Blood has a couple of extreme moments, notably many closeups of scalpels cutting flesh, it’s not anywhere near violent enough to thrill fans of gore. If you’re a fan of bores, then, well, you’re in luck.

Brain of Blood: SQUARE

2 comments:

  1. You must have nerves and a stomach of steel to put up with multiple examples of Independent-International.Or that is one amazing bet you made...

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  2. Cindylover, your comment inspires me to point out, not just to you but perhaps several of us, the sheer scope of what Peter has committed himself to here. This site launched in October 2010, nearly six years ago, and has been committed to at least one movie per day ever since. That's thousands of movies, and there may still be another thousand yet to go -- in short, this will wind up being the majority of one entire decade, the 2010s, devoted to another entire decade, the 1970s. With that commitment to thoroughness comes a lot of dreck. I recall Theodore Sturgeon's confession: "Ninety percent of science fiction is crap -- but then ninety percent of everything is crap." Luckily, I don't think the percentage is quite that high, though from time to time it can feel like it. It's like being a librarian, acting as caretaker to thousands of books which may never get read or earn any credit. Yet a library is still good to have and needs to be thorough. Patience. Patience.

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