Man with the Screaming Brain

USA/Germany 2005
produced by
Bruce Campbell, David M.Goodman, Jan Körbelin, Bob Perkis, Thomas Becker (executive), Jeff Franklin (executive), Peter Jaysen (executive), Rich Tackenberg (executive), Philip von Alvensleben (executive), Jörg Westerkamp (executive), Scott Zakarin (executive) for Sci Fi Pictures, Apollo ProScreen, FWE Picture Company, Creative Light Entertainment
directed by Bruce Campbell
starring Bruce Campbell, Tamara Gorski, Ted Raimi, Antoinette Byron, Stacy Keach, Vladimir Kolev, Valentin Giasbeily, Velizar Binev, Raicho Vasilev, Jonas Talkington, Michail Elenov, Neda Sokolovska, Remington Franklin, Todor Nikolov
story by David M.Goodman, Bruce Campbell, R.O.C.Sandstorm (= Sam Raimi), screenplay by Bruce Campbell, music by Joseph LoDuca, special makeup effects by Chris Hanson, Melanie Tooker, visual effects by Craig Bocchiarro/XFRS, Unreal Productions, Trick Digital

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Cole (Bruce Campbell) is a cliché American land developer in a foreign country (Bulgaria in this case): loud, shallow, narrow-minded, and convinced he's teh center of the world. Then though he meets Tatoya (Tamara Gorski), a mailorder bride/black widow who robs him blind - and when he catches up with her to retrieve his belongings, she kills him, too. Then she also kills her ex-lover Yegor (Vladimir Kolev), incidently Cole's Russian driver who also had an affair with Cole's wife Jackie (Antoinette Byron), and finally, Tatoya also kills Jackie.

Luckily, mad scientist Ivan Invanovic Ivanov (Stacy Keach) lives nearby, whose assistant Pavel (Ted Raimi) is always on the lookout for new cadavers, and before you know it, he has combined the brains of Cole and Pavel in Cole's head and has revived Coles body, while Jackie's brain went into a breakdancing robot (really). Sure enough, Cole/Pavel and robot Jackie all escape the scientist to have their revenge on Tatoya - and after an extended chase sequence, they actually catch up with her and kill her too - but at the cost of their own lives - which means, Pavel can now collect even more cadavers for his master ...

Bruce Campbell's first feature film as a director is not so much gross-out horror as it is slapstick comedy - with a horror/sci fi subtext of course. And the greatest asset of the movie is actually Campbell himself - as an actor that is. He is just cut out for this kind of film and makes each scene he's in hilarious - and at the same time proves himself vastly superior to any number of current A-list comedians from Steve Martin to Jim Carrey to Mike Myers.

But even apart from Campbell the actor, Man with the Screaming Brain is rather funny, Campbell the writer/director manages to infuse his story with many sight gags and running gags and knows quite a bit about comic timing. True, the film might not be perfect, but it works as a party movie and even shows traces of brilliance.

A word to the politically correct crowd: While it's true that the film's representation of Bulgaria is somewhat clichéd and not to everyone's liking, one also has to take into account Campbell's portrayal of the perfect American capitalist, by far the least likeable character in the film - so go figure.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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