Brain Damage (film)

and who states that it has changed hands hundreds of times across the globe since the Middle Ages. Morris, who fed Aylmer with animal brains, warns Brian that feeding it humans will make it too strong to resist. Horrified, Brian rents a flophouse room to wean himself off the fluid and starve Aylmer, but Aylmer gleefully informs him that his body chemistry has irrevocably changed, and that the pain of withdrawal will be too much for him to bear. Brian soon relents, now consciously attending Aylmer as he hunts for victims.

Returning to his apartment, Brian discovers that Mike and Barbara have begun a relationship; realizing that he cannot control himself or choose Aylmer's targets, Brian tries to warn them away before fleeing to the streets. Barbara follows and confronts him on the subway, where Aylmer kills her. Back at the apartment, Morris and his wife, Martha, hold Brian at gunpoint to steal Aylmer back; Aylmer attacks them. As he feeds on their brains, Brian begs for another injection of juice. Aylmer agrees, which distracts them long enough for Morris to regain consciousness, grabbing and crushing Aylmer during the injection process. This kills Aylmer and forces an overdose, leaving Brian in agony. Screaming and bleeding juice, he runs to his room, puts Morris's gun to his own head and fires.

The police arrive at the apartment building. Joined by Mike, they break down Brian's door—finding Brian, who stares blankly with a large, glowing hole in his forehead, emanating with light and long crackles of electricity.

Cast

Joe Gonzalez as Guy In Shower Van Hentenryck had a crew cut at the time, and so wore a wig in order to match his hairstyle from Basket Case.

Themes and interpretations

Drug abuse

Brain Damage was reportedly inspired by Frank Henenlotter's own cocaine addiction.

In a 1988 interview with Henenlotter, Robert "Bob" Martin of Fangoria referred to the imagery of Aylmer's needle entering the back of Brian's neck as being invocative of drug abuse. He then asserted that the film is neither "pro-drug" nor "anti-drug" in relation to real-life drug issues, but instead "a monster movie."

In 2017, journalist Michael Gingold wrote of the film that, "Appearing in the midst of the 'Just Say No' anti-drug campaign initiated by First Lady Nancy Reagan, the portrait of young man trying to kick a parasitical habit [...] was especially trenchant."

Sexuality

thumb|right|upright|The design of Aylmer has been described as [[phallic by both members of the film's production and outside commentators.</blockquote> However, Henenlotter did acknowledge a sexual undertone to the film, adding:

In 2003, author Scott Aaron Stine noted Aylmer's design as being "a bit phallic", writing, "do I sense someone making a statement about male sexuality?"

In 2017, academic Lorna Piatti-Farnell listed Brain Damage as being among a number of films released in the 1980s which highlight "a disturbing fascination with parasitic creatures and aliens crawling in and out of human mouths, leaving not only a disturbing sense of discomfort in the viewing audience, but also a good dose of raised highbrows and open mouths, as far as latent meaning of oral interactions are concerned". Specifically, she writes that "the mouth lies at the center of a broader alien plot" in Brain Damage, in that Aylmer "uses ingestion [...] to gain control over its victims."

In 2022, Henry Giardina of Into wrote that the film contains elements of homoerotic subtext and serves as an allegory for the transmasculine experience, citing Aylmer's phallic design and Brian waking up to find himself covered in blood (which Giardina likens to menstruation), as well as comparing Aylmer's "juice" to both semen and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

Production

Development and casting

The film's working title was Elmer the Parasite; Henenlotter conceived of the name Brain Damage when he "was literally writing the last scenes". Initial plans by the New Jersey–based company Rugged Films—who had temporarily owned the distribution rights to Henenlotter's debut feature film Basket Case (1982)—to finance Brain Damage did not come to fruition.]]

In the original script, Aylmer speaks to Brian inside his head with a whispery voice that resembles Brian's own, and only utters grunting and groaning sounds when seen externally. After deciding to have Aylmer's voice be "very sophisticated-sounding, articulate", Henenlotter contacted a vocal agent who offered a list of actors that might suit the part.

Rick Hearst, Gordon MacDonald, and Jennifer Lowry were all first-time actors, and Brain Damage remains Lowry's only film credit as an actress. Hearst later called this "the funniest choice that I think Frank made for me," stating that Henenlotter felt that he "needed to have that as part of the character, otherwise I'd look too pretty. And I was like, 'that did it?' I mean, you could've scarred me [on the cheek], I mean, I could've had part of an ear off..."

Filming

thumb|right|The exteriors of the [[Sunshine Hotel (pictured here in 2010) were used as a filming location.]]

Principal photography on Brain Damage began on January 21, 1987,

Brian's apartment, the Hell nightclub, and the courtyard were all constructed sets built in the West 33rd Street building. The junkyard sequence was filmed at Statewide Auto Parts, a junkyard then located at 1256 Grand Street, Brooklyn, that was owned by Muro's father. The scene in which Aylmer kills the blonde woman from the nightclub was shot in the upper boiler room of the Film Center Building, without authorization from the building's management. The dinner date between Brian and Barbara was filmed at the restaurant Le Madeleine at 403 West 43rd Street, which has since closed and been replaced by Bea Restaurant & Bar. Following the date, Brian is seen walking down St. Mark's Place between Second and Third Avenue.

The interior hotel room to which Brian takes Aylmer in an attempt to wean himself off of Aylmer's fluid was a constructed set; the exteriors of the location were shot at the Sunshine Hotel at 245 Bowery in no longer than one hour, as Lamberson and sound editor Joe Warda were told by the hotel's management that they could shoot there for one hour for , and that each additional hour would cost an additional .

Special effects

Al Magliochetti, who would serve as stop-motion animator and optical effects artist on Brain Damage, received the screenplay for the film from Henenlotter, and lent it to Bartalos. At the time, Magliochetti and Bartalos were working together on the 1986 film Spookies. Though Gargiulo was uninterested in the project after having the plot described to him, Bartalos agreed to join the production. while Bartalos has stated that discussion of the design involved mention of a phallus and "a turd", as well as a cartoonish mouth and eyes. During the process of creating a sculpt of Aylmer, suction cups were integrated into its design. There were two primary, cable-operated puppets of Aylmer created for the film: one "actual size" puppet, and an oversized puppet used for close-up shots.

For the scene in which Aylmer kills the junkyard watchman, Bartalos built a "half-creature" that was attached to prosthetics on actor Bradlee Rhodes's head. Kindlon rigged a mechanical device that allowed the creature to move independently of the actor playing the guard. The sequence also features a stop-motion model of Aylmer that is seen eating the watchman's brain after he drops to the ground; this same model is again seen later in the film, during a shot wherein Aylmer leaps onto a man sitting in a bathroom stall. The electricity seen crackling in these shots was animated by Magliochetti. as well as a fiberglass body that was constructed for the "zipper scene" in which Aylmer emerges from the fly of Brian's pants into the mouth of the blonde woman from the nightclub. A collapsible model of Aylmer was inserted into actress Vicki Darnell's mouth and filmed being pulled out; using reverse motion photography, the final footage appears to show Aylmer entering her mouth. For the subsequent shot of Aylmer exiting her mouth with a mouthful of brain matter, Bartalos sewed calf brains to a model of Aylmer, and Darnell was provided with Binaca breath spray before the take began. Henenlotter estimated that about 15 to 20 minutes of coverage was filmed for the scene.

thumb|right|The special effect of blood and brain matter pouring from the side of Brian's head was accomplished through the use of practical gore effects and [[compositing. After filming Hearst screaming at said angle, the crew filmed the same shot without Hearst in frame, and dumped fake blood and gore down a large piece of heat ducting; the two shots were then composited together, making it appear as though the blood is pouring out of Brian's head. The effect involved Magliochetti lining up an articulated model of Aylmer with a projection of the relevant frames from the film; he then animated Aylmer frame-by-frame using stop-motion, cut the Aylmer model out of each the resulting frames using an X-Acto knife, and glued each cut-out to animation cels that he then lined up to the film footage. Magliochetti stood behind the miniature and waved around a slide projector, causing flashing light to be projected through the miniature window. James Kwei, who had invested money in Basket Cases production and worked nights at the Film Center Building, served as an editor on Brain Damage. The first cut of Brain Damage was around 66 minutes in length, which led Henenlotter and Kwei to adjust the pacing in order to extend its running time.

The release of Brain Damage was accompanied by the publication of a novelization written by Martin, limited to 1,000 signed and numbered copies. It was later released in Los Angeles, California, on May 20, 1988.

The film was distributed theatrically in the United States by Palisades Entertainment.

Home media

In July 1988, Brain Damage was released on Betamax and VHS by Paramount Home Entertainment. The "zipper scene" remained truncated for the VHS release, and would not be made available uncut until the film was released on DVD.

On May 9, 2017, Arrow Video released a restoration of the film completed by Deluxe, London, on Blu-ray and DVD. The release includes such bonus features as a retrospective audio commentary by Henenlotter and interviews with the cast and crew (both produced for the release), as well as the animated short film Bygone Behemoth, which features Zacherle in his final on-screen film credit.

Reception

Contemporary reviews

Joe Kane, writing for the New York Daily News, called Brain Damage "one of the year's more original fright exercises, blending visceral shocks with twisted black humor and low-budget psychedelic tableaux to rival the old Joshua Light Show." The Los Angeles Times Leonard Klady referred to the film as "a veritable crazy quilt of ideas that manages to engage our attention while our heads continue to dart away from the shocking images on screen". John Brooker of the Cheshunt and Waltham Mercury called the film "a charming little chiller", and "a compelling mix of wacky humour and gory special effects".

The New York Times Walter Goodman called Brain Damage a "brainless movie", criticizing the acting and special effects. The Ages Neil Jillett called it "a comedy in somewhat poor taste", and wrote, "While Brain Damage is not advocatory [of drug abuse], its message is hardly helpful to the anti-drug campaign." However, he noted that appreciation for the film grew after it was released on home video.

In 2017, Slant Magazines Chuck Bowen called the film a "gnarly gem of 1980s-era punk horror".

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 69% based on 16 critics, with an average rating of 6.40/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.