Sanglante paranoïa

Brain Dead is a low quality nightmare of a film. Lacking tangible story and character depth. The film's utter chaos and I hate chaos. However, the twist brought the film out of the slums when Rex became Halsey and realized nothing was real, but that became a mess also and I drifted off. My eyes opened to find his head in a jar and that's that. No thank you. Also, the acting's atrocious.

This is a very good, creepy, "horror" movie. Very little credible gore. I enjoy movies where one never really knows whether what they are seeing is real or not? Not altogether unlike Jacob's Ladder...another fave of mine...one can only truly enjoy this movie the first time he watches it. Once one figures out "the twist" the movie loses a bit. Essentially, early on in the film, the brain surgeon is hot by a car...and killed. Everything that happens afterwards is a dream (or rather, a nightmare) of his disembodied brain.

Even worse than the worst David Lynch "confusathon", "Brain Dead" makes no sense whatsoever. Shamefully wasted talent (Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton), bounce around like they are in a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon on acid. There is negligible character development. It simply starts climbing the "strange scale", until climaxing in total chaos. Do not get sucked into this because of the above fine actors. They are given nothing to work with, and you will be wondering what's going on throughout the entire, unbearable 85 minutes. I highly recommend avoiding "Brain Dead" at all costs, unless you are into scattering your brain with what amounts to total nonsense. - MERK

Some people thought this movie was too confusing but isn't that just like a nightmare? The first half of the movie is coherent but then Pullman's descent into madness begins. You keep guessing what scenes are real (ie, consistent with the first half) and which are wild dreams. Don't hurt your brain too much trying to make sense of it. IMHO you can actually piece together a valid storyline after its over, but it would be a spoiler for me to comment on it. Anyway it nice to have a million cable channels so obscure movies like this can be seen. BTW the movie has some entertaining acting, creepy brain operations, a hot sex scene, imaginative dream sequences, and twilight-zone-like ending scene. I gave it a 6 exposed brains out of a maximum 10 exposed brains rating.

I suppose the best word to describe this unusual film would be "weird". 'Brain Dead' is a good depiction of sanity vs insanity, but ultimately too weird. I guess not all is what it seems and one should read between the lines here. This is a complex and confusing story that will benefit from more than one viewing, but I'm not sure I want to sit through it again. I rest my case on this one. It was just weird. Would I watch it again? No.

BRAIN DEAD is a low rent horror film that feels like an indie rip-off of RE-ANIMATOR. It's best known today for being confused with the Peter Jackson classic BRAINDEAD, with which it has nothing in common. It goes for a psychological approach to the material, but the story has been done better and more convincingly elsewhere. The cheapness is apparent throughout, particularly in the way a couple of white-painted rooms stand in for laboratories and the like. I was surprised that mainstream actors like Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton took roles in this as personally I think the material is beneath them. The story sees Pullman's brain surgeon going crazy and believing that he's a hallucination in a disturbed brain; the story becomes a thriller of sorts as his behaviour becomes more and more bizarre. It's oddball indeed, but not at all satisfying.

This is a very underrated movie that somewhat reminds you of Jacob's Ladder. The movie starts out with Bill Pullman as a doctor who studies brains and has a lab full of brains in glass bottles. Pullman is friends with Bill Paxton and Paxton is in some trouble with the corporation he works with and tries to get Pullman to help him. Pullman agrees and and he has to try and find out if a brilliant doctor, played by Bud Cort, who went and killed his family is actually insane or not. Pullman says he his insane and Paxton isn't too happy about it because Cort has some top secret information in his head and Paxton doesn't want it to ever get out. Pullman operates on him and then and the next thing Pullman knows he is in a mental ward and his entire reality starts to mess with him and he can't tell what is real and what is not. It's a great movie that should be more well known.