Editorials
[It Came From the ‘80s] ‘The Brain’ That Wouldn’t Stop Eating People
With horror industry heavy hitters already in place from the 1970s, the 1980s built upon that with the rise of brilliant minds in makeup and effects artists, as well as advances in technology. Artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and countless other artists that delivered groundbreaking, mind-blowing practical effects that ushered in the pre-CGI Golden Age of Cinema. Which meant a glorious glut of creatures in horror. More than just a technical marvel, the creatures on display in ‘80s horror meant tangible texture that still holds up decades later. Grotesque slimy skin to brutal transformation sequences, there wasn’t anything the artists couldn’t create. It Came From the ‘80s is a series that will pay homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
Opening scenes are a big deal in horror. They set the tone, but they also serve to hook the viewer with a memorable kill before diving into the story and character introductions. In the “anything goes” era of ‘80s horror, that meant a number of completely off the rails opening scenes. The Brain offers a great example. Downstairs a mom is watching a self-help show on TV, the house decked out in Christmas decorations, while her teen daughter looks down from the upstairs landing with disapproval. There are clear personal, negative feelings toward the show’s host, Dr. Anthony Blakely (Re-Animator’s David Gale). The teen retreats to her room, and her teddy bear starts bleeding from its eyes, moving on its own. Monstrous arms burst through her walls and grab her. So do weird tentacles, or are they tongues? Her mom answers her screams and she, too, is grabbed by the tentacles. The teen stabs them with scissors to free her mother, and oops, she’d killed her mother instead- there’s no sign of monster or struggle anywhere. Was it all in her head?
Cut to the film’s true protagonists, teen prankster Jim (Tom Bresnahan) and his girlfriend Janet (Cynthia Preston). Jim’s pranks have pushed the school admin’s buttons once too many, and they demand his parents send him to Dr. Blakely’s care. What no one knows is that Dr. Blakely is in cahoots with an alien brain with a penchant for brainwashing and mind control. Luckily, Jim is a male adolescent with a healthy libido, which somehow thwarts the brain’s attempts at complete mind control. On the one hand, The Brain subverts the ‘80s trope that sex equals death in horror, but on the other, this is just one of many nonsensical plot points. That’s not always a bad thing, though.
The Brain is the brainchild of director Ed Hunt and screenwriter Barry Pearson, who’d previously teamed up to deliver creepy kid slasher film Bloody Birthday (currently streaming on Shudder). They take aim at the self-help/self-esteem craze of the period, by way of low-budget sci-fi horror that feels apropos of the atomic ‘50s. The characters and plot tend to make no sense, the dialogue can be atrocious, and the effects are often cheesy where the Brain is concerned, and yet it’s entertaining anyway.
The Brain itself looks like an oversized Madball with a large rat-tail (it’s actually a spinal column). It grows larger and larger as it chows down on humans, and the effect is essentially a puppet plopping down on the human victim and engulfing it. The creature and special makeup effects were handled by Mark Williams (Aliens, Blue Monkey). While the main body of the creature is a rubber-suited monster puppet, Williams got to play with monstrous tongue tentacles, limbs, and green goo for blood- there’s a more to the effects than the goofiness of the creature, though that’s part of the charm. Plus, lots and lots of slime. The highlight of the movie, in terms of special effects, involved a gnarly reveal behind David Gale’s character, proving Dr. Blakely has a lot in common with Dr. Carl Hill from Re-Animator.
If there’s been one continuous, brutal enemy of horror throughout the years, it’s cancer. It’s claimed many of our beloved horror heroes, and special effects artist Mark Williams is among them, having passed away at the too young age of 38 from respiratory failure. It happened a month after receiving a cancer diagnosis in 1998. Williams had just been announced as the head of special effects for Full Moon Pictures, worked as effects design coordinator for rockers like Alice Cooper and Poison, did makeup effects on notable films like The Fly and The Abyss, and even had small roles in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and A Return to Salem’s Lot. He was entrenched in genre work, but his is a name that doesn’t come up often because he was taken far too soon.
The Brain isn’t groundbreaking at all, as far as storytelling and special effects go, but it does perfectly capture the wacky practical effect driven fun of the decade. It helps that there’s a huge level of unpredictability, both in Jim and his girlfriend’s behavior and the alien Brain’s ultimate goals. Plus, more David Gale in horror is always a good thing. This movie has just the right amount of cheese to amuse any drive-in mutant.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
You must be logged in to post a comment.