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.
