American industrialist William Cole travels to Bulgaria to finalize a tax scam, and has his wife with him as well. At the same time, Dr. Ivan Ivanov and his assistant Pavel has created a drug that can connect brains and make them work together. Cole travels around the Bulgarian town with a rented taxi driver, but soon after his arrival, he's killed by a maid at the hotel he's staying at. Apparently the maid was the texi drivers old fiancé, and she soon kills him as well as Cole's wife when she visits the maid, looking for revenge. Pavel brings Cole's lifeless body to Dr. Ivan Ivanov, and connects the taxi drivers brain with Cole's brain, in order for him to be alive again. The two seem to have nothing in common, except for the fact that they're both looking for the girl who killed them.
I had no idea what to expect from Man with the Screaming Brain, but since it had Bruce Campbell in it, it felt a must see. Cool thing was that Campbell also wrote and directed the movie, so that was interesting as well. I read up on the movie a little before watched it, and since they didn't have that much money, they filmed and Campbell also re-wrote some stuff in it for Bulgaria. It sounded very low-budget and it was hard to know what to expect, a new Bubba Ho-Tep? No, way different but will of course still appeal to fans of Campbell.
I must say that Bulgaria seemed like an excellent choise to film this movie in, or that is that it made the movie look completely different compared to if they would've filmed it in the States. It gave the whole thing a different kind of touch, and it looks cool and I must say that the Bulgarian actors added a lot to the whole flick as well, and gave it another kind of feel. And that was a good kind of feel.
But to break things down a bit; Man with the Screaming Brain is a real B-movie, no question about it, but that doesn't mean that it was bad. While things really doesn't look bad at all, early on it felt a bit too stiff, but the longer I watched, the better it got. The acting was far from great, even from Bruce, especially early on in the movie he didn't do too well. When he later got to do his comical thing, things started to look so much better. The Bulgarian actors were ok, and it was really cool to see Stacy Keach as the somewhat mad scientist.
The only real complaint I have when talking about the acting, is about Ted Raimi. That guy couldn't act even if his life depended on it, and since he gets so much screen-time here (which he normally doesn't get) you really start to understand just how horrible his acting really is. To be honest, I was actually embarrassed at times, and the humour that he tried to deliver might've worked for a five year old, but other than that didn't work for shit, except for maybe one or two things at best.
Storywise, it ranks pretty high and kept you interested while it at the same time was funny. There are a lot of humerous situations in the movie, and while a lot of them didn't work, when they actually did work, they were really funny. Some stuff was so funny it was hard not to laugh out loud, and while a lot of stuff, humourwise, didn't work, the humour that did work compensated for it. It moved at a fast-pace and never felt slow or dull, except for maybe in the end where things felt a bit dragged out. But overall, it was quite an entertaining piece of film.
If you're a fan of Campbell, Man with the Screaming Brain is a must see. It has all the elements a B-movie should have, and while some of the humour didn't work at all, when it did work, it worked like a charm. It's not a movie to be taken seriously and if you watch it, watch it with an open mind to get the most out of it. Even if it was far from great, in the end this was a movie I could see myself watching again, many times in the future. And I'm impressed by Campbell as well, especially on the writing side of things. Recommended, but can't be watched with a too serious kind of attitude.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Bruce Campbell
WRITING CREDITS: Bruce Campbell
GENRE: Comedy, Sci-Fi, Adventure
CAST: Bruce Campbell, Tamara Gorski, Stacy Keach
COUNTRY: Germany, USA
RUNTIME: 90 min
RATING: 7/10
Man with the Screaming Brain Website/IMDB Click here
Man with the Screaming Brain Trailer Click here
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