The Brainiac (1962)

(This is a review I did for a roundtable over at Strictly Splatter.com, a bunch of cool guys who do the same thing I do.  Check 'em out!)

A lot of people take Mexico for granted.

Sure, just take a hop, skip and a jump across the Southern-most border of California or Texas and you're there.  But how much do we big, overfed Anglos know about our neighbor to the South?

If your knowledge of Mexican culture is limited to the local Taco Bell, you may be surprised to discover that Mexico is actually rich in history and art; the Porfirian Era fostered a surge in economic progress and peace, which in turn led to the development of a cultural identity based on the melting pot of all races best described as the mestizaje.  This led to the creation of well-received literature by such renowned writers as Alfonso Reyes and Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz, post-revolutionary visual arts from such creative souls as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and the creation of such indigenous music as Mariachi, Banda, Norteño, Ranchera and Corridos.

Not to mention mas movies than you can shake a quesadilla at.

It's the same as every other country in the world, though; Just like Italy, Japan, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, Mexico has a lot of movies under its collective sombrero that many of you have never heard of, I'll wager.  Dramas, romances, comedies, documentaries, the whole nueve yards.  As a matter of fact, there would be a lot more movies you've never heard of before if not for the works of one K. Gordon Murray.

Now here was an enterprising man: a producer from the States, Murray took it upon himself to find foreign movies to bring to our sunny shores and, with judicious dubbing and a vigorous marketing campaign, reintroduce them to the local theater in downtown Des Moines, Iowa for a whole new passel of thrill-seekers.

Fans of TV's "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (like me) will recognize Murray as the man who brought us Santa Claus, the story of the Jolly Old Elf who, from his Heaven-bound castle, fought the forces of Satan and his minions to bring Christmas to two children in Mexico.  Oh, and Merlin the Magician gets involved, too.

There's also the bright, bouncy musical Little Red Riding Hood Meets The Monsters, where everyone's favorite red-clad girl with a basket of goodies is beset by ogres and witches and demons, but fights them off with ingenuity and a biped skunk.  And there's songs, too.  Lots of 'em.  Maybe too many but it's all for kids so it's okay....

That's just two examples but you see what I'm getting at: Murray sought out not only unusual stories but also ones in which you didn't necessarily have to know the language or hold a doctorate in foreign relations to understand: just follow the bouncing visuals and you'd be good to go.

But what about horror movies, you may ask?

What about 'em, indeed?  Murray gotcha covered there, too, with a little number that was indeed under the right classification for "Horror" but also supplied us with sexy sexy women, shape-shifting monsters, brain cups, comedy relief cops, and The Spanish Inquisition!

(...weren't expecting that last one, were you?)

The Brainiac is only one title for this beauty, as you may already have guessed since most any foreign movie has at least one, maybe two, extra titles to toss around.  This one's also called Baron Of Terror (or El Baron Del Terror), which is actually a more apt title for this, since it has a Baron in it, and he is the focus of the movie's Terror...and there really doesn't seem to be any brainiacs of any type in it.

However, The Brainiac works for reasons you're about to discover, even if they are about the most far-fetched reasons you could grasp for.

Here's the plot del muerte: In 1661 Mexico, the Baron Vitelius d'Estera (Abel Salazar) is sentenced to be burned alive by the Holy Inquisition of Mexico for witchcraft, necromancy, getting the hootchie-cootchie on with many poor innocent hot little mamas, double parking and other crimes. As he dies, the Baron swears vengeance against the descendants of the Inquisitors...which evil barons were always doing back in the 1600s.  This kinda makes it safe for this evil barons' tormentors, I guess, since their descendants - which they won't even have to answer to - will do all of the suffering for them....

Sorry, was I nit-picking a script about witchcraft-practicing barons being burnt at the stake?  Let's continue.

Cut to 300 years later (that's 1961, if you don't want to do the math), as a comet that was passing overhead on the night of the Baron's execution returns to earth, bringing with it the Baron (Salazar again) who has this neat by-product of being able to hypnotize people (especially female people) into doing whatever his twisted, evil little heart desires...oh yeah, and every so often he morphs into a horrible, pulsing-headed, brain-eating monster that terrorizes the Inquisitor's descendants.

All that stands in his way are the efforts of two stalwart meteorologists researching the meteor...one of whom happens to be the great-great something-or other of one of the Inquisitors.  Oops.  And a lady, to boot.  Double oops.

This is a pretty intricate plot for any horror flick, let alone a K. Gordon Murray run-for-the-border dub job like this.  But The Brainiac has a lot more going for it than you average scary flick with brain-sucking demons has.  For one thing, we have a man (the Baron) who makes a deal with Satan for immortality, has power over women, can paralyze men with a look, eats brains out of what looks like The Holy Grail (no wonder Indiana Jones wanted it), and can turn into a big-headed, hairy demon thing with hands borrowed from Vincent Price's version of The Fly and a long forked tongue with which he can drain the gray matter out from the backs of his many victims' heads.  Plus he has to get revenge on all of those descendants of the guys who had him killed 300 years ago.  That's a pretty heavy workload for any villain, let alone an English-dubbed Mexican playing a 300+ year-old Spaniard.

Never mind the fact that he kinda looks like Sheldon Leonard, and I half-expected him to start throwing pixies out the door or through the window.

He also has a nice modern-day castle at his disposal, complete with an unexplained butler (Francisco Reiguera).  I hate unexplained butlers, especially when they don't do anything to help their master get brains or fight off gatecrashers.  Damned useless unexplained butlers.  What good is it to be a reincarnated demon if you can't get good help?

Director Chano Urueta does a good job of giving us what looks to be a fairly modernized Mexico, what with gentlemen walking around in nice gray suits and tuxedos, ladies in nice clean party dresses that Donna Reed would be proud to wear, and plenty of shiny late 50s-early 60s vehicles tooling about.  The decor is Old World elegant when it has to be and Art Deco when it should be, too.  And every scene has the look of a polished work of horror straight outta Hollywood, baby.  If not for the dubbing, you'd swear this were an art house picture or something up for an Oscar for Best Foreign Picture Featuring A Brain-Sucking Monster.

And the story, scripted by Federico Curiel, Adolfo López Portillo and an uncredited Antonio Orellana (why was Antonio uncredited?  who knows; maybe he was negra-listed) moves at a quick clip with plenty of dramatic pauses and sinister looks from our man Vitelius.  In fact, even dubbed/rewritten as it is by we Amerikanners, the story matches the visuals quite well, methinks.  Not to mention the fact that it's hard enough to make a story so supremely silly as this one a plausible affair.

I guess what can be said of the acting is that, even with dubbed voices, the effect of the actors' physical presence comes through.  Salazar's leers and sneers come through 100%, even though he looks incredibly uncomfortable eating what indeed looks like real brains (calf brains, maybe) from that chalice of his.  Ah, the sacrifices of acting.

(One thing, though: WHY is the Baron eating brains to begin with?  Does it give him power?  Does it keep him alive?  Was it part of the contract between him and Satan?  Did he not have a "no-brains-eating" clause in his deal for this film?  My guess: if you're gonna call your movie The Brainiac, you might as well show your villain doing something like this or being really, really smart.  I'll bet he was praying for a scene where he explained quadratic equations instead of chowing down on brains al dente.  Again, my guess.)

Our lead heroes/romantic interests/professors/star-gazers Reinaldo (Rubén Rojo) and Victoria (Rosa María Gallardo) do their noble best to fight for truth, justice and the Mexican way and come across just a hair shy of being the Mexican answers to Pat Boone and Anita Bryant, in terms of wholesomeness and acting. 

Then we have the police detectives of this piece; one is the Chief (David Silva) who is gruff and no-nonsense, and the other is Detective Benny (Federico Curiel) who is fluff and all-nonsense.  They provide exposition, unnecessary cut-aways and comedy relief when needed, which by the script's decision, is far too often.  Seriously, between the Chief's sour observations and Benny's clomping about and striving for that unattainable Huntz Hall vibe, this is probably as close as Mexican cinema ever got to Abbott and Costello Meet The Brainiac.  Yarsh.

They do, however, provide the most hilarious end to a movie like this; an ending that you, the uninitiated, could never ever expect.  Not in a thousand years.  It's appreciated, believe me, because without it, this thing would have probably lasted far longer than its 77 minutos.  I won't spoiler it for you in this review - since it is seriously something that must be seen to be believed - but I will say that if you watch The Brainiac with a crowd, there will be laughter and cheers to spare.  Trust me on this.

In the end, The Brainiac is a more-than-enjoyable film.  I'd go so far as to proclaim it a necessity for anyone who wants to know what foreign films are all about.

Forget La Dolce Vita.  Forget Amelie.  Forget The Tin Drum.  The Brainiac is where it's at - goblets of brains and all.  You think you're gonna find meteors and demons in L'Avventura?  You gonna get your fix for brain-sucking necromancers in Y Tu Mama Tambien?  Will you discover all your needs for hypnotized professors crawling into fiery kilns by watching The Burmese Harp?  Well, maybe...but The Brainiac does it all far more succinctly for you.

On a final note, I notice that in director Chano Urueta's filmography, he has had a long career which included directing such films as The Witch, The Revived Monster, The Seductor, Tigers of the Ring, Machine Gun Man and no less than three Blue Demon masked wrestler movies. 

It's good to see that in his work Urueta remained, if nothing else, admirably consistent. 

And to that I say, Eso hará, Chano; eso hará.