Review of Man with the Screaming Brain (2005) by Jean-Francois V — 22 Jun 2009

If you are a Bruce Campbell fan, this film is for you, for it boasts no less than three of them: screenwriter Bruce Campbell, director Bruce Campbell and actor Bruce Campbell, the last of whom is probably the one you are already familiar with. All three of them are rumoured actually to be the same man, under three different hats, presumably to hide the ugly scars on his forehead.

Had I seen Carl Reiner's "The Man With Two Brains", I would probably say this film is a rip off, but since I haven't, I won't suggest any such thing. "The Man with the Screaming Brain" does involve a kind of brain transplant, and a lot of (not too bright or too original) slapstick humour about a body (Campbell's) controlled by two different and generally disagreeing wills: that of an obnoxious and patronising American CEO, and that of a very Yegor and resourceful Bulgarian taxi driver.

Other characters include a gynoid (which I believe was called P-Money Mobot), an overly made-up Bulgarian femme fatale with an evil grin, Stacy Keach as a would- be Nobel-Prize-winning Bulgarian scientist and Ted Raimi (the other Raimi's little brother) as his completely goofy assistant - the presence of so many Bulgarians, of course, being due to the film's being set in Bulgaria.

This kind of film rests on its silliness and preposterousness reaching a certain critical mass, but I'm afraid it doesn't quite make it and fails to really achieve the campiness of, say, "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra." However, there are some rather brilliant stunts rivalling anything from the James Bond movies, such as the one involving a clothesline, a pink Vespa and a nondescript, stationary Eastern block car.

My favorite parts were the robot dance (though I've seen much more impressive stuff on YouTube, but I have a soft spot for the form) and the rap song that plays over the end credits, which suggests that my reason for not giving this film more stars is not that it was too stupid for me.