Man with the Screaming Brain
Seen June 21 at Coolidge Corner
* * 3/4 (out of 4)

I think expectations got the best of me here. I mean, it's a Bruce Campbell movie, written-directed-starring the man himself. Naturally I should love it, right?

I liked it. I did. There were some very funny parts, and the absurdity of it all was very appealing. And hey, it was a brand-spanking-new idea that not many people would think to make a movie of, which is to its credit.

Bruce plays William Cole, a wealthy businessman who travels to Bulgaria to finalize a deal that would mean a huge tax write-off for his company. While there, he is killed in fairly short order, as is the taxi driver/former KGB thug (Vladimir Kolev) he hires to be his transportation. A brilliant-yet-slightly-crazy doctor and his less-than-brilliant-but-more-than-crazy assistant (Stacey Keach and Ted Raimi, respectively) use new technology to combine the brains of both men into Cole's body, and the quest to find the woman who killed them both begins.

I think the biggest problems I have are all technical ones, things pretty far out of Bruce's control. As he said in his introduction, this was made for "hundreds of thousands of dollars," so production-wise, I know I can't expect a whole lot. It was also made for TV, so the transfer over to a projection system might not have been as clean as it could have been. Regardless, I had real problems hearing and understanding anyone who wasn't Bruce or his wife, played by Antoinette Byron. Accents just didn't pick up well at all, and it makes it a little hard to follow what's going on. It also had something of a washed-out look to it. Part of it was just not the best translation from being shot for the Sci Fi Channel to being projected onto a full-sized screen, but it got a little distracting at times.

Other than that, it's just plain silly. That's a good thing for most of it. A scene soon after the two brains are combined involves Bruce and his newly scarred head traumatizing a group of school children in a town square - pretty priceless. Frankly, the movie was worth the price just to see Ted Raimi rapping with a Bulgarian accent. Ted is, in fact, source for lots of silliness in this one... I find it kind of odd to have a purely comic relief character in a generally comic movie. Like Bruce said, sublety is not Ted's strong point, and he kinda beats stuff into the ground, but he comes out no worse for wear. I mean, it's Ted Raimi, here. It was also kinda fun to see scenes in the movie correlate to things out of Bruce's new book, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, like the hilariously blatant use of a stunt dummy.

This is a B-movie all the way, as one would come to expect. That's something that it embraces fully, with sight gags galore and silliness abound. It's possible I just wasn't in the right sort of mood, and some other time, I might enjoy it much more thoroughly. It probably didn't help that in order to pass the time during the signing, the Coolidge screened Bubba Ho-Tep, which I love, complete with commentary by "The King," which made me love it a little bit more. It's obvious that this was Bruce's baby and that he's very happy with how it came out. I definitely liked it... it's not the best thing I've ever seen, but it was a fun way to spend an evening, especially with him in attendance. Check it out if you've come to enjoy him in any of his capacities as writer, director, or actor.