Braindrainer

The titular Braindrainer from Michael Legge’s low-budget horror film of the same name is an alien life form from outer space disguised as a rock and delivered to Earth by a meteor. As people touch it, their brains are reduced to the size of a raisin and they instantly become comatose.

When the Braindrainer actually leaps into Senator Rick Vapid’s head, the race is on to find a cure. Dr. Belinda Garland, for which the alien meteor has been named (“Garlandite”), must team up with the brilliant but blind (and ironically named) Matt Retina if they hope to save the Senator’s life and find a way to fight the Garlandite. They’ll also have to defend themselves against The Amazing Jacques (Legge), a hypnotist who intends on stealing the Garlandite and turning the masses into his brainless slaves. Jacques has enlisted help from Spiderwoman and her creepy assistant, The Creeper. It’s all very silly, lighthearted, and entertaining.

Braindrainer actually made me laugh (or at least smirk) more than once. Legge’s jokes are more entertaining than the film’s low budget lets on. More than just simple one-liners or crude cusswords, Legge does a good job at presenting some real honest-to-goodness jokes within his dialogue and sets up some funny situations throughout his film (the reporters leading the blind scientist around in circles cracked me up).

Like most low budget films, the lack of funding is apparent through the film’s audio and editing (which may have been done on videotape). According to information I found via the Internet, a re-cut DVD edition of Braindrainer appears to have been released. My copy came from the Dollar Store and included a second movie on the disc, so I have to assume I ended up with the older, rougher version.

Braindrainer is an example of low budget horror filmmaking done right. Michael Legge, who according to his IMDB biography works as a United States postal employee when not making films, has a good eye for comedic timing and political satire. If you can overlook the normal issues that plague most low dough shows, Braindrainer is an entertaining take on the horror-meets-science-fiction genre.

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