Opiniones de usuarios

Someone mentioned editing. This is edited badly and what started out as somewhat intriguing became an incomprehensible mess. For starters, let us know what it is you are trying to do with these experiments. Why are these people the best choices for the type of experimenting they are involved in? And, what exactly are they testing? Apparently there is some grand plan that some agency is going to exploit. The acting is pretty bad. Everyone is emoting. Everyone is keeping secrets. They frequently mention that if it weren't for the money, they'd hang it up. There's a deranged minister who spouts scripture. On and on. But, again, the biggest hang up is the lack of laying out a playing field for the actors. There are some really cheesy elements. Those little rooms and those chaise lounges. The awful wallpaper (was it wallpaper?). It was interesting, but didn't seem to go anywhere.

Ouch, what a painfully BORING Sci-Fi movie! And that's especially saddening because the opening 15 minutes were so action-packed and full of potential! During the intro, we follow a bunch of nervous security officers and hired hit men as they chase a doctor who escaped from a mysterious laboratory with a briefcase full of top-secret files. As he's about to reveal the supposedly horrible & inhuman events that take place in the lab, he's executed. Figures… From then on, the 'action' swifts back and forth between two locations, the aforementioned laboratory and the rural mansion of a corrupt senator (or something), and it quickly becomes clear that the experiments are actually the complete opposite of disturbing. More like dull, pointless and vague. Scientists selected four random persons without living relatives and it's really really really really important that they speak the truth even though a giant machine reads the content of their minds, anyway. They all hide dark secrets from their pasts and people suffer when get revealed; yet I fail to see how these tests could ever result in a humanity-threatening device. Perhaps I missed something, but I doubt it. The interactions between the patients and doctors are even less interesting to follow, as really none of them have personalities. So basically, "The Brain Machine" just handles about a bunch of lame people living in an awfully decorated room. The film also could have been half an hour shorter if it weren't for a THOUSAND stagnant shots of buildings! The relocations from the lab to the villa and vice versa are indicated EVERY SINGLE TIME by a five-second shot of the places. Either the makers really needed the padding or they just assumed that all Sci-Fi viewers are morons unable to notice a change of location by themselves. Staring at a forsaken pool with a mansion in the background for the tenth time in only five minutes becomes quite annoying, I assure you. James Best's performance as the reverend with mental issues is rather decent, but one man definitely can't save this thing from being an absolute waste of time. Avoid!

I thought watching employment videos on corporate compliance was tedious. This movie went nowhere fast. What could have been a somewhat cheesy half hour twilight zone episode turned into a seemingly endless waste of film on people parking their cars, a picture of some dude's swimming pool (he really needs to answer his phone by the way) a dot matrix printer doing its job, and Heuy and Louey sitting in a yellow lighted control room repeating "T minus 10 and counting" as if something exciting is going to happen. It doesn't so don't get your hopes up. The best thing about this movie is to see James Best and Gerald McC, in something other than there famous TV personalities, and that is stretching to find anything good. And do NOT get me started on the music which was totally composed of a Tympani, some large marine mammals, and microphone feedback. This movie is as close as I have given a one yet, but it gets the 2 because I actually was able to finish this insomnia cure, and didn't have to leave in the middle. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

James Best (Rosco From "Dukes of Hazzard") plays an emotionally tortured clergyman who volunteers for a secretive government experiment in this tepid, badly-edited thriller. The other participants in the experiment are: a fat slob, a hillbilly woman, and a wimpy guy played by Gerald McRaney. They seem like normal (if annoying) folks at first, but they all have terrible secrets in their past. The government wants to put these people in something called the "E-Box," which looks like a big cubicle filled with lawn furniture. While inside, their darkest, most embarrassing memories are dredged up for the world to see. Of course, the experiment goes horribly, horribly wrong, and there's a lot of pain, suffering, and death in the last half hour of the movie. The rest is just a rather confusing series of scenes showing big office buildings and people in lab coats. There are about 372 shots of a swimming pool for some reason. If you love establishing shots, THIS IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU. They establish the HELL out of these scenes. The exact point of the experiment remains a mystery to me. Surely, there are cheaper and more efficient ways for the goverment to make people feel bad about themselves. So in summary, "The Brain Machine" -- rent it, won't you?

While I watched The Brain Machine I thought I must be kind of dumb because I had to keep on rewinding it in order to follow what was going on. I thought it was pretty bad that I was having so much bother understanding an exploitation flick. But subsequently, I have read other reviews and discovered that thankfully I was not alone and it seems to be generally felt that this is one confusing sci-fi thriller. It's about a secret government sponsored experiment where four volunteers are put through a series of tests that cause them to relive dark psychological events from their past including murder and war flash-backs. That makes it sound relatively straightforward but boy it sure isn't. It's edited together in such a way that it's difficult following not only what is going on but also who is who. While it's never in the least bit obvious what the point of the experiment actually is in the first place. The Brain Machine itself is sort of vaguely defined, although lawn chairs with sensors do seem to be an important component of it. There is also a room in which the test subjects are located in which the walls shrink in, which is a way of testing the psychological consequences of overpopulation! It's so random and strange. We have good people and bad people but it's not always even obvious what their motivations are, so character actions are also somewhat eccentric to say the least.

But despite being very low budget and shoddily made, there is something consistently interesting about this film nevertheless. It's kind of endearing that a film with so little money and made for an exploitation audience is so ambitious. While it may not achieve its goals exactly, it falls short in an entertaining and intriguing enough manner. Its very incomprehensibility actually probably does it some favours too, in that you can watch this again and discover new aspects. Like a lot of 70's movies it has a paranoid thriller element, where the government are up to no good. The mixture of conspiracy film intrigue with science fiction works pretty well. It stars a couple of notable people with James 'The Dukes of Hazzard' Best a pervy priest and Stuart 'Russ Meyer' Lancaster as the Senator. I got to say I liked this one's clunky charm and while the story-line is messy, it was at least a little bit different. And that counts for quite a lot.

This is a low-budget 70's film which stems from the cinematic crazes of both the 'evilly-implemented mind control' ('The Manchurian Candidate' and 'The Ipcress File') and 'paranoia about government conspiracy' sub-genres that were fervently expressed in the Vietnam/Watergate era of American cinema. For me, growing up watching James Best as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in 'The Dukes of Hazzard', it was intriguing to watch him here, as a priest selected as one of 4 paid volunteers for an experiment supposedly run by the ECC, an environmental organization. It ends up that it's just a cover to test an experimental mind-control 'Brain Machine' that the U.S. government wants, in order to keep it's citizens in line, in the name of 'keeping social order'. Admittedly, when one of the directors says that the future is surveillance, I couldn't help but shudder at the parallels to society today, in this post-9/11 era. Unfortunately, the more time that passes, the closer these Orwellian cinematic views of civilization and its discontents come to mirroring the way life has become.

No spoilers, but the machine forces the person to tell the truth. Growing up, I have learned that honesty is not always the best policy. In fact, life has to endure the 'little white lie' in order to have things run peacefully. While no cinematic masterwork, this film more than suffices as Exhibit A for evidence. Definitely worth a watch, especially if you can handle 1970's, TV-movie-style filmmaking.

"The Brain Machine" SHOULD have been an interesting movie. After all, it's about a top secret project where people are told they'd explore mind reading and memory. Of course, there's a darker reason for the experiment...but I was practically comatose from boredom so I really stopped caring after a while. This is because the film is very low energy, has some poor acting and really could have used some serious editing. Instead, it just goes on and on....and you keep waiting and HOPING something happens. Eventually, the subjects all go mad and start doing bad things...but it was frankly too late when the film actually picked up!

The most problematic thing about this film isn't that it's bad...but it's BORING and bad. Some bad films are so bad they're unintentionally funny and fun to watch. As for this one, nothing happens for so long that you have to force yourself to keep watching...which doesn't happen if you watch bad films like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "The Room". So, you'd never want to sit down with your friends and watch "The Brain Machine" to laugh at it....you'd just turn it off and find something else...anything else.

I'm not sure what exactly led to the Sci Fi fixation of evil secret projects being launched by the government but the late 70's and early 80's flicks are FILLED with them. This era of Sci Fi created almost as many of these types of movies than the bomb did back in the 50's Much of those movies were quite bad, the same can be said about these types of films as well, to that, say hello to The Brain Machine AKA Grey Matter.

Much of what has been said about this flick has already been said so I'll summarize, The flick starts with a Robert Ludlumesque plot of a Doctor finding out some connection between the military and an environmental project. Once this slice of suspense is over (roughly 15 minutes in), the rest of the movie is just ending....

Brain Machine has some overlong skinpealingly boring scenes of doctors trying to get "the truth" from the volunteered patients. How someone telling "absolute truth" helps the environment(you know, pollution, overpopulation not emotional environment), I will never know and don't bother scratching your head about it. IT IS NOT WORTH IT!

The director, editor, maybe screenwriter, I don't know was absolutely obsessed with establishing shots of the clinic and the General's office. Interesting fact for fellow connoisseurs of bad movies, the General's house is the exact same house Peter Lawford's character uses in the Greydon Clark nonclassic (made famous by MST3K) Angel's Revenge aka Angel's Brigade aka Seven from Heaven. It is easy to make this connection because the viewer really gets a lot of long hard looks at buildings.

Aside from the padding, boredom, and confusing script, the dialog is REALLY goofy especially when the patients go in the "E-box" Things go wrong in there and an exasperated patient says things like "You scientific birdbrain!" followed by "You scientific bitch!", another patient follows suit with "You scientific bastards!" and my favorite "You'll have to kill me before I die!"

I recommend watching this movie if you got it like I did in one of those 50 movie budget DVD packs. You basically know what you're getting into when you buy those sets so enjoy the mediocrity and remember DO NOT TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW TELLING THE TRUTH HELPS THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT! As Lewis Black once said about something similar to that "You'll end up having blood shoot out of your eyeball trying to figure that one out."

Unlike other commentaries, I found this film fascinating, even with all its faults and the zombie acting of some of the actors.

Being a technologist, I found that the experiments interesting and the hardware realistic. Although the reading of people minds via computer sounds fantastic, experiments are being conducted now to do just this. I will note that this experiments are in a very early stage, with results so far not favorable.

The characters in the movie are well cast. The girl, although overacting a bit, looks suitable dumb. The truck driver is a a ringer for real truck drivers. The minister conveys doubt at first, (The principal investigator tells the minister that him (the minister), is not sure whether he believes that God created man or that man created God. But the minute when the chips are down, he falls back on his faith. Only the PhD plays the zombie. The secrets that they harbor are suitably appropriate for their characters. In the face of death they react as real human beings would.

The movie is a warning against the dangers of unlimited surveillance by government. As strictly a thriller, the movie does not have enough thrills. As a scientific exercise with philosophical underpinnings it is fascinating.

After watching The Brain Machine in stages because I was fighting fatigue to complete this movie I'm still not sure of what I saw. Four people James Best, Ann Latham, Gerad McRaney, and Marcus Grapes all of whom have no close family volunteer to be paid lab rats for an experimental mind control machine. Two firm prerequisites for these people, no close family and they have to tell the absolute truth in that closed environment that they live in now.

Somebody should have told them to watch The Forbidden Planet and how those far superior Krells couldn't deal with monsters from the ID. My guess is that this top secret experiment was to develop some kind of ultimate interrogation machine. That's why so many sinister forces seem bent on achieving success with the experiment, however success is to be measured. The Brain Machine isn't really clear on what's going on.

The whole thing will leave you bored and confused.

I rented this as part of a weekly movie night with a friend of mine. We got this, "The Supernaturals," and "Blood Splash," also known as "Nightmare" or "Nightmare in a Damaged Brain." This was the worst of the three.

We got this under the name "Mind Warp," and decided to get it only because it looked like it could be okay. (Well, why else would we rent it?!) The story is pretty basic. Two doctors stick four people in an underground lab and start doing mental tests on them with these Star Trek computers. (Spare the constant "beep-beep...beep-beep" from the TV show.)

Nothing really happens. The film's first twenty minutes is about an escapee from the lab who has a file showing all that goes on. Apparently, these tests are pretty much illegal. He eventually gets caught and killed off. Then the four people (a war veteran, a priest, a girl, and some other guy) are tested on. It's all really boring until finally they all start going mad and either killing themselves, or each other, until the abrupt and pretty unsatisfying ending.

I say...avoid this. Really. It isn't very good at all. I found it in the horror section, and hopefully if you do, too, you will just pass it by. It has nothing to offer.

I bought this (it was only $3, ok?) under the title "Grey Matter". The novelty of seeing Sherriff Roscoe in a non-DukesOfHazzard role intrigued me. As the other reviewers warned, it's a pretty boring tale of a top secret government experiment gone awry.

And yes, there are plenty of establishing shots, especially of a house with a pool in front of it. Some of the characters and interiors are so nondescript I guess the filmmakers worried we might forget who is who, so they keep tipping us off by first showing the outside of the buildings. It's actually kinda funny. After awhile the pool shot feels like a tv channel's station identification logo, reminding us that we are watching "Grey Matter".

I also enjoyed two bouts of name-calling. At one point an angry test subject taunts somebody in charge by calling her a "Scientific b*tch!". It's just a very inadequate insult. Several scenes later a different subject lets off steam by muttering about that "scientific b**tard!". It just sounded very awkward to me.

Someday this movie will disappear forever. Another decade from now it will likely be impossible to find any copies of it. Almost like it never happened.

I saw this on VHS under its AKA Grey Matter. Going into it, I wasn't sure what it was about, and having watched it I'm still not entirely sure.

There's a theft of files at a government research facility, and someone in an airplane turns around when he learns of the theft.

Four people participate in what they think is an experiment having to do with population control and pollution, or something. They're kept in uniforms in a room which will get progressively smaller to represent a growing population. The scientists in charge emphasize the importance of the participants telling the truth. It's clear they all have secrets.

Meanwhile, some things seem to be going wrong. A technician dies after touching a hose. Some of the cameras don't work. A guard is mysteriously sinister.

The computer begins asking personal questions, which the surprised scientists repeat to the participants. Sometimes while they're sleeping they appear to be electrocuted and have visions.

In the end, there's a television report in which a newscaster reports falsely on the study while two apparently powerful men watch the report on TV and comment on it.

Dull and amateurish z-grade "thriller" concerns an apparently innocent mind experiment being hijacked by shady government interests to test a new brain control concept. Four voluntary subjects (Best, McRaney, Latham and Grapes) have their honesty tested by a trio of intrepid scientists (Collins, Burgess and Peterson) culminating in a population simulation experiment where they recline in fold-out chairs and conjure deep thoughts about a tumultuous event in their past - recollections that are being coaxed by the secret government brain control project, leading to catastrophic results.

Sounds innovative, exciting even - note to self, it isn't. The acting is abysmal, the frequent cut-aways of the pool by the mansion and tall grey building are so over-used they become distracting, and the dialogue is laughable. Poor Gerald McRaney had to start somewhere, and director Joy N.Houck, Jnr was his start. All's well that ends well. James Best can do little to redeem the picture with his morally conflicted priest, quivering and stuttering through a series of awkward admissions, and Latham and Grapes, well, their performances are staggeringly bad. Atrocious isn't a big enough word. Others come to mind.

Doesn't fit the "so bad it's funny" column, nor would it sustain many Gerald McRaney fans - it's difficult to find a reason to watch this movie, but I guess, one man's trash is another man's treasure so if you're terminally bored and up for anything, let the "Brain Machine" take control.

"The Brain Machine" is one of those action films with relatively little action and lots of "filler" sequences between the action scenes. But that's OK in this case, because what we get is intriguing filler. At times endearing filler....entertaining filler....but above all intriguing filler. This is also one of those films in which you don't really know what's going on a good deal of the time, or even most of the time. And at times you don't even know who some of the characters are supposed to be (antagonists? PROtagonists? NEUTRALS??). But that's OK in this case, since what is on the screen is interesting even when it's incomprehensible. "Brain Machine" keeps your attention and gets you to think. I like the way Joy N. Houk, Jr. mixes "modernistic" and "postmodern" elements. The whole production, from a design point of view, has a "modernistic" orientation (obsessive use of the color blue in the decor, the appearance of abstract expressionist paintings as wall murals, the overall sleek and clean look, etc.). Yet the storytelling style and characterization are decidedly POSTmodern, i.e., ambiguous, amorphous, and ill-defined. "Brain Machine" tells the stories of a group of disturbed individuals living in a disturbed, uncertain universe. The film may be more than thirty years old, yet in some respects it is quite contemporary........

"Four people with distinctly different backgrounds all volunteer for an experiment involving mind-altering and manipulation. The volunteers all gather at a secret laboratory and are subject to a series of procedures that border on torture, including shock therapy and psychological torture. The final portion of the procedure involves the test subjects (being) exposed to an experimental device that alters the participants' minds through the exposure of their innermost fears and darkest secrets."

"As it seems to be with such experimental testing, something goes wrong with the procedure and the test subjects and scientists suffer the horrible results," according to the grammatically corrected DVD sleeve synopsis.

"The Brain Machine" aka "Gray Matter" looks so incompetent, it could be that nobody thought it was worth improving on a rough cut. It definitely receives an extra-awful star for the laughable "walls closing in" ending, and wrongheaded performances. Among some lesser-known players, "immortal" Gerald McRaney (as Willard "Willie" West) deadpans, "Kill me before I'll die!" and, wigged-out James Best (as Emory Neill) plays a molesting man-of-the-cloth. Ah, but, they are young...

** The Brain Machine (1977) Joy N. Houck Jr. ~ Gil Peterson, Gerald McRaney, James Best, Barbara Burgess

Filmed in the '70s this is a latecomer to the sixty's formula big brother paranoia films. This is the 1977 version with James Best as Rev. Emory Neill. A side note it is fun to see the big steel clunker cars. And what is that strange devise with a dial that people talk through? There must have been a lack of barbers in them there days.

An experiment is performed to see if "truth" can be told with the hope that the results can correct all the ills of mankind and pollution to boot. The subjects are carefully chosen based on the objective.

Unknown to our guinea pigs and testing staff, the experiment was usurped by the military for nefarious purposes; anyone objecting is dispatched.

Naturally, computers and guineas are not suited for the plan. This is a brain teaser as everyone has to confess they lied. More insidious is the fact that the computer can not understand that the subject does not believe he can die and sets out to prove this. This becomes a compressing problem.

How will it end? Or will it end? What would you do in the situation?

Do you notice the boom mic it is everywhere?