Elmer le remue-méninges

The first 10 minutes of Brain Damage are awful and hard to watch, as an elderly couple are trashing their apartment looking for Alymer and then we get an overlong hallucination from our main character Brian. Then we are introduced to the Zacherle voiced parasitic Alymer, with a show stopping "hi" and the film just goes bonkers and never stops. There's nothing quite like Brain Damage, a tale of a young man who gets addicted to the intoxicant that a parasitic creature injects into his brain and while running about hallucinating, Alymer feeds on unsuspecting victims brains. It's hilariously gory and thanks to the uncut version finally on the market, the brain removing fellatio sequence is intact in its full ridiculous glory. Henenlotter was firing on all cylinders while making this classic B masterpiece.

you know, i just went to see House of Wax the other day, and ten years after scream came out why are the same boring plots with the same boring characters doing the same stupid mistakes our only option for horror these days.

i suggest going back 20 years to the 70's and 80's if you want to find some great horror. horror then was low budget but imaginative. the movies had interesting story lines and were not shy about blood and gore. a good stepping stone for this sub-genre is one of my current favorites, Brain Damage. It starts off on a very surreal note, but mixes its strangeness with an accurate portrayal of a young man hopelessly addicted to the mother of all drugs. his dealer is perhaps the most unique little monster in all of horror, Aylmer (pronounced "elmer").

Aylmer is a purple cucumber shaped alien with a tiny smiling face and a soft warm voice. he finds a host, and injects his host with a blue liquid that comes out of one of Aylmer's fangs. this "brain juice" jacks up its host into a hullucionary state. while the host is in la-la land, Aylmer makes a victim of whoever the host comes in contact with, eating the victims brains.

as vile as all that sounds, it is hard to see Aylmer as evil. he is just such a nice little guy. plus he is unique in his appearance, personality, and attacks, which all go a long way with me in a modern world of horror villains pushed off an assembly line.

this movie is not winning an Oscar. it is strange and campy and violent. but if that is what you desire in a film, this hidden gem may become one of your favorites!

This is one of my alltime favorites of the horror genre! A great movie to watch.

What i like about this movie is the underlying drug related messages throughout. It's like watching requiem for a dream almost in that drug-related sense.

I don't need to tell much about the plot, since i'm sure many have already explained it.

I am a hardcore horror fan through and through, and i will just say that this movie rocks. It's got a great and interesting story, some awesome gore scenes and some hilarious comedy as well. It's not scary, but it is a gory, funny, bizarre, and original movie that isn't even close to being like anything else out there...you gotta see it to believe it.

10 out of 10 (based on a horror fan's review)

From the director of BASKET CASE comes his second feature, and this one's his best. And we also get a Collector's Edition DVD from Synapse with a couple of extra goodies.

There's a parasite loose in an apartment building named 'Elmer' who infects a guy named Brian (Rick Herbst) and addicts him to his blue 'juice'. In order to get more juice, Brian has to bring Elmer some more brains to eat. Elmer even smiles and sings in the bathroom sink. What a cute little turd. (laughs) He's so detestably obnoxious that I can't help but like the little b***ard.

It's kinda neat that when Brian brings Elmer out, he attacks people by latching onto their foreheads and burrowing into his victims skulls and eating out their brains with what looks like a long straw. Most of the jerks Elmer does this to, deserve it anyway.

This collector's edition DVD restores the long censored fellatio scene where Elmer pops out of Brian's pants and goes down the prostitute's mouth. And when Elmer's done eating, big hunks of gray matter come popping out of the hooker's mouth. It's a riot!

And there's also the scene where Brian hallucinates during his withdrawal from Elmer's blue 'juice' and imagines pulling a string of tissue out his ear until his ear pops out and the side of his head gushes blood. Cool gore scene.

The Synapse DVD uses an excellent wide-screen print with a great 80s synth soundtrack that includes the song, "Corruption" by The Swimming Pool Qs. Not at all like the crummy, muddy-looking censored VHS tape from a few years back. The only drawback is that there aren't many extras beyond a very interesting separate audio track commentary by director Henenlotter, and a movie trailer for the film.

It's an all out classic in my book. Watch it! Get it!

8 out of 10

One morning a young man (Rick Hearst) wakes to find a small, disgusting creature has attached itself to the base of his brain stem. The creature gives him a euphoric state of happiness but in return demands human victims.

After "Basket Case", Frank Henenlotter wanted to do a project called "Insect City", but that fell through due to funding and other issues... so he instead went for a twist on 1950s science fiction. He posited the idea: what if someone had a parasite, but one they actually wanted? This is an interesting concept, and was fleshed out to the idea of an "aylmer", this creature that was passed down from great ruler to great ruler for centuries. The story was so well-written that you feel it must have been at least partially based on some legend. Nope, just Henenlotter's genius.

The film is now widely seen as a metaphor for drug addiction, or addiction in general. But interestingly, this seems to be an afterthought. Henenlotter said the idea came to him like this: first, he thought of a creature attached to someone who needs to kill. But then, going with the concept of a "welcome" parasite, he wondered why the host would allow this, so he came up with the drug aspect. So rather than this being a story about the side effects of drugs, it is actually quite the other way around...

And, of course, as a selling point we have Henenlotter gore. While this film ranks beneath "Basket Case" and "Frankenhooker" as far as overall quality, it has some of the best gore... with scenes that had to be cut (for both the MPAA and the distributor!) but have since resurfaced. For those who love extreme films, the alley scene can only be enjoyed uncut.

As a bonus for horror fans, we even have the voice of Zacherle. Interestingly, Zacherle worked uncredited because he was in SAG and could not be in a non-union film at the risk of getting fined or tossed out of the union. His voice being so recognizable, some saw his lack of credit as an insult, but just the opposite was true: to give him credit would have opened him up to great punishment!

The legacy of "Brain Damage" cannot be ignored. Like all other Henenlotter films, it has acquired a cult following. Not as much as "Basket Case", but more so than "Bad Biology". And lead actor Rick Hearst has done well for himself, going from this independent production to becoming the king of daytime television, becoming a regular on no fewer than five soap operas! Quite the change of pace from low budget gore.

But most interesting is probably editor James Kwei, whom most people have never heard of. Kewi had been in horror for a while with "Christmas Evil", "Maximum Overdrive" and others. But after this, he increasingly became associated with the films of Martin Scorsese, including "Goodfellas". While he had already been with Scorsese since "After Hours" (1985), it was at this point (1988) where he really switched gears.

The Arrow Video Blu-ray is crammed fuller than Mr. Creosote. There is a brand new audio commentary by Frank Henenlotter and several featurettes. We have "Listen to the Light: The Making of Brain Damage", a brand new documentary featuring interviews with actor Rick Herbst, producer Edgar Ievins, editor James Kwei, first assistant director Gregory Lamberson, visual effects supervisor Al Magliochetti and makeup artist Dan Frye. There is "The Effects of Brain Damage" with FX artist Gabe Bartalos, and "A Look Back" with assistant editor Karen Ogle.

And still more... "Elmer's Turf: The NYC Locations of Brain Damage", sort of a supplement to the tour Henenlotter gives on the "Basket Case" Blu-ray. The interesting "Tasty Memories: A Brain Damage Obsession" interview with superfan Adam Skinner. A "Brain Damage" Q&A with Henenlotter recorded at the 2016 Offscreen Film Festival. And certainly not least of all, "Bygone Behemoth" (2010), an animated short by Harry Chaskin, featuring a brief appearance by John Zacherle in his final on screen credit.