Demon with the Atomic Brain

In DEMON WITH THE ATOMIC BRAIN, a wormhole has been opened, in order to be used as a military weapon. Now, a team of soldiers and science-types enter the gateway, in hopes of saving the world from obliteration! Horrific hellishness awaits, as the group is thrust into an alternate reality full of untold terror!

Christopher R. Mihm piles on the omni-cheeeze with this production, loading it with a gigantic Venus flytrap, flying, killer starfish, land-jellyfish people, cannibalistic cultists, laser guns, tree monsters, some humorous riffs on wormhole travel, and a boffo finale! Mihm-iacs rejoice! This is one of his most accomplished works of neo-classical, sci-fi whimsy! The story is also more complex than most of Mihm's other offerings. A fine send-up of the genre...

A computer with its own atomic power pack is sent through a wormhole in an experiment to use wormholes to thwart evil by nipping it at the bud.

Unfortunately, the computer accidentally becomes a smarty and as with the "Terminator" series of movies or IBM's Watson has determined that mankind is a blight and needs eradication.

Meanwhile, back in the lab, all that is known is that the universe is breaking into many and that a power surge of unknown origin means to dispatch the earth as we know it.

Previous teams on a mission to correct this have never returned. Now it is up to a team with of all things a "female scientist" to go where no man... oops, no person has gone before it is too late.

Yes, this is one of those cheap campy sci-fi spoofs. However, they have refined the genre and now actually have a plausible and consistent story. You may want them to hurry and complete their mission or die, but it is the process that makes the movie.

No plant monster, flying dinner plates of death, land jellyfish, or tree monsters were harmed in the making of this film.

Too bad there is no DVD with voice-over commentary at this time.

I enjoy older sci fi movies and the modern take offs but the Mihm's style just does not really score that high for me. I am not sure if I am supposed to be amused by the story, the acting, or the low production values.

The plot in this one seems to make more sense (beginning, middle, end) than others. The acting style is the punchy almost robotic delivery of lines as part of the joke but It does not use sight gags or slapstick. The style may be more like the serials like Rocky Jones. The actors seem like the know they are in on the joke compared to say the actors in Plan 9 from Outer Space.

I do not think if they just reshot Plan 9 in this style this it would be better.

If the 1950s B movie boom had never happened this movie sucks. Movie parody's like Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans are horrible examples of what Chris Mihm does. If you watch a Chris Mihm film knowing this you would understand stand what this is all about. Movie night rotation is big in my house each member of the family gets to pick a movie and everyone has to watch or they lose a turn. My turn comes up I picked Moon Zombies and for the next hour and a half all I heard was this sucks, this is not believable. When my next turn came it was Giant Spider time less grumbling but they plotted to show me a movie I would hate. My next turn I said ok we'll watch a 50s horror movie that you heard of and I played Plan 9, they laughed and pointed out continuity errors and I then said my last two movie were making fun of movies like this. Each week after that we watched all Chris Mihm movies on Amazon. Plan 9 was a perfect example for another reason the 1959 Ed Wood movie cost the 2019 equivalent of $500,000 vs. my favorite Mihm movie Demon with the Atomic Brain cost in 2019 $10,000. Sure he's never going to win an Oscar but compare a movie Plan 9 that was intended to be scary which it's not and a movie like this that is poking fun at movies like Plan 9 and it absolutely delivers. Take off your movie critic hat and enjoy this in all its parody glory.

They really did catch the flavor of the period. The dialog, the acting, the really cheesy sets and effects rang true. Totally over the top plot of a tiny military unit with one male and one female civilian scientist are sent through a series of fragmented universes to literally save the universe (think 1950's Stargate SG1). Each universe is progressively more bizzare and camp, and the final vision of the Demon Brain made me laugh...they got it just right. Good campy fun. I didn't regret sitting through it to the end.