The Man With The Screaming Brain

There’s nothing quite like Ted Raimi speaking ebonics in a Bulgarian accent. But we’ll get to that.

Bruce Campbell is a God. Not THE God, but definitely A God. He’s is the God Of B-Movies And Great One-Liners. In my book (if not in his own), he can do no wrong. (Let’s not mention the fact that he’s in the shit-fest From Dusk ‘Til Dawn 2. Or Congo. Or…um…nevermind.)

Every time he comes to town with another movie, I have to go check it out. Even if it’s something I’ve seen 100 times (like Evil Dead 2 or Army Of Darkness) I’m all over it. And if he has a new book to shill for, all the better.

This time he had a new book (Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way) AND a new movie. And not only does he star in it, but he wrote and directed it, too! B-movie heaven!

The Man With The Screaming Brain is the story of an asshole American, William Cole (Bruce), who is stuck in Bulgaria with his bitchy wife, Jackie (Antoinette Byron) while trying to “help” Bulgaria become a capitalist country. Yegor (Vladimir Kolev) is the cab driver who almost treats them like human beings as he drives them crazily around town. He also happens to be the only cab driver in Bulgaria who speaks English, so that helps.

Unfortunately for William (and everyone else in the movie, actually), Yegor has jilted Tatoya (Tamara Gorski), a young, hot Gypsy girl who has a vindictive streak bigger than Bruce’s threshold for pain. She’s also after a husband. She sees a chance in William. He insults her. She kills him. She kills Yegor.

Enter Dr. Ivan Ivanov (Stacy Keach) and his assistant Pavel (Ted Raimi). The good doctor has figured out a way to put two brains together and have them work together. But he hasn’t quite perfected it, as William and Yegor are about to find out. So, of course, is the audience.

What’s always great about a movie with Bruce Campbell in a big role is that he is amazing at delivering the cheesy one-liners and pretty damn good at physical comedy/action. And, while he’s a pretty entertaining writer (I’m in the middle of his autobiography, If Chins Could Kill and it’s pretty damn good), he doesn’t really know how to write to his strengths in screenplay form. Sure, there’s plenty of physical comedy (which, in this case, was done better by Steve Martin in All Of Me), but there’s not one one-liner for him to shoot out!

Now, I realize that this is supposed to be an homage to the old 50s sci-fi/horror flicks that Sam and Ted Raimi and Bruce all grew up watching on late night tv. I can totally appreciate that, because I love ‘em, too. They’re fun to watch with a group of people and throw insults at the screen. But, if you’re going to make an homage to them, don’t make it as bad as those old movies. And here’s where Bruce goes wrong. It’s an alright story (for what it’s supposed to be), but Bruce isn’t the strongest director around. Granted, this is his first full-length fiction film (the only other movie he’s directed was the short documentary, Fanalysis…which I’m in the background of, by the way. Geek alert!) and it was made on about a $100,000 budget by the Sci-Fi Network, so I wasn’t expecting it to be an amazing film on the same caliber as, say, Bore Of The Worlds. (Bruce’s words, not mine. I still haven’t seen it.) But I wanted it to be more fun that it was.

Honestly, the funniest thing about the movie (and what makes it worth seeing when it airs on Sci-Fi in late September) is Ted Raimi. He camps it up as a young (-ish) Bulgarian who is trying WAY too hard to be a Capitalist pig. He even does a rap at the end of the movie. (Yes, he’s Ted “Rhyme Throwin’” Raimi.)

And Stacy Keach was funny because he’s fuckin’ Mike Hammer playing mad Bulgarian scientist!

Bruce was good as the asshole in the beginning. That’s something else he excels at. But he seemed more serious this time. Instead of being kind of strangely charming like Ash or Elvis, he just came off as a complete asshole who you WANTED bad shit to happen to. Yes, of course, he learns his lesson, but by then I didn’t really care too much. I just kind of wanted him to get off the screen and let Ted take over.

I’m actually interested in reading the comics that Dark Horse is putting out. It’s a series of four comics that apparently is kind of like a Director’s Cut of the movie. It’s what Bruce would have done if he had had the time and budget to really make this movie. I’m hoping that it’s better than the finished product.

If you’re as big of a Bruce fan as I am, then check this out. It’s definitely worth it for you freaks. (A lot of people seemed to like it better than I did.) But if you’re not, then you will probably want to give this one a miss.

Of course, the whole night was worth it just to hear Bruce call a guy in the audience a moron. It’s always fun to be at a Bruce Campbell Q&A session. And it’s always interesting to listen to some of his non-answers. Someone, of course, brought up Evil Dead 4. “You always have to do it, don’t you? There’s always somebody.” Well, the movie has never been closer to actually happening. Sam REALLY wants to do it! He’s said that he and Bruce were talking about what to do with Ash next time. But Bruce didn’t seem to want to talk about it tonight.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

One thing he did bring up, though (and I hope this is true because it sounds awesome), is a movie about a town that is having problems with something supernatural. So, who do they call? That Ash guy! Of course, it’s Bruce playing himself, not Ash. Because there is no Ash. Kind of a Three Amigos type of thing. But with Bruce Campbell.

That sounds like a movie that I can wrap my screaming brain around!