Cult 101: Brain Damage (1988)
- Fri, Jan 24
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Director: Frank Henenlotter Run Time: 86 min. Rating: R Release Year: 1988
Starring: Gordon MacDonald, Jennifer Lowry, John Zacherle, Rick Hearst, Theo Barnes
Country: United States
Language: English
About the film:
“Belongs to a tradition of ‘80s-era NYC-centric horror that suggests the cinematic equivalent of graffiti, and has a foot rooted in the outrage voiced by British punk.”
— Chuck Bowen, Slant
After altering the landscape of trash-horror history with Basket Case (1982), the brilliant Frank Henenlotter unleashed Brain Damage (1988), his ultimate Grimm’s Fairy Tale for perverted adults. This is a slimy, grimy, gore-soaked slice-of-NYC-life that follows a poor schmo who is addicted to a drug called Aylmer. But unlike heroin or cocaine, Aylmer is a mutant penis monster who needs to eat human brains in order survive.
Brain Damage is hilarious, unsettling, and jam-packed with bad taste gags that would probably cause John Waters to reassess his life’s work. Do not miss.
About the filmmaker:
Born in New York City, Frank Henenlotter is a writer and director raised on low-budget grindhouse films. Best known for offbeat plots, lowbrow humor and excessive gore in exploitation films like his debut feature Basket Case, Brain Damage, Frankenhooker, and Bad Biology, Henenlotter was perfectly situated to begin filming a series of documentaries on the art of the genre, including Herschell Gordon Lewis – The Godfather of Gore, That’s Sexploitation!, and Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana, a chronicle of the first American artist to be convicted of obscenity which screened in competition at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.
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