Horror in the 90s: Brain Dead

Brain Dead (1990) 

Directed by Adam Simon 

Written by Adam Simon, Charles Beaumont 

Starring Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, George Kennedy, Bud Cort, Patricia Charbonneau 

Release Date January 19th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $1.6 million dollars 

One image. Brain Dead is remembered for one, singular image. The fact that this one image has nothing to do with the movie that contains it, does not matter. There is only one thing that anyone remembers about Brain Dead and it is just one memorable, awful, brutal image. You see it in all of the marketing materials about the movie when it was released. To those who've never seen Brain Dead, this image is the star of the film. It's a very compelling image, one worthy of building a bizarre cult movie marketing campaign around. 

In a college science lab there is an unnamed student toying with a human brain. The student shoves an electrode into the ooey gooey brain situated in a petri dish. The brain is connected to something, a metal apparatus. Upon this apparatus is a complete abomination. Stretched like horrifying silly putty across an empty expanse, connecting to a circular metal apparatus is a human face. This face has eyes, a nose, and a mouth. It seems to have facial muscles somehow, hidden behind a weathered expanse of skin. 

The facial muscles are implied in the film by the way the face twitches in pain when the brain in the pan is electrocuted back to life. Depending on where the student stabs his electrode into this brain in a pan, the face twitches its eyes, wrinkles its nose, or turns the mouth in a pained expression, a wince. From the manner in which the student playfully stabs away at this brain, this is a normal day in the lab. We don't know how long the student and the face have been in this dynamic, but it is not the first time this student has engaged in this twisted game. 

You would be forgiven if you thought that this detached face were that of a main character, that of Bill Pullman, or Bill Paxton, or Bud Cort. It's not. In fact, we have no idea where this face came from or how this face ended up attached to a brain in a pan being painfully stimulated by electrodes. We get only a vague sense of why this is even being done. It's being done to prove that the human brain is capable of being stimulated after death. 

That's part of the crazed, doomed experiments being conducted by Bill Pullman's monstrous, genius brain scientist. Dr. Rex Martin believes he can cure all manner of neurological disorders by using the brains of the dead as guinea pigs. Dr. Martin's particular specialty is paranoia and he is convinced he can cure paranoia via brain surgery. This brings his research in line with the awful, amoral aims of Bill Paxton's corporate shark. Paxton wants Pullman to cure the paranoia of a genius mathematician, Bud Cort, so that said genius will reveal an equation that could be worth billions. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Nightcrawler

Nightcrawler (2014)

Directed by Dan Gilroy

Written by Dan Gilroy

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed

Release Date October 31st, 2014

Published October 30th, 2014

This article contains spoilers for the movie Nightcrawler. If you haven't seen it, see it and come back for this article. If you have seen it, be sure to share your thoughts in the comments. 

“Nightcrawler” tells the story of Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a professional criminal in search of a job that can combine his blind ambition with his lack of a moral compass. He finds such a job when he witnesses a professional cameraman, Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), crawling over policemen and firefighters to get as close as possible to a fiery car accident. Joe’s ethos is ‘If it bleeds, it leads.' Lou never knew such a job existed; one that could nurture his lack of empathy and his blind ambition. 

Nina Romina (Rene Russo) is the perfect enabler for Lou Bloom. His equal in blind ambition and desperation, Nina is the 3rd shift News Director for the last place network in Los Angeles. When Nina meets Lou, she’s not all that impressed but desperate for a top story with some blood on it, she buys Lou’s footage and he gets his foot in the door. When next they see each other Lou has gone to some obviously ethically challenged lengths to get footage inside of a home that was struck by bullets from a drive by shooting. While Nina’s colleagues recognize the trouble with the footage, Nina has dollar signs in her eyes and buys the footage to air as the lead on that night’s newscast.

In Joe Loder and Nina Romina, Lou Bloom finds a unique parentage. In meeting Joe Loder and finding out what he does for a living the true Lou Bloom is born. When Joe rejects Lou, refusing Lou's attempts at friendship and job-seeking, Lou goes into business for himself and finds a welcome mothering figure in Nina. We can see in their first interaction that Nina has a soft spot for the soft spoken and unassuming Lou. When Lou begins delivering one big exclusive video scoop after another her pride in her pseudo-progeny bursts forward like that of a proud mother.

Things become twisted as Lou competes with Joe for scoops and the rivalry turns violent when Lou literally attempts to kill Joe by sabotaging Joe's mobile news van. If you posit Joe as a father figure to Lou by his having inspired Lou's new profession then the symbolism here becomes very important. Lou has eliminated the competition for the attention of Nina, also his top business competition and rival for Nina's money.

Then Lou turns his full attention to Nina, first demanding a date and when his advance is rebuffed he goes further by demanding a sexual relationship. Having removed his main rival for Nina's attention and money, Lou has a grave advantage over Nina and presses that advantage to take what he wants; sleeping with his surrogate mother/benefactor, sealing his true identity as a psychopath.

In the end, "Nightcrawler" is the story of Lou Bloom's journey to realization of his true nature. Yes, he was a psychopath before the movie began but once he meets Joe and Nina, the evolution towards accepting his true nature begins. We see him explore his amoral world, find his footing in a place where his lack of empathy, concern for others and blind, frothing ambition are welcome traits and in finally taking Nina as his conquest and vanquishing his rival, we find a man fully realized in all his psychopathic glory

Horrifying as it most certainly is, this strange arc makes Nightcrawler an endlessly fascinating character study. In Jake Gyllenhaal we have an actor capable of giving Lou Bloom's growing mania and lack of empathy a wide range of expression. Gyllenhaal's ability to switch gears from sniveling conniver to over-confifdent badass is something impossible to look away from. The birth and quick evolution of Lou's new persona, the perfect expression of his unwell psyche, is utterly riveting. 

Dan Gilroy's crisp, clean direction, gives remarkable life to the story of Nightcrawler. The film's imagery is vital and viscreral, it couches Lou Bloom in a very recognizable reality that he can stand out from as he becomes more and more deluded and dangerous. Lou Bloom both fits in perfectly amid the outsized characters who chase the news and stands apart from them as his actions express the the often ugly extremes of our modern news culture.

And yet, there is so much more to Nightcrawler., Each relationship Nick carries out in Nightcrawler is rife with meanings that can be parsed for days. I mentioned the pseudo-parental figures of Paxton and Russo and just take a moment to consider those relationships in the context provided by Nightcrawler. Each is rife with taunting questions about the parent child dynamic, the boss and subordinate dynamic and the passive and aggressive dynamic, the one that arguably defines much of Nightcrawler as Lou quickly moves from passive bystander to the aggressor in every aspect of his life. 

Movie Review The Greatest Game Ever Played

The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) 

Directed by Bill Paxton

Written by Mark First

Starring Shia LeBeouf, Stephen Dillane, Elias Koteas, Peter Firth

Release Date September 30th, 2005

Published September 28th, 2005

Mark Frost co-created with David Lynch the head trippy TV show Twin Peaks. He co-wrote one of this year's biggest blockbusters, Fantastic Four, and years ago directed the lovely but forgettable romance Storyville. Who knew that all along he harbored the ambitions of a golf historian. Coming across the story of Francis Ouimet some years ago, Frost became obsessed with telling his story.

Ouimet, an amateur golfer and part time caddy, won the 1913 United States Golf Open in Brookline, Massachusetts by defeating arguably the greatest golfer of that era, British Champion Harry Vardon. It's a dramatic story well captured in Mark Frost's 2003 book "The Greatest Game Ever Played".

Given Frost's Hollywood experience the book has a natural cinematic quality to it. The story simply screamed for adaptation. Unfortunately, Frost's idea for a 12 part mini-series on HBO was shot down. Now in a far more truncated version, The Greatest Game Ever Played is an overlong Disney sports movie that nails every cliché of the genre while neglecting much of the detail that made the book special.

Directed by actor Bill Paxton, The Greatest Game Ever Played stars Shia Labeouf as Francis Ouimet, a poor kid living across the street from the prestigious Brookline Country Club where he found work as a caddy. Fascinated as a child by a chance meeting with the British champion Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane), Francis developed his game in every free minute he had.

Francis's hard bitten father, Arthur (Elias Koteas, with an awful French accent), vehemently opposes Francis playing the game, either because it's above the family's means and social status, or because the plot seems to require his opposition to build tension.  Either way, neither reason is very compelling. Francis remains determined and with the support of his mother (Marnie McPhail) accepts a chance to play in the US Open at Brookline. His job is to show up and provide some local color opposite the out of town pros but Francis shows his mettle and really competes.

The film is not only Francis' story but also that of Harry Vardon, who, as a child, watched his home in Scotland demolished and a golf course put in its place. Determined to earn his way onto that course, Vardon developed into the greatest player Britain had ever seen, winning the British Open championship several times and the US Open once as well. With an eye to finally being allowed to join the club that replaced his home, Harry accepts an offer from the snooty Lord Northcliffe (Peter Firth) to go to the US and bring home the US Championship to England.

The film's subject may be golf but much of the story focuses on class and social status. Both Francis and Harry struggled with being poor kids in a rich man's world. Using their golfing abilities, both manage to find entry into the halls of power only to encounter even more resistance. No matter how many open championships Harry Vardon won, the best he could ever do was an honorary membership at his home country club.

For Francis, the issues of class came from both the men in power at the country club and the man in power of his home. His father was a strong, proud but very bitter man. Whether he envied his son's opportunity to dine with the upper crust or his need to protect his son from the inevitable disappointment of when that upper crust would reject him, his father never supports his playing, although smart audiences won't be surprised if father and son share a touching moment late in the picture.

Bill Paxton directs The Greatest Game Ever Played and makes it quite clear how much he loves the game. Long languorous shots of the tightly cropped grass, loving shots of clubs being handcrafted and endless scenes of straight ahead competition recreated from the 1913 US Open. However within these scenes is the not so subtle hint that golf is far more interesting to the player than to the audience.

Paxton and special effects director Louis Craig dress up much of the actual golfing scenes with flashy special effects that fade out the crowd around either Francis or Harry as they line up their shots and then take the ball's perspective as it flies down the fairway. The effects shots in Greatest Game likely cost more than most of the rest of the film and are entirely anachronistic to the quiet and observational atmosphere of the game, especially when considered against the film's genteel and respectable period setting.

The performances of the film's two leads, Shia LeBeouf and Steven Dillane do little to help the film over the rough spots of the poor special effects and cliched story. LeBeouf is a credible golfer but his performance is lighter here than it was in the truly lighthearted family flick Holes. As for Dillane, he's no stranger to period pieces having played the husband of Virginia Woolf in The Hours. In Greatest Game Dillane is greatly undone by the outright bizarre script that has Harry Vardon envisioning ghosts on the golf course as he struggles to sink putts and keep it in the fairway.

Neither actor is helped by the fact that they are both blown off the screen by the cute kid performance of Josh Flitter. As Francis's  eight year-old caddie, Eddie Lowery, Flitter is a real scene stealer. Eddie Lowery could likely be the subject of his own book or movie someday.  After caddying for Francis, Lowery went on to become a terrific golfer in his own right and a conqueror of the business world becoming a multi-millionaire.

If golf does not grab you, not much else of The Greatest Game Ever Played is likely to grab you either. Whether it is the tortured family dynamics of the Ouimet's or Harry Vardon's oddball obsession with the golf course planners who knocked down his childhood home that show up occasionally as ghosts when Harry struggles on the course, or the oddball performance of Peter Firth as the literally mustache twirling villain, The Greatest Game Ever Played has little that will appeal to the discerning moviegoer.

Disney has taken a very engaging sports book full of unique detail and stirring description and crossed it with the same sports movie formula that has made The Rookie, Remember The Titans, and Coach Carter uplifting sports flotsam. However where those films had sports that are naturally entertaining to a wide audience, golf remains on the margins of sports with audience appeal. Golf fans are highly specific and a film such as this that condescends to dressing up their favored sport with goofy effects is not likely to draw them in.

Then if that were not enough the film throws in a dull romantic subplot with Francis and a girl out of his social strata. The very lovely Peyton List plays Sara Willis, a daughter of one of the club members, who has a chance encounter with Francis as a small child and retains the attraction as the two become teenagers. The film attempts to mine tension from their Romeo and Juliet-esque class warfare but it's nothing that has not been portrayed before in far better films.

At just over two hours The Greatest Game Ever Played is torturously long. From the direction to the writing to the lightweight performances of both Shia LeBeouf and Steven Dillane, the film is as lifeless as a Sunday afternoon in front of a TV screen watching any golf tournament that does not feature the charismatic presence of the sport's greatest attraction, Tiger Woods.

Now throw some Tiger into The Greatest Game Ever Played and maybe you've got something. As it is, the 1913 United States Open may have been the greatest game ever played but it's one of least entertaining films of 2005.

Movie Review: Frailty

Frailty (2002) 

Directed by Bill Paxton 

Written by Brent Hanley 

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Levi Kreis, Bill Paxton 

Release Date April 12th, 2002 

Published April 12th, 2002

I have never liked Bill Paxton in a movie. In fact, after watching him destroy any chance I had to enjoy Titanic, I outright loathed him. I've gotten over the Titanic thing but my opinion of Paxton hasn't improved much. Paxton's resume boasts a number of titles that I have panned over the years including Vertical Limit, Mighty Joe Young and Trespass. Some have told me he's very good in A Simple Plan, I haven't seen it because he's in it.

The image of Paxton that I can't seem to shake though is his turn as Chet in Weird Science. For as long as I see Bill Paxton I will see that brutish pig, farting and saying intensely stupid things. It's actually his best performance. This is the bias I brought to my viewing of Paxton's directorial debut Frailty.

On a rainy Dallas, Texas night, FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) arrives at his office to interview a man who claims to have evidence in Doyle's current investigation of the so-called God's Hand Killer. In Doyle's office sits a man calling himself Fenton Mieks (Matthew Mcconaughey) and he does have a heck of a story to tell. Fenton explains that he knows who the God's Hand Killer is, because he is his brother Adam (Levi Kreis). Of course Doyle is skeptical, but after a small part of Fenton's story is confirmed he decides to hear him out. From there Fenton rolls into a tale right out of a Stephen King novel.

In flashback, we see Fenton and his younger brother Adam walking home from school. The boy's mother is dead and they are raised by their loving father (Paxton). Things turn bad when, in the middle of the night, Fenton's Dad has what he says was a vision from God telling him that there are demons walking in human form, and that the family has been chosen by God to kill the demons. Young Adam believes his Dad without question but Fenton is frightened and believes his father is crazy. From there Fenton and Adam are forced by their father to witness and take part in brutal killings that Dad says aren't murders, because they weren't human.

Young Fenton is played by Matthew O'Leary. Far from his cute villain in Spy Kids 2, O'Leary carries a great deal of the film's drama and carries it off very well. As for Paxton, while many were impressed by his performance, all I could see was that same rock headed lummox he played in Weird Science and Trespass and just about everything else he's been in. McConaughey is strong but undone by the film's ridiculous ending.

It isn't just the ending that bothered me about Frailty. While I must credit Paxton on his directing, which is sure handed and frighteningly good in a number of scenes, the film has a rote quality to it. As the film is telling a gripping story about Fenton's horrific childhood trauma, Boothe and McConaughey are setting up the finale which goes completely off the deep end. Granted that it had very little choice of where to go. With any conventional ending being way too obvious, Paxton and writer Bett Hanley had to do something twisty. Unfortunately, what they chose is so off the charts ridiculous that the film collapses.

Paxton may have a good future as a director, but more importantly, anything that might keep him from acting is fine by me.

Movie Review: Mean Dreams

Mean Dreams (2016) 

Directed by Nathan Morlando

Written by Kevin Coughlan, Ryan Grassby

Starring Bill Paxton, Josh Wiggins, Sophie Nelisse, Colm Feore

Release Date May 15th, 2016

Published May 15th, 2016

The passing of actor Bill Paxton naturally led to a great deal of praise and reflection as the universally beloved actor was remembered across the media landscape. He may not have looked like it but Paxton was 61 years old when he died of complications related to surgery. His youthfulness is something that many of his friends have talked about in tribute and his youthful energy was reflected by his work rate. At the time of his passing Paxton was working on the CBS television series “Training Day” and had one film in post-production, “The Circle,” and another that he was about to hit the promotional trail for and the reason for this writing, “Mean Dreams.”

In “Mean Dreams” Bill Paxton portrays a righteous bastard and invests him with the kind of menace that he doesn’t seem capable of from the remembrance of his friends. It's a high estimation of his talent that he was so incredible at making you afraid of him and yet he’s remembered for such incredible kindness and generosity in his everyday life.

“Mean Dreams” is the story of Jonas (Josh Wiggins) and Casey (Sophie Nelisse), teenagers who fall in love when Casey becomes Jonas’ neighbor, living just a field of weeds away. The two meet in the forest and though Casey’s father Wayne (Paxton) isn’t very welcoming, the two begin spending time together and building the kind of short term romantic intensity only teenagers can create. The romantic montage is beautifully shot by cinematographer Steve Cosens and director Nathan Morlando. The montage does its job of establishing the relationship and moving us along to the thriller plot that is the film’s center.

Jonas and Casey’s budding romance is altered forever when Jonas witnesses Casey being beaten by her father and attempts to intervene. Later, Jonas once again tries to help Casey but finds himself trapped amid Wayne pulling off a drug deal and then a multiple murder. When he escapes this situation, Jonas decides to take the ill-gotten drug money from Wayne’s truck, gathers up Casey and her dog and goes on the run to escape from Wayne and his equally corrupt cop partner played by Colm Feore.

There is a very Terence Malick like vibe to “Mean Dreams” with “Badlands” unquestionably influential in the film. The very first scene of “Mean Dreams” shows Jonas seemingly wearing the uniform of Martin Sheen’s young bad boy from “Badlands” while crossing the dewy, overgrown Midwestern weeds that Malick made so beautiful. The look is the only similarity however, as the character of Jonas is certainly nothing like Sheen’s thoughtless murderer. Josh Wiggins gives Jonas toughness and vulnerability in equal measure with his determination and caring a bittersweet counterpoint to Bill Paxton's villainous Wayne. 

Bill Paxton is terrifyingly real in “Mean Dreams.” Playing a drunken, corrupt, small town cop, Paxton is all seething menace underlined with a depth of sadness that only makes him more frighteningly unpredictable. The specter of Wayne hangs over the whole film, especially in scenes he is not in because his menace permeates the whole film and while he is frighteningly realistic it’s hard not to fear him popping up like a horror film villain. He’s portrayed as clever and resourceful on top of being a desperate bastard and Paxton infuses the character with chilling life.

In his second feature, following the 2011 Canadian crime flick “Citizen Gangster,” director Nathan Morlando acquits himself well. The look of the “Mean Dreams” is often quite lovely, with a touch of influence from “Badlands” and a little of the grayish grit of “The Road,” Morlando shows that he has a distinctive eye. If “Mean Dreams” is lacking in any way, it’s in the thin characterization of his female characters as either absent or present victims.

“Mean Dreams” is an intense sit with a quick pace and a good look. The film also ranks as one of the best performances in Bill Paxton’s long and varied career. I am not the one to offer Paxton a proper tribute as I have often taken issue with his performances, especially his most well-known turns for friend and director James Cameron. That said, I can say that his talent is well displayed in “Mean Dreams” where even as a supporting villain he carries the film with his menacing presence pushing the plot forward regardless of whether he’s onscreen or not.

This won’t go down as Paxton’s final performance but it is certainly a memorable one and one that is more than worthy of being part of a retrospective of the man’s career. Gone too soon at 61.