In a climatic scene Maxwell Reed fires a 6 shot revolver 7 times.
It sounds like a sci-fi movie, but is actually a crime thriller that is clearly inspired by American movies of the era. An unusually effective Maxwell Reed is the violent criminal with a brain tumour who kidnaps icy doctor Elizabeth Allan while trying to flee the country.
This is a low-budget 70's film which stems from the cinematic crazes of both the 'evilly-implemented mind control' ('The Manchurian Candidate' and 'The Ipcress File') and 'paranoia about government conspiracy' sub-genres that were fervently expressed in the Vietnam/Watergate era of American cinema. For me, growing up watching James Best as Sheriff Rosco P.
While I watched The Brain Machine I thought I must be kind of dumb because I had to keep on rewinding it in order to follow what was going on. I thought it was pretty bad that I was having so much bother understanding an exploitation flick.
Celibated with friends last night so we got out the camcorder and made fun of another movie. We chose this one.
Let's see, here are the "highlights" of The Brain Machine: 15 establishing shots of a pool and a house; 15 establishing shots of a nondescript office building; 5 countdowns by a bland technician; 7 close-ups of a menacing guard; and a myriad of technical babble to show us this is a high-tech experiment.Various posters have commented on the discrepancy between the copyright date of 1972 and the release date given on the DVD box of 1977.
You know you're in trouble when the film your watching has numerous alternate titles. Generally it means that they tried and retried to hide the turkey in various markets.
"Four people with distinctly different backgrounds all volunteer for an experiment involving mind-altering and manipulation. The volunteers all gather at a secret laboratory and are subject to a series of procedures that border on torture, including shock therapy and psychological torture.
After a science-fiction type opening, the film develops into a neat and engrossing little thriller, with lively playing by the leads. The central performance of the much underrated Maxwell Reed is especially noteworthy, and the film is all the more impressive for his presence.
I hereby give this film a 5. It's not as bad as the other commenters would have you believe, but it's no masterpiece either.
