Appearing in 1990 Brain Dead (not to be confused with Peter Jackson's crazed gore film Braindead) was an American production. It was the first film directed by Adam Simon, who went onto helm one of the classic horror film documentaries The American Nightmare, directed a Marilyn Manson video, and wrote the script for The Haunting in Connecticut. Brain Dead is certainly a well-shot and well-acted genre film- that starts fairly run-of-the-mill, but slow-but-surely gets more deranged.

The film starts with us been introduced to Dr Rex Martin(Bill Pullman) a straight-laced & balanced neurosurgeon, who works with his decidedly bumbling assistant in a small lab, which features a wall full of brains in jars. One day his sleek & greased back haired businessman friend Jim Reston(Bill Paxton), approaches him to see if he’ll go & visit gone-mad-and-murdered-his-family mathematician Jack Halsey(Bud Cort), who seemingly has important information locked in his head. The Dr does tests on Halsey finding out that his madness lies in a certain part of his brain, & after some gentle persuasion from Reston he agrees to operate on Halsey- to make him once saner, so the information can be got. The bizarre op, in front of a company business meeting with the top of  Halsey’s skull removed, seemingly goes well. But then things start to slide, twist, and go decidedly odd- as we drop into a mind-bending sci-fi horror picture, with elements of macabre surrealism & thriller tropes.

Pullman is great as the initial straight-lace & very much sane Dr. Paxton is on great form as normal, with much of the supporting cast been good too- though to begin with Bud Cort as the deranged mathematician is hamming it up, though he does calm down after a bit. The plot is very clever – really pulling you in with a seemingly fairly run-of-the-mill the neat Sci-fi concept of altering peoples behaviour/ sanity with seemingly a few prods of a certain part of the brain. Then it slides in a deviously twisting & turning plot that really makes you wonder who is sane & who is insane. Along the way, we get some great imagery like a man hovering in a medical chair with the top of his skull cut off talking to two old ladies, the mind as a strange sea, bodies with eyes bloody popped out, butterflies appearing from open human heads, and more. It is deranged & tripped out journey of a film, coming off like a more darkly humoured & playful take on Jacobs Ladder.

Moving onto this new Blu Ray release- and the new 2k scan is nicely clear, crisp, and very well balanced. On the new extras side, we get a forty-five minute documentary on the film- this takes in interviews from the likes of director Adam Simon, effects artist Barney Burman, and respected genre commentator Johnath Rigby- it's a very well put together & fascinating doc- as it begins talking about how the script was originally written in the 1960s by Charles Beaumont- scriptwriter for both early Corman films and some of the classic Twilight Zone episodes. And how it was brought up to date by Simon, moving onto talking about Roger Corman's production company Concord- whom had the script/ released the film. Talking about how the effects where created, and a generally informative & charming review of the film from Rigby. We get a sixteen-minute stand-alone interview with the director. In the shape of archive extras we get a commentary track from Adam Simon, and Rodman Feldman- who was one of the key figures behind the production company that put out the film Concord. This is a most fascinating  & informative track- as the pair go back to talking about the origins of the project, chatting about actor choice, clever background detail, where a real human brain appears in the film, and much much more. We get a selection of deleted scenes and an original trailer.

Hands down Brain Dead is one of the great, intelligent, and well-acted horror films of the 1990’s- and its marvellous to see 101 films reissue it- and let hope it helps gain a new audience for the film.