31 Days of Cheese Day 18: The Brainiac (El Baron Del Terror)

As part of my foreign movie survey sidebar (and probably the last film that is fun to watch alas) we have Mexico’s 1962 over the top cult classic The Brainiac.

The film opens in 1661 where we see one Baron Vitelius accused by the Inquisition of pretty much everything except poisoning the water supply and throwing the big game. He is the burnt at the stake. As the fires go up a comet appears over head, and he vows to return in 300 years when the comet returns and kill all of the inquisitors’ descendants.

We then go forward to 1961 where we meet the female and male leads who are looking for the comet as assistants to the head of the observatory. Later it turns out that the male lead is a descendant of the one man who defended the Baron against the charges and the female lead is a descendant of one of the inquisitors. It’s funny how things work out like that.

You know one of the things that bothered me about the plot is why did he have to wait 300 years? And I’d like to think that if a known wizard had told me that in 300 years he would come back to kill my descendants, I would have passed that information on to my descendants, simply along the lines of forewarned is forearmed “It’s probably just bullshit but just keep an eye out in 1961 or so just in case.”

Anyway they find the comet and then the Baron returns. He emerges from inside a big Styrofoam Meteor that lands in the middle of a set. His face (a mask let’s be real) is covered with hair has a long pointy nose devil horns and very long forked tongue for eating brains (of course what else?). His hands are two hairy claws that end with suckers. It’s another iconic look and another figure I want for my desk

His first act on earth is to eat the brains of an unfortunate passerby, then return to his original form and in the process take the man’s clothes leaving the dead body in his underwear. It’s just so strange.

And then the rest of the film consists of him setting himself up as a baron and then tracking down the descendants of the inquisitors, making friends with them and eating their brains after first giving them a “Hello my name in Ingo Montoya” type speech then transforming into the hairy guy with the tongue. Some bystanders also get killed a couple of shady ladies and the husband of one of the decedents who ends up dead hanging from a shower nozzle with his head under water.

He also keeps brains in what looks like a chafing dish of some kind which he snacks on a couple of times during the film.

Meantime an police inspector and his assistant (who is the comic relief) are on the trail of the bodies and eventually they work out what is going on, and at the end, as the baron is trying to kill the female lead, they break in with flamethrowers (and again you wonder just how often would the Mexican Police force need to use flamethrowers to the point where they have them on hand at the station? ) and roast the baron again. Who gives up the ghost, and the movie ends.

It’s a weird funny well shot (lovely use of shadows and light) and fast moving absurd fever dream of a movie. This one you should see. I really can’t say as much about the upcoming films however.

Enjoy with Nachos.