i originally wanted to see this film for Bill Pullman and Bud Cort and i got way more out of it than expected. this movie is a mind f*** and you really have to pay attention to every little detail and be somewhat nuts to understand this from my point of view but ill give it my best shot. Bill Pullman plays a brain doctor along with Bill Paxton who experiment on Bud Cort who killed his family. After performing this test on Bud Cort, Bill Pullman is hit by a car and then things get weird. He wakes up but nothing is how it is supposed to be, he is no longer the brilliant doctor he was before getting hit by the car, he is now being called by Bud Cort's characters name (Halsey) and is now a patient. He tries to escape with the help of Bud Cort. Heres the metaphor to look for, when Bill is running around the hospital trying to find his way out he is, in a way running through his own mind. So who's mind is this exactly..is this Bud Cort's brain or Bill Pullman's brain? we find that out in the end which i wont say but its genius. I've always wondered about the human brain and this movie made me wonder (even more) just exactly what goes on in our brains when we are unconscious? when we die does the brain still work? is what we are seeing now and doing now really happening or is this all a dream? this movie really made me ask these questions more and it freaked my sister out! i say bravo to the director, writer and of course Bill Pullman and Bud Cort for f***ing with my mind!

Brain Dead (1990) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Dr. Rex Martin (Bill Pullman) is a top neurosurgeon who is asked by an old friend (Bill Paxton) to look at a co-worker who was once a brilliant mathematician but now seems to be suffering from some brain issue. At first Martin doesn't want involved but he finally gives in and this is where the fun starts. Elements from BRAZIL and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE are mixed in Charles Beaumont's screenplay, which starts off incredibly slow and confusing but once it gets going the film actually manages to deliver a pretty interesting story. Again, I think most people are going to hit the ten or fifteen-minute mark and then consider turning the picture off but this is actually where the film starts to get interesting. I'm not going to say what happens as it would be a major spoiler but we're taken on a pretty fun adventure that will make you think as well as keep you guessing about what's going to happen next. The film offers up a couple big twists towards the end of the picture and they actually work very well and not once do they feel like a cheat. Beaumont, who worked on the original The Twilight Zone, manages to make the story move very well and I liked some of the dark humor that was written into the story. Another major plus is having someone like Pullman in the lead role. He's certainly very believable as the doctor and when the twist happens the actor still manages to make you believe what you're seeing. Paxton is also fun in his supporting role and we even get George Kennedy in a brief role. BRAIN DEAD still has plenty of problems, including some questionable direction and there's also no doubt that a bigger budget was needed to fully get everything in the story. Still, the film is a rather interesting mix of horror and science fiction and for the most part it works.

Odd little movie, this "Brain Dead"…but nonetheless interesting and worth a look in case you can appreciate imaginative low-budget movies. This ultra-cheap looking gem (produced by who else than the Roger Corman clan) might look like one of those numerous and repetitive dream/reality intrusion thrillers that were made in the late 80's/early 90's, but that's only until you discover that the guy who wrote this film actually is Charles Beaumont, who died in 1967! So, this "Brain Dead" really is a trend-setter, when you come to think of it! This film teams Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman who're both quite famous and respectable actors with many B-horror movies on their repertoires. Both men work in some sort of medical research center; Pullman as the brilliant but confused Dr. Martin and Paxton as the shifty board member Reston. The latter convinces Dr. Martin to perform brain surgery upon their former colleague Dr. Halsey, who went paranoid and butchered his family. Shortly after the operation, however, Dr. Martin himself begins to experience Halsey's hallucinations. Pretty soon it becomes impossible to tell the difference between dreams and reality and Dr. Martin can't trust his own pair of eyes anymore. The downfall of paranoia and despair Pullman's character goes through is atmospherically illustrated with surreal landscapes (stormy clouds) and nightmarish visions (the doctor with his bloody white coat!). Too bad the very last sequences are overly misleading and you almost unwillingly stop to care. It feels like co-writer and director Adam Simon didn't really know how to end his film and he inappropriately inserts poetry-elements and fake mystery. A lame climax to an overall decent movie.

The advantage of making a movie about madness is that you can sell almost ANYTHING as long as it's all confusing. From this point of view, Brain Dead is brilliant. However, if you expect to find a solution in the end, you will be disappointed.My interpretation of Brain Dead is that you can never tell what is reality and what is imagination of the main character (Bill Pullman). I even doubt that the brain surgeon story at the beginning is real. During the movie we learn that you can never tell who Pullmans character really is - Rex Martin, Dr. Halsey, who ever? Is he really a brain surgeon, or is that his own imagination, too? Or is he himself the mad-gone maths employee? Or is he just an insane patient suffering fear of somebody messing with his mind?I think that the brain surgeon story is a very clever move to confuse the audience, because it seems to be the clue for what is going on, but at the end, it isn't. It reminds me of the psycho-drug story in Jacobs Ladder, which isn't real, either. However, I'd have liked to see a clever explanation for all that weird stuff at the end.