K.Gordon Murray is responsible for the import of several Mexican horror gems that I relish for their entertainment value even if they are not of the highest quality .Almost all the top Mexican stars are here Abel Salazar , German Robles , who teamed up in the Vampire pair of films . Of course the effects are lacking but the story is interesting , ''The Baron of Terror'' is thoroughly fun and enjoyable in my book , with pulsating head and foot long tongue he was a terror !!! The sets are pretty cheap but hey , details , details , details ! Sit back and enjoy the fun as he terrorizes those who condemned him three hundred years earlier . K. Gordon your the man !! RIP !

For once, the outrageous image displayed on the DVD-cover isn't an exaggeration, as the titular Terror-Baron for some reason really does occasionally mutate into a hideous creature with the long split tongue of a lizard, the big pointy ears of a bat and tiny trunks for hands! I don't know why the Mexican film crew opted for this peculiar monster-design, but it sure is original and a very welcome change from all the usual vampires, witches, werewolves and masked serial killers. The movie atmospherically opens in the year 1661, with the extended and relentless trial against Baron Vitelius d'Estera, who's condemned for sorcery, necromancy and a whole shopping list of other vile crimes against humanity. As a comet passes on the night of his execution, the Baron swears he'll reincarnate within 300 years and extract his bloody vengeance against the descendants of the Inquisitors who burned him alive at the stake. Punctually three centuries later, a comet falls onto earth and the Baron lives again. Introducing himself as a charming and eloquent man, he seeks contact with the kin of his executioners and ingeniously sucks the brains out of their skull whilst they're hypnotized. "Brainiac" doesn't play in the same quality league as some other contemporary Mexican horror films (like "Curse of the Crying Woman" and "The Black Pit of Dr. M"), but it's a tremendously entertaining and competently made black & white chiller. The film is fast-paced and obviously borrowing a lot of style-elements from fellow Gothic classics. The film is also stuffed with ludicrous twists and tacky special effects, yet for some reason the tone remains serious. Even when the screenplay reverts to dreadful clichés and stereotypes, the actors speak their lines straight faced and without blinking. The idea of vengeance against descendants isn't exactly groundbreaking either, but at least the film never gets dull or repetitive! Probably thanks to the incredibly cool-looking Baron, whose appearance is indescribably far-out! "Brainiac" is one bizarre horror film - albeit not THE most bizarre ever, like the tagline proudly announces – and the hardcore cult fanatics among us definitely should purchase it.

Here's a zany film that's often considered one of the most enjoyable Mexican horror films for fans of sublime cheese, and it does deliver in the cheesy fun department. Here, Abel Salazar, aka "The Mexican Christopher Lee," is an evil baron in 1661 who is burned alive for his many unspeakable crimes, and vows to return 300 years later when a certain comet reappears. So in 1961 he's back to kill the descendants of his executioners, only for some unexplained reason he has the ability to transform himself into a monster with a huge pulsating rubber head, a long hook nose, and a forked tongue which he uses to suck out his victim's brains. This is all complete and utter nonsense which is extremely low on budget and makes very little sense, but it's entertaining for lovers of this type of offbeat film. **1/2 out of ****

After five relatively straight Mexican horror films - and despite being aware of the camp value of this one - I wasn't prepared for the laugh riot that THE BRAINIAC turned out to be...though, in retrospect, I guess I ought to have known judging from the brief snippets from it in the Eurotika documentary on Mexican horror films (available on the Region 2 Mondo Macabro DVD of EL VAMPIRO [1957])! Its defenders suggest that the film was intended as a spoof; I may agree about that, given the fact that director Urueta had helmed one of the starkest examples of the genre I've seen so far - THE WITCH'S MIRROR (1960) - but that still doesn't explain why it should have been so goofy and nonsensical!! The film's credit sequence utilizes some of the sketches seen in the prologue of THE WITCH'S MIRROR(!), followed by a reasonably atmospheric sorcerer's trial and burning - though even these scenes don't escape hilarity due to the absurdly elongated list of accuses read before the court, the constantly grinning Klansmen-like judges and guards (on whom the Baron eventually plays a childish supernatural prank!), and the outrageous Pope-like costume the victim is made to wear for his execution. The astrology sequences are, again, long-winded yet impossibly naïve (with all the professor's theories, when his assistant looks into the telescope and tells him there's no trace of the comet, the former suggests that its trajectory may be entirely different to his calculations - but, then, it takes the leading lady a split-second to locate it!).The special effects are unbelievably cheesy - especially the stationary comet; even more ridiculous is the monster's make-up with its large pulsating head, pointed nose, forked protruding tongue, long scruffy hair and hose-like fingers (the scene where he swipes the clothes of his first victim and leaves the dead man in his underwear is hilarious)! The Baron returns to Earth obviously to exact revenge on his judges' descendants, though God only knows why he needs to turn into a hideous, brain-draining creature in order to do so - I guess, the film wouldn't have become such a cult item otherwise! - but he occasionally adds new victims (such as the girl in a bar - which we're supposed to believe that it all happens without the other people noticing anything! - and a streetwalker, a scene accompanied by some particularly sleazy jazz music) which, if anything, serve to pad out the running-time (but still amounting to a brief 77 minutes) given the thinness of the plot line! Anyway, the Baron invites all his intended victims to his Gothic mansion - explained by a quick reference to a jewel robbery in a police procedural scene - complete with cadaverous butler (how he knew where to find them, to say nothing of the fact that any of them would accept an invitation from a perfect stranger, I guess, never even crossed the screenwriters' minds!): here we witness another hilarious moment as the faces of the Inquisitors are dissolved onto those of their descendants, presumably for us to note the kinship between them, but this is only apparent in three of the cases - and that's because the same actors are used! So, he insinuates himself into each of their households and, turning into the Brainiac, kills them all - save for the last member, obviously the heroine; another rib-cracking moment occurs here when he excuses himself to his guests (who have come to him rather than the other way around) - sitting on the sofa merely feet away - so as to go to the cupboard where he keeps his supply of brains in a jar and nibble from it (actually, he does this a number of times, on each occasion complaining of an old ailment for which he needs a special medicine!).Comic relief is provided by the clumsy assistant (with a penchant for American slang) of bald-headed cop David Silva; they finally catch up with the fiendish Baron and arrive at his house armed with flamethrowers (one of which refuses to work!) and they fry him - though he never actually catches fire and, when he finally dissolves into a skeleton, parts of his body are inconspicuously missing!! However, for me, these are the five moments in the film which make it a camp classic: Abel Salazar laughing at his accusers in the opening trial sequence, and then turning serious all of a sudden when the Inquisitors throw him a severe look; the rock falling from the sky announcing the arrival of The Brainiac; German Robles' paralyzed look while the monster is feeding on his voluptuous daughter; Rene Cardona's similar gaze - but, this time, he seems to be doing his damnedest to suppress laughter!; and the corpse hanging upside down (face underwater) in the bathtub.The supplements, even more than the other Casanegra releases, impart the fun that the film so obviously provides; as with THE WITCH'S MIRROR, the Audio Commentary itself is a gas - even if, in that film's case, the subtext was discussed as well while it's not here...but that's because there isn't any!! As I had never watched the film before, I couldn't compare it to previous editions; suffice to say that that the transfer isn't problematic save for the very last scene - where, for a couple of minutes, there's the presence of some distracting extraneous flickering (that's how I can best describe it!) that, in all the reviews of the disc I've come across, is mentioned only by DVD Savant.