Brainiac (1962 film)

The Brainiac....

Brainiac (1962 film), AKA "El barón del terror", "Baron of Terror",

Summary

"The most bizarre horror movie, ever." A tortured Mexican baron returns 300 years later in the form of a hairy brain-slurper with a long forked tongue to seek brain-eating vengeance on the descendants of his tormentors.

Details

• Release Date: 1962
• Country/Language: Mexico, Spanish (dubbed in English)
• Genres/Technical: Horror, Sci-Fi; black-and-white
• Setting: 1660s Mexico, 1960s Mexico
• Runtime: 1 hr 17 min
• Starring: Abel Salazar, Ariadne Welter, David Silva
• Director: Chano Urueta
• Writer: Federico Curiel & Adolfo López Portillo (story and adaptation)
• Producer/Production Co: Cinematográfica ABSA
• View Trailer: (link)
• IMDB Page: (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: approved (mild Violence, Adult Content)

The Brainiac slurps the brains of trashy ladies of the night, but it's all such schlocky 1960s black-and-white horror silliness, and the monster is so outrageous, I don't think the kiddies will notice the relatively tame violence and trashiness.

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)

You've probably seen the essential plot before in movies that were slightly more Lovecraftian, such as The Haunted Palace (1963 film) and Black Sunday (1960 film), but between the star-gazing necromancer-wizard, the brain-eating monster-in-a-comet, and other wackiness, there's still at least a hint of pulp weirdness going on here.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• Scott Ashlin at 1000 Misspent Hours, (link) - Three Stars; "...The best thing of all is that The Brainiac’s creators treat everything that goes on onscreen as though it were the most natural, obvious, sensible thing in the world. They're not out to dazzle you with the surreal, it just kind of turned out that way...."

Notes

Associated Mythos Elements

• race: Wizard
• race: shape-shifting brain-vampire

Keeper Notes

• The investigators discover that a trail of bodies with missing brains all have one thing in common: they are all descendants of a group of 17th-century witch-hunters cursed to pay for their crimes against a witch they condemned to death through the blood of their descendants upon the return of a strange comet 300 years into the present.