A baron burned at the stake in 1661 returns to life in 1961, reincarnating as a brain-sucking monster in this Mexican horror film.
Hooded guys from the Inquisition accuse a baron of ‘practicing witchcraft and necromancy in a clumsy fashion’, and he’s condemned to torture. A dude wearing pantaloons speaks on behalf of the Baron, which annoys the Inquisitors and they sentence Mr. Pantaloons to 200 lashes, which seems rude.
Suddenly, the Baron makes his balls disappear, oops, I mean he causes his balled shackles to disappear from his legs and reappear on his guard’s legs which still seems to be just as alarming no matter how I reword it, and then the Baron is burned at the stake as a poorly photographed drawing of a comet passes overhead. He casts a hex on the judges, and threatens to exterminate their lineage in 300 years, which seems oddly specific, but I’ll let it slide since he was busy being burned alive.
Forward to 1961, and a couple drives out to a backdrop of a photograph of an observatory to gaze upon the reappearance of the 1661 comet, and they talk about aphelions and perihelions for about forever, and it isn’t very interesting. After using the telescope to search through the constellations Andromeda and Orion’s Belt, they finally find the comet, and it was hovering above the city the whole time. After it sparkles like a firework, it lands with a thud on the Earth and you can see the string. The comet changes into a monster that looks a little like a hairy Keebler elf with a pulsating face and a forked tongue. The monster slowly chases a guy through some sparse, unconvincing brush that’s reminiscent of the kind of foliage that populates the films of Ed Wood, and the monster kills the guy by jamming its forked tongue into his brain. As the guy dies, his suit disappears, leaving his corpse on the ground in his boxer shorts. I’m not sure why. The monster changes into the Baron, and the Baron stands in front of a rear projection of a sunset for some reason wearing the dead guy’s suit.
Suddenly, the Baron walks slowly toward a backdrop of a nightclub, and he puts the “Netflix and chill” move on a woman sipping brandy. He hypnotizes her, which means someone off camera blinks a light in the Baron’s eyes with bongo accompaniment, then he changes into the monster and sucks out her ‘encephalic masses’. Afterward, guys in fedoras examine corpses in a morgue, talk about bank robberies, and smoke.
After walking slowly toward a matte painting of a colonial monument, the Baron goes downstairs and reads from a 300-year old book without really looking at it, then heads into an unconvincing crypt. Later that night, he stands in front of a rear projection of a funeral home, then eats the brains of a hooker. The next morning, someone in a coffeeshop eats pastries and brain tacos.
Suddenly, the Baron throws a really fancy boring dinner party, then sneaks away to delicately eat brains from a gigantic, ornate chalice that he keeps locked up in a wooden bookcase that he unlocks without really unlocking it, and I’m not sure if Martha Stewart would approve of storing your appetizers in that manner, considering the botulism risk and all. Then the Baron changes into the monster, eats some of his guests’ brains, and throws newspapers at their corpses.
More brain-sucking happens for about forever, than the movie ends about a month later after an inexplicable but should-have-seen-it-coming flame-thrower ending.
The Brainiac is pretty boring, seems longer than a 76-minute runtime, and doesn’t meet minimum requirements for safe food handling and service. However, it does have a brain-sucking monster with a hideous, pulsating face. It’s mildly recommended if you like stuff that sucks (pun intended).
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