Rish Outfield's reviews
I find it difficult to believe this was really a movie.
The plot is difficult to even explain, when there is a plot, and after a point, it just becomes a bizarre attempt to confuse us and cause madness in certain audience members. It involves Dr. Martin (Bill Pullman) an eccentric brain surgeon and his manipulative friend (Bill Paxton) who coerces Martin to use his experimental brain surgery on an insane genius (Bud Cort) who holds priceless information in his diseased head. Or is Dr. Martin the insane mental patient?
I love both Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton, and I don't think I've ever confused the two. But I like Paxton just a little bit better. I don't know how or why this movie came about (especially since Beaumont died in 1967), but Julie Corman produced this, if that's a hint. I really don't know. If not for the two sort-of-stars (in ‘89 anyway), this could have been an experiment at some film school. And perhaps it was. This trippy flick felt less structured than The Blair Witch Project, but at least Blair Witch was being ad-libbed as they went along. Who knows, maybe they were doing the same thing with Brain Dead, and simply making the sucker up as they filmed. There were dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams (within dreams within dreams), more so than any I've ever seen before, but it got draining, as I knew each twisted reality wasn't going to be the real reality. And in the end, I didn't really care. It was all as random and senseless as The Star Wars Holiday Special, but with less closure. It was neat to hear a Martini Ranch song during the end credits (tyranist and I are fans of their only close-to-hit "Reach"), but that's really the only thing I liked about the film.
Besides the two Bills.
I'd Recommend It To: Drug users who have ran out of drugs.

The tyranist's thoughts
Rish reviewed this like a decade ago and I'm barely getting to it. Of course, time hasn't changed how bad the movie is. If anything I was disappointed more. I love the Bill's as much as the next man (unless that next man is Rish--I have confused them in the past) and to see something of this incredibly low quality from them, it's just disappointing.
So I was watching Not of This Earth and as is my habit, I checked out the trailers available on the DVD. One of them was for this movie that had the two Bill's and a somwhat interesting premise, as well as some creepy moments. Too bad they didn't make the movie that the trailer was trying to sell.
Normally, I get into the dream/unreality movies more than Rish. I appreciate a good look into the human mind. What makes those movies good is their ability to reveal a truth that ties together the incoherentness of dreams and madness. On the other hand, some people think that to make a movie about dreams and madness things should be completely random and never make sense in the end. To my chagrin it was the latter theory that held sway with the 'filmmakers' in charge of this.
The only added damage I can do is to note that in addition to the complete lack of a coherent plot, the movie is also slow stuffed with more than a few moments of filler and some pretty inept camera wrangling.
So maybe you should avoid this one. Even if you think Traci Elizabeth Lords is trying to sell it to you.