Search - Brain of Blood on DVD

It's a John Ashley Shag-A-Thon...

cookieman108 | Inside the jar... | 06/07/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Drinking your own blood is the paradigm of recycling." - Gary `Head Injury' Busey "I'm with Busey" (2003)

Producer/Distributor extraordinaire Sam Sherman and Image Entertainment have teamed up to present The Blood Island Vacation package, an awesoma DVD set of four Filipino produced, hemoglobin drenched, drive-in classics at one heck of a nice price...here's what you get...

Brides of Blood (1968)

Directed by Eddie Romero (Mad Doctor of Blood Island, Beast of the Yellow Night), Brides of Blood (1968) and featuring Kent Taylor (The Day Mars Invaded Earth, The Mighty Gorga, Hell's Bloody Devils), former stripper Beverly Hills aka Beverly Powers (Kissin' Cousins, Invasion of the Bee Girls), and John Ashley (Muscle Beach Party, The Eye Creatures, Beast of Blood), the film involves various, mutated creatures terrorizing natives on a place called Blood Island. Extras included are as follows; a short audio commentary track featuring distributor Sam Sherman, an interview with director Eddie Romero, an original Brides of Blood wedding ring giveaway promo, a "House of Terror" live horror show promo, a Beverly Hills pinup gallery, a Blood Island image gallery, liner notes by Jim Arena, a Brides of Blood essay by Christopher William Koenig, and a trailer for this film, along with ones for Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Beast of Blood (1971), Brain of Blood (1972), Blood of the Vampires (1971), The Blood Drinkers (1966), and Raiders of the Living Dead (1986).


Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968)

Produced and directed by Eddie Romero (Brides of Blood, Beast of the Yellow Night, Beast of Blood), the film stars John Ashley (High School Caesar, Beach Blanket Bingo, Beast of Blood) and Angelique Pettyjohn ("Get Smart", Clambake). Ashley plays a scientist (not the same one from Brides of Blood), who visits Blood Island and finds himself caught up in some nasty business as a deranged scientist on the island is performing hideous experiments involving green blood. Extras include a short audio commentary track featuring distributor Sam Sherman, an interview with director Eddie Romero, an original Mad Doctor of Blood Island `green blood' prologue bit, a "House of Terror" live horror show promo, a still gallery, liner notes by Jim Arena, a Mad Doctor of Blood Island essay by Christopher William Koenig, and a trailer for this film, along with ones for Brides of Blood (1968), Beast of Blood (1971), Brain of Blood (1972), Blood of the Vampires (1971), The Blood Drinkers (1966), and Raiders of the Living Dead (1986).


Beast of Blood (1972)

Produced, co-written, and directed by Eddie Romero (Mad Doctor of Blood Island, Brides of Blood, Beast of the Yellow Night), the film features John Ashley (High School Caesar, Muscle Beach Party, Hell On Wheels) and Celeste Yarnall (The Face of Eve, The Velvet Vampire). Ashley reprises his role from Mad Doctor of Blood Island returning to the island to discover the evil that had thought been destroyed is still thriving. Extras included are as follows; a short audio commentary track featuring distributor Sam Sherman, an interview with director Eddie Romero, an interview w/ Celeste Yarnell conducted by Sam Sherman, a `lost' opening sequence, a "House of Terror" live horror show promo, a still gallery, liner notes by Jim Arena, a Beast of Blood essay by Christopher William Koenig, and a trailer for this film, along with ones for Brides of Blood (1968), Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Brain of Blood (1972), Blood of the Vampires (1971), The Blood Drinkers (1966), Raiders of the Living Dead (1986), and Horror of the Blood Monster (1970).


Brain of Blood (1972)

Co-produced and directed by Al Adamson, the film features Kent Taylor (Brides of Blood, Satan's Sadists), Grant Williams (The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Monolith Monsters), the colossal (7'4") John Bloom (Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Bachelor Party), Regina Carrol (Blood of Ghastly Horror, Doctor Dracula), Vicki Volante (Hell's Bloody Devils, Horror of the Blood Monsters), Reed Hadley (The St. Valentine's Day Massacre), and the diminutive (2'11) Angelo Rossitto (Mesa of Lost Women, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome), this feature has nothing in terms of relation to the three other films in this set other than the fact they were all distributed by Sam Sherman through his Independent-International Pictures, Inc. film company. This film involves a sickly Middle Eastern dictator arranging to have his brain transplanted to another body, and a certain amount of wackiness ensues... extras included are as follows; a short audio commentary track featuring distributor Sam Sherman, an interview with director Eddie Romero, an interview with Beverly Powers, a "House of Terror" live horror show promo, a Blood Island still gallery, liner notes by Jim Arena, and a trailer for this film, along with ones for Brides of Blood (1968), Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Beast of Blood (1971), Blood of the Vampires (1971), The Blood Drinkers (1966), Raiders of the Living Dead (1986), and Horror of the Blood Monster (1970).

As far as the picture quality on the four DVDs, they're all in full screen (1.33:1) aspect ratio and all look very decent. There are some obvious age elements (white specking, the occasional vertical line), but the colors are bright and sharp, and the overall quality is superior to any VHS copies of the films you may seen in the past. Also, each has audio presented in Dolby Digital mono audio, which also comes through well. As far as the actual films go, I'd rank Brides of Blood and Mad Doctor of Blood Island among the best here, with Beast of Blood following a close 2nd, while Brain of Blood comes in a very distant 3rd. One last note, distributor Sam Sherman does provide audio commentaries on each of the DVDs, but they're not so much specific to the film rather than to an overall history of the films and his experiences, and they don't tend to run the length of the films.

Cookieman108
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"Someday I'll teach my secret to others in a country control

cookieman108 | Inside the jar... | 06/07/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Presented for your viewing displeasure is Brain of Blood (1972), yet another steaming, brown nugget of excremental joy from Al Adamson, that renown purveyor of fine cinematic scuzz, the same individual who inflicted such atrocities as Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970), Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971), I Spit on Your Corpse! (1974), and Blazing Stewardesses (1975) upon unsuspecting drive-in movie patrons back in the day. Co-produced and directed by Adamson, the film features Kent Taylor (Brides of Blood, Satan's Sadists), Grant Williams (The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Monolith Monsters), the colossal (7'4") John Bloom (Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Bachelor Party), Regina Carrol (Blood of Ghastly Horror, Doctor Dracula), Vicki Volante (Hell's Bloody Devils, Horror of the Blood Monsters), Reed Hadley (The St. Valentine's Day Massacre), and the diminutive (2'11) Angelo Rossitto (Mesa of Lost Women, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome), probably best known for his role as Angeleno from the classic Tod Browning horror feature Freaks (1932).

The film begins with an establishing shot of the Taj Mahal, and we learn the leader, named Abdul Amir (Hadley), of some Middle Eastern country is dying (seems the `uranium' treatments have failed). Amir, not wanting to go out like that, makes plans with his physician Dr. Robert Nigserian (Williams) and his girlfriend Tracey (Carrol) that after his death, his corpse is to be secretly taken to America where another doctor by the name of Lloyd Trenton (Taylor) will surgically remove his brain and transplant it into a suitable host body. Once this is done, Amir's new body will undergo plastic surgery to make it look more like the Amir of old, after which he will then return and re-assume control of his country. Well, Amir does croak, and his body is wrapped in tin foil making him look much like a giant Jiffy Pop bag of popcorn. He's flown to the states and Dr. Trent, with the help of his dwarf assistant Dorro (Rossitto), a sadistic little schmuck, and Nigserian, perform the brain-ectomy. Things seem to be going according to plan until Dr. Trent's hulking, simple-minded, facially disfigured assistant Gor (Bloom) returns with a damaged host body, forcing Dr. Trent to improvise (due to the fact brains, outside of the body, only last so long), and by `improvise' I mean he puts Amir's brain into Gor's body, the intent being to transfer Amir's brain at a later date into a more suitable host body. The operation's a success, but, as you might imagine, Amir isn't too pleased with his new digs when he awakens...not only that, but complications set in as a sinister plot against Amir is uncovered. From here the story quickly devolves as a number of various elements are thrown in, including, but not limited to, the escape of a woman (Volante) Dr. Trenton kept in his dungeon beneath his laboratory for the purposes of drawing blood for his experiments. Mystery! Intrigue! Drama! It's all here (sort of), if you're willing to wade through the often unintelligible mire that comprises most of the film...

If you've ever experienced an Al Adamson film, then you'll know they rarely make sense for more than ten minutes at a time given Al's tendency to present various plot points and characters with little or no proper introduction. One minute you're with a couple of familiar characters and the next you're watching characters you've never met, doing things that seem to have no discernable relation to the story as presented. An example of this is near the beginning as we see Gor stalking a cat burglar. We later learn he was out looking for a suitable donor body, under Trenton's command, for Amir's body, but there was never any set up for this, so it seemed completely odd and unconnected at the time. Another example was during a flashback when we witnessed how Gor's face got to be the way it was (an unfortunate incident with some battery acid). There really was little point in detailing this, other than an opportunity to show someone getting battery acid dumped on his face. While Brain of Blood is confusing, it actually wasn't as bad as some of Adamson's other films as I was able to follow a good deal of the story, what of it there was...essentially the movie shoots its plot wad early on, and the rest is pretty much downhill from there (the last fifteen minutes or so are of people chasing each other around like a bunch of idiots in California's Topanga Canyon). What's sad is the core idea, a sickly Middle Eastern despot trying to cheat death by means of a brain transplant, had a lot of promise, but in trying to create a viable story around the concept, the writers failed miserably. I did learn a number of things from this film, including the following;

1. The human brain, when removed from the cranium and put into a bowl, looks a lot like three cow brains mashed together.
2. Acting abilities are inconsequential when you're married to the director (I'm talking about Ms. Carrol here).
3. There seems to be an unwritten law that mad scientists must employ physically odd assistants, be it sadistic dwarfs or facially disfigured, simple-minded giants (or both, as is the case here).
4. I wouldn't have thought there a worse actor than Ms. Carrol, that was until I saw Angelo Rossitto in this film.
5. Vicki Volante was a fabulous babe (I have a thing for women with black hair).
6. Corpses can be kept fresh in tin foil.
7. The human head is full of red paint.
8. Having a dwarf for an assistant may seem cool, that is unless they're so short that they can barely reach anything above three and a half feet in height.
9. Having a dungeon underneath your laboratory comes in real handy, especially when you need a place to discard your brainless cadavers.
10. White Nehru suits were considered fashionable at some point in the past.

There are some positive aspects to this feature...I thought the laboratory was made up well, with lots of realistic electronic type gizmos. It wasn't anything overly elaborate, but it worked well enough for this film. The brain removal bit looked phony, but kinda cool, nonetheless. There was an exciting, yet pointless, car chase sequence included, one that ended in a spectacular crash...what was so odd about this was there were four guys in a station wagon being chased by one guy in a sedan. Instead of stopping and all four guys getting out and pounding on the one guy chasing them, they allowed themselves to be pursued and eventually forced off a cliff...idiots...also, I dig the DVD cover art. All in all there is some fun to be had here, especially if you love rotten drive-in features from the 1970s, but if you're looking for something a bit more substantial, keep on looking...

The restored picture, presented in fullscreen (1.33:1) format, on this Image Entertainment release looks very good. It does show signs of aging (some lines, white specking, etc.). The Dolby Digital mono audio comes through very well. As far as extras included, there's a short audio commentary track featuring distributor Sam Sherman, an interview with director Eddie Romero, an interview with Beverly Powers, a "House of Terror" live horror show promo, a Blood Island still gallery, liner notes by Jim Arena, and a trailer for this film, along with ones for Brides of Blood (1968), Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Beast of Blood (1971), Blood of the Vampires (1971), The Blood Drinkers (1966), Raiders of the Living Dead (1986), and Horror of the Blood Monster (1970). It should be noted that some of the extras, specifically the interviews with Eddie Romero and Beverly Powers, featured here do not related to this movie, but to movies from the `Blood Island' trilogy of films, and were just thrown on here to flesh out the release.

Cookieman108

By the way, if you're interesting in getting this DVD release, I'd suggest trying to find the four DVD set titled The Blood Island Vacation, released by Image Entertainment, which includes the following...Brides of Blood (1968), Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Beast of Blood (1971), and Brain of Blood (1972). It appears significantly less expensive than buying the titles separately.
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Al Adamson strikes again

Kevin P. Coon | Twin Falls, Idaho USA | 01/29/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is another in a long line of films made by the late great Al Adamson. The story is about a scientist who transplants the brain of a dying leader of a foreign country into the body of his hulking mentally retarded helper. You get a lot of gory brain surgery footage and a really mixed up plot involving government cover up's, sadism, spies, torture, and chained women. The cast is very good it includes Kent Taylor, Regina Carroll (Al's Wife), John Bloom and Grant Williams.
I happen to like Adamson's films a lot and this is really no better or worse than any of them. If you like verteran actors playing monsters and dress up, you'll like this film."