Tuesday, August 8, 2023

The Brain Machine (1972)

Confusing and with a low budget, this is probably not going to go very well.

A group of people (including James Best as a priest) are selected to take part in a mysterious experiment led by Dr Roth (Doug Collins), the purpose of this experiment is never made clear but the fact the previous head of the programme ran away and ended up being executed by government agents does not bode well. 

During the experiment the patients are trapped in a room and then things take a turn for the worse, as the experiment is hijacked by secretive government agents. The patients are driven crazy, and in some cases want to kill...

The film does not make much sense, it probably needed a good edit and a bit of clarity in the plot. The paranoia builds nicely though and psychological terror in the last act is quite effective though but it takes a deal of tedium and many static shots of a swimming pool (for some unexplained reason) to get there. The IBM computer equipment is probably the real star of the film (for me anyway).