The doctor is back in…  For better or worse.

B-Movie Enema returns with a tale of horror from south of the border!  This little nightmare fever dream of Donald Trump’s is called The Brainiac (also known as El Baron del Terror in its native Spanish).

“So what’s this all about?” you ask?  Based on the poster you have a pretty cool demon-like dude, a woman who was clearly shocked to be told she is in this movie, and what appears to be a couple guys with some flamethrowers.

Flamethrowers?  That sounds freakin’ awesome!  But before we get too excited this might be on the level of a Cannon Films masterpiece (and trust me, we will be getting to some of those before long), I suppose we should check the synopsis, thanks to IMDB (specifically IMDB user Jeremy Lunt):

“In 1661 Mexico, the Baron Vitelius of Astara is sentenced to be burned alive by the Holy Inquisition of Mexico for witchcraft, necromancy, and other crimes.  As he dies, the Baron swears vengeance against the descendants of the Inquisitors.  300 years later, a comet that was passing overhead on the night of the Baron’s execution returns to Earth, bringing with it the Baron in the form of a horrible, brain-eating monster that terrorizes the Inquisitor’s descendants.”

Comets?  Necromancy?  Brain-eating monster?  Other crimes?  Holy shit this sounds fucking awesome!  The hell are we waitin’ for?  Let’s get to it!

Our movie gets started right out of the gate in 1661 with the Baron Vitelius of Astara (played by the smooth Abel Salazar – who also happens to be the producer of this flick, which will be very key to understand as this unfolds) getting inquisitioned(?) by a bunch of television show and commercial announcers.  These hooded guys, with voices of the Superfriends, find the Baron guilty of a bunch of shit which all boils down to witchcraft, heresy, and boning chicks by way of some sort of powers.  The Baron, not to be outdone by these hooded jerkoffs, smiles and chuckles in defiance at their attempts to punish him by way of torture (not sure who the bad guys are supposed to be here, but whatever, the Holy Inquisitors must be good because they are holy or something).

A guy comes forth speak on behalf of the Baron to say he’s a good dude.  However, the guy who came forth gets sent to the torture chamber to get 200 lashes for speaking well of the accused.  Seems like a bit of an overreaction to me, but what do I know?  So they just decide to burn the Baron alive after they take all his possessions away.  The Baron says that if he’s to be burned, he’ll do so without chains and he wishes/conjures/bewitches his shackles away.  I guess that’s a point for the hooded jerks because he clearly pulled some witchy shit there which pretty much proves them right.

Anyway, the Baron burns and he looks over head to see a static drawing of a comet – for real this is a static shot, look at the picture to the left for proof.  Using the comet for… something… power, I guess?… he is able to view the men’s faces under the hoods and curses their ancestors to pay for the judgment they levied on him.  This doesn’t exactly go over well with the guy who spoke up for him as he gives a look of “oh shit, I stood up for this crazy guy…” kind of look.

The years tick away like days off a calendar until we reach 1961.  Mr. Astronomy Guy and his lady, Ms. Lady Friend, are dancing at a real hep and swingin’ joint.  They realize it is 11:45pm and they need to go see a professor at an observatory.  They take their leave from their friends.  Mr. Astronomy Guy tells Professor Man that he’s sorry they are late because they got asked to go out for drinks with friends, but Professor Man says he knew they would be on time.  That’s confusing (one guys says he was late, the other guy says he knew they would be on time), but I’m going to blame this on the translation.

So they talk about recurring comets and Ms. Lady Friend knows about some comets that come around every so often.  Professor Man tells them that the static, cartoony comet that flew over Mexico in 1661 will arrive in their skies at any moment.  Mr. Astronomy Guy doesn’t find the comet right away but sees AMAZINGLY close views of several galaxies as he moves the telescope from the northern view to the southern view.  He doesn’t see anything, so Professor Man declares something has gone wrong – yeah, you let this chump move your damn telescope.  While they do some calculations, Ms. Lady Friend finds that cartoon comet herself.  Professor Man takes credit that his work is going to be worth all his studies (though Ms. Lady Friend actually scored the find itself).

The comet proceeds to turn into a sparkler and a rock falls from it.  Out of the rock comes the most ragged Mexican guy I ever did see.  Er, I mean a demonic version of the Baron emerges.  He finds a poor passerby and sucks his brains out of his skull like a real champ.  He then transforms into his normal looking, smooth ass self wearing the clothes of the guy he sucked off – to death.

Mr. Astronomer Guy and Ms. Lady Friend find the Baron and they exchange a terribly lengthy silence until they start talking.  They make friends with the Baron as they move on looking for the crashed comet.  The Baron makes his way to a bar where he chats up a drunk lady who babbles on about some guy she probably dates or just fucks on the side who is jealous and stuff.  I should also mention he doesn’t chat her up as much as he just stares at her creepily – like how I stare at even, at most, somewhat attractive girls.  The drunk girl even goes so far as to say she isn’t so sure about his staring and that it’s kinda weird, but she also tells him to not stop because she likes it.  This kind of back and forth shit is why I’m single, people. Anyway, he sucks her brains out too.

The guy at the morgue tells detectives that he thinks the guy who is making these perforations on the victims’ skulls must be an expert at anatomy.  While the cops get involved, the Baron goes to an archive to get some more information about those he swore vengeance on.  We learn that he has hypnotic powers as the man at the front desk is quieted by these powers when he tries to tell the Baron the archive is closed.  In the basement, the Baron finds the tombs of each of the Holy Inquisitors.  After visiting the graves, he runs across a woman on the street who he gives a cigarette to, makes out with, and then sucks her brain out.

You see where I’m going with this?  The Baron (our film’s producer), meets a lady, sexes her up, and sucks her brains out.  Sometimes he hypnotizes her.  Sometimes, she’s just down to fuck.  Me?  I’m checking the want ads for producin’ gigs.

Elsewhere, a high society party takes place at the Baron’s home.  This might be the same night as the comet flyover.  This might be weeks or months or even years later.  Anyway, as each guest arrives, the Baron sees the descendants of those who burned him for being an A-1 super cool ass guy in 1661.  Unfortunately, we learn that Ms. Lady Friend is one of the descendants.  Mr. Astronomy Guy turns out to be the descendant of the guy who spoke up for the Baron.  Professor Man is a nobody.  Just some fuckin’ nerd – at least in the context of this revenge scheme.

The police come hoping to find the guy who is killing these people by sucking out the victims’ brains.  They are also looking for a guy who stole a bunch of money and jewels which I think we’re supposed to believe is the Baron because one of the dead girls he sexed up and sucked out was found near the burgled building.

After the party, the Baron speaks to one of the descendants about the Holy Inquisition.  The Baron sees the guy’s daughter and gets a his suckin’ demon rocks off and hypnotizes the daughter to make her kinda slutty in front of her dad.  The Baron kills her while freezing her dad in place before killing him too and burning down their place.  Have I mentioned that this is the producer of the film who is getting to romance all these sexy actresses?

Professor Man, who is trying to figure out why they were the only ones who saw the comet, along with Mr. Astronomer Guy and Ms. Lady Friend find reference to the 1661 comet and a sorcerer.  Meanwhile, the Baron tracks down his next victims and, guess what…  He has his way with the guy’s wife, and sucks their brains out.  Astronomy Guy, after reading about the latest deaths, tries to become Lt. Detective Dude and states he thinks the Baron is some bad business until Ms. Lady Friend tells him to stop with this nonsense and get back to being Mr. Astronomy Guy.

The cops go to speak to the Baron about the victims, but the Baron plays it off super cool-like.  He even mentions that he wishes to send his condolences, but the cops tell him there’s no one left in those families to send the condolences to (meaning the Baron is getting the job done against his enemies).  After a brief encounter with Astronomer Guy, the Baron realizes his intentions may be getting discovered, but that doesn’t stop him from killing a couple more people – though, surprisingly, we are spared the lady sexin’.  Maybe the producer just wasn’t as much into that actress in this scene.

Once the cops figure out the connection between the Baron, the dead people, and the ancestors, they realize that Ms. Lady Friend is next on his list.  The Baron has invited her and Mr. Astronomy Guy to his home with a promise of having info about the comet they were not able to find with Professor Man.  The Baron takes her to another room leaving Astronomy Guy the opportunity to snoop around and find a bowl of brains the Baron uses to work his magic.  Meanwhile, the Baron professes his love for Ms. Lady Friend, but says his hate is too powerful for his love.  I have to admit, this is kind of a twist.  The Baron has not really shown to like Lady Friend at all.  I mean we know he likes the ladies, but this business here is all new.

Ultimately the cops defeat the Baron with a pair of fucking flamethrowers!

Overall, this isn’t all that bad of a movie.  It’s not great, but it’s far from terrible.  It’s a fun little trip to Mexico to see their horror.  What I have seen in many instances is that they like to use demonic looking creatures as their monsters.  Probably the Catholic in them.  I have to say I envy the hell out of Abel Salazar for how much strange he apparently could get.  Then again, I guess when you are producing the movie you are starring in, you’re going to do quite well.

It’s a quick 76 minutes, but that is just one of the two major complaints I have.  If this could be a full 80 or 90 minutes, it probably would have helped to connect some dots.  Scenes come and go with no real connective tissue except there’s a monster chasing down descendants of the people who killed said monster originally.  It’s like kids wrote it because it is a very segmented “and then” script.

And then the comet lands.

And then a monster comes out.

And then the monster knows everyone.

And then the monster kills everyone.

And then flamethrowers!

Which brings me to my second issue with the movie.  Mr. Astronomy Man, for 70+ minutes, was set up to be the superhero of the day.  His girl was in trouble, so you’d naturally think he’d be the guy who’d toast the shit out of the demon guy.  That’s not the case AT ALL.  The two cops we barely knew nor barely cared about, who just happened to find some dead bodies pieced the whole thing together, barged in literally during the final minute of the movie and flamethrowered the fucker to death.

Mr. Astronomy Man does nothing as a hero.  He gets the girl, so I guess that’s something.  It does kinda line up with the last time I was involved in a situation that included a flamethrower and a Baron.  I only won the opportunity to answer the police’s questions.  I was not awarded with a girl at the end of the whole ordeal.