The Brainiac

The idea of combining the horror of the Holy Inquisition with “close encounters of the third kind” is insane on the face of it. Add to that the fact that the visitor shows up with a “Feast of Fools” mask complete with an elongated forked tongue perfect for sucking out a poor victim’s “cephalic matter” through two small perforations at the base of the skull, and the absurdity level rachets up enough to qualify this movie for inclusion into the annals of trash cinema.

But what really makes this early 1960s Latin-American madness irresistible is how it takes itself so damned seriously. The indefatigable Chano Urueta, veteran director “par excellence” of Mexican genre films, steers clear of humor with conviction, and except for an assistant police investigator who provides some comic relief (he’s a virtual vending machine of sad quips), the cast falls in line, acting like they’re on the set of a straight-laced historical drama.

To a certain degree, the unintentional humor perennially waiting in the wings fosters the story which flows along pleasantly enough, while its unparalleled weirdness sweeps you away. Among the genuinely amusing scenes, we’d mention the baron flashing dirty looks at his clueless party guests as they arrive, the frantic look on poor Pantoja’s face when he sees the improbable creature, Professor Millán desperately flipping through papers in a vain search for information about the recent astronomical event, and the police bursting in “Ghostbusters”-style at the end.