Something has gotten into their brains!

I happened to get the 1981 film Strange Behavior and the 1988 film Brain Damage on DVD in the same week. Since they both have to do with people being mind-fucked in the 80s, I thought I’d blog about them together.

Strange Behavior

First we have Disturbing Behavior…I mean…Strange Behavior. The opening scene of a dude alone in his house when the lights go out definitely sets up a creepy and shocking atmosphere, but we’re immediately left wondering why we get to see the killer’s face. That all becomes clear as the film progresses.

When the next scene shows an older man shaving and a younger man with a phenomenal ass walking into the bathroom naked, I was sure I was witnessing a spring/fall gay romance. Then it we learn the older guy is the younger guy’s daddy. Like, really. His biological father.

Soon after, we get this INSANE dance montage to Lou Christie’s” Lightning Strikes” at a party. This is the strangest behavior in the whole movie (besides that grown-kid-walks-around-naked-in-front-of-his-father thing).

There are a couple of kill highlights in the movie. The first involves a couple in a car and someone in a creepy Uncle Fester-like mask.

It would have been amazing if that was the killer’s look for the whole film, but it isn’t. Then we get an awesome bathroom scene with some serious grisly gore—but no Uncle Fester mask. These are by far the two highlights of the movie.

Like the movie Disturbing Behavior that would come years later, Strange Behavior isn’t really a “slasher” flick. It’s a more complex story of teens gone wild. But why? Does Louis Fletcher know? Because let’s face it. Whenever Louis Fletcher is in a horror flick, she’s usually up to no good….

Brain Damage

From Frank Henenlotter, the man who brought us Basket Case and Frankenhooker, comes another sleazy 80s flick. A really cute dark-haired 80s guy gets a phallic parasite that injects him with a neon blue “feel good” drug…and demands blood in return.

There are oodles of revolting gore situations—some of them coupled with sexual situations—as this essentially strung out kid and his penis parasite go looking for things to munch on. A chick he picks up in an alley gets more than she bargained for when she drops to her knees.

Our leading cutie watches a meaty muscle hunk shower, and it’s seriously just like a scene from a gay porn, with soap sliding down the hunk’s back and crack before he turns around to suds up those bulging round pecs.

Brain Damage is as twisted, wacky, and trippy as Henenlotter’s other films. It’s not a scarefest—it’s a dark comic gross-out fest. So if that’s your thing, have a look. And keep an eye out for a cameo by brothers Duane and Belial!!!