Independent New Jersey filmmaker Jim Riffel (Mass of Angels, Black-Eyed Susan) has redubbed The Brain That Wouldn't Die, a campy, low-budget exploitation film released by AIP in 1962. His new film, which he claims cost $99 to produce, is awkwardly titled Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh-Eating, Hellbound, Crawling, Zombified, Living-Dead Part 3. At least I think that's correct (it's doubtful even the producers know for sure as the title changes, perhaps intentionally, from beginning to end).

Riffel is challenging Steven Spielberg's summer blockbuster, War of the Worlds, to a contest of sorts, "to see if a film made for under one hundred dollars can be more entertaining than a film made for $200,000,000." I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that one. I do know I did not enjoy "Night of the Day," and that I likely would have had a better time with Spielberg's sci-fi epic. If David is looking to somehow take down Goliath he ought to come armed with a better movie.

The original plot of The Brain That Wouldn't Die remains pretty much intact here. A woman (Virginia Leith) is decapitated in an auto mishap and her fiancé (Jason Evers) is to blame. Hubby's a surgeon so he rescues the head from the burning wreckage and rushes it back to his lab, where he keeps it alive in a film developing tray. He intends to attach the head to a new body (preferably a hot one) and he cruises the streets looking for a suitable candidate. The movie also features a crippled assistant (Leslie Daniel) and a mutant locked away in a closet, the result of an earlier botched experiment.

Riffel has dubbed all of the dialog, which is predictably juvenile ("Take your brain out of your stink hole and shake the shit out of it"). He has also incorporated lots of cheesy, Howard Stern-like sound effects (farts and the like). And the monster in the closet in his version has been transformed into a potty-mouthed "gangsta" rapper (it should be noted that the movie, which is unrated, contains strong language).

There's also several appallingly unamusing "film breaks." One, shot at a low angle, is of a small dog picking up a bone off a hardwood floor. Another, in two parts no less, features a man who realizes he got the wrong takeout order from a Chinese restaurant ("This is not my Moo Goo Gai Pan"). These bits, unlike the principal story, are shot in color.

With few exceptions, the writing isn't very interesting. And the laughs are sporadic at best. The guys at Mystery Science Theater 3000 really do this sort of thing much better. (In fairness, they have bigger budgets and series creator Joel Hodgson began his career as a stand-up comic.) As I recall, too, the cable TV show didn't dub dialog so much as provide a running commentary.

Redubbing someone else's work, as Riffel has done here, is more problematic. Woody Allen had some success with What's Up, Tiger Lily?, but he had the right kind of property to begin with: an obscure Japanese spy thriller. Riffel, however, isn't afforded that kind of luxury. The seal of doom, then, was applied when he chose a well-known cult film, thereby evoking inevitable comparisons. I, for one, prefer the original.

Contest info:
www.warofthefilms.com

Part II, a redubbed version of Night of the Living Dead credited to Lowell Mason (a pseudonym), was first released in 1991.



Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD