My Lovely Burnt Brother and His Squashed Brain (1988)

My Lovely Burnt Brother and His Squashed Brain (1988) - Italy
Directed by: Giovanni Arduino

ABOUT THE FILM:

My Lovely Burnt Brother and His Squashed Brain is an Italian horror/comedy film that was created by Giovanni Arduino and Andrea Lioy, under the names "J.J. Hard" and "A.G. Stewart." The movie was made around 1987-1988, when the era of Italian genre films was slowly coming to a halt before fading away in the 90's. This was an era that left behind a treasure trove of Euro horror, gore and giallos (Italian murder mysteries).. and of course this little underground gem.

The story is told through a framing device of a bored customer who rents a tape from his local video store, much to the opposition of the clerk. He takes the tape home and pops it in, and then the real movie begins. We follow Jane, a woman who works at a dentist's office and is constantly being sexually harassed by her patients for being unattractive, and these patients can be pretty ugly towards her. She's even being followed by an annoying and condescending saleswoman trying to sell beauty products, who further lays into Jane for being an "ugly hag."

While at home, Jane has to watch after her brother Bernie, who was left so horribly disfigured from a car accident that he covers his face with a Ku Klux Klan mask. Why? Well.. because the car was black... Yeah. Bernie has been in extreme pain and risks dying unless he can shoot up some more junk. As she is officially fed up with the harassment from clients and the saleswoman and her handicapped brother, she snaps and replaces Bernies's morphine with her own urine. After injecting him, she finds that Bernie begins following her every command, no matter how extreme, and decides she can use Bernie to get bloody revenge against her disreputable clients...

REVIEW:

I remember first hearing about this movie when I was about 13-14 years old and just starting to get into obscure and underground cinema. I found clips of this movie on YouTube and despite the horrific video quality, I found myself quite intrigued by some of the oddities on hand. A handicapped morphine junkie being injected with piss? Said morphine junkie licking his sister's shoes clean and eating his own puke? A death by a dildo to the mouth? I had to see this movie!

After years and years of hunting for a watchable copy of this movie I finally managed to track down an official DVD release, on a compilation called VHS Generation 2. I have never been more happy to see a movie in good shape. The reason why, frankly, is because My Lovely Burnt Brother is one of my all-time favorite underground films and was an incentive for me to seek out more obscure movies..

When it comes to the movie itself, My Lovely Burnt Brother is one of those love it or hate it type of deals. It has everything from gross-out humor, to inventive, over-the-top deaths, really bad and corny jokes, random musical numbers, the list goes on. A lot of people criticize this movie for its humor and for its attempts to shock or to be as politically incorrect as possible, and feel like more could have been done with it. This is a genuine criticism, but in my opinion, it works because it has some bearing on the plot. Every shocking and offensive thing that happens does so for a purpose and has an effect on later events in the movie. However, the story isn't free from error.

In the movie, there is a side-plot about one of the detectives looking into the murders Bernie is committing. She had to give up her life of being a punk rocker to work as a detective, after her cowboy father was killed by ruthless gangsters. While this gives the character some depth, this doesn't have any real bearing on the rest of the plot, and it feels kind of contrived as a result. I feel like it would have worked better if the writer tried to expand upon that idea and make it fit the plot, rather than just using it as a running gag like it is. Aside from that flaw, the movie is decently-paced and the story is pretty easy to follow, although occasionally the story halts for a joke to be made.

Speaking of jokes, a lot of this movie's humor comes from the actors body language. The acting is so over-the-top that it compares to silent-era cinema and to slapstick comedies from the 30's. There isn't an awful lot of dialogue, and there are a lot of scenes that are only accompanied with music, so the actors have to really ham it up. The movie was shot on 16mm film, so all of the audio had to be dubbed in during post. The dialogue is mostly badly dubbed and often times the doesn't even match the actor's mouth, but this just further adds to that cheesy 80's horror feel. I'm also a big fan of the music. Whether you like the movie or not, we can probably agree that this movie has a solid soundtrack, complete with lo-fi horror synth music and grimy punk tunes that fit this movie like a glove. Even the main theme at the opening is pretty cool too! It's not as good as anything from Goblin, but it's still catchy.

On the note of murder scenes, while the movie isn't an absolute gorefest, we get a handful of very fun and memorable splatter scenes, including the dildo death, a face in a deli meat-slicer, death by electric eels, and a nasty forced drug overdose. When I first watched this movie in a 10th generation bootleg state, I was pretty impressed with the gore effects, and even when watching the movie in a very clean state, the effects still hold up! The make-up is very well done and adds to the movie's grindhouse-style feel, in addition to the grainy, damaged film stock.

When all is said and done, I'm just really glad that I watched this movie to begin with, because it was one of my first introductions to this side of cinema and is one of the reasons why I love underground horror. Even if it's sleazy, trashy and in bad taste, it's so much better than the vast majority of the stuff that is being regurgitated by major studios with millions of dollars. This movie continues to remind me of what people with very little money and a camera are capable of making and unleashing on the world, and I'm grateful that this movie exists. If you're a fan of underground trash, obscure Euro horror and cheesy 80's movies then My Lovely Burnt Brother is an absolute must-see!

RELEASES:

According to one of the actors, this movie was never officially released in Italy for decades but was floating around in the underground tape trading scene throughout America. According to co-director Giovanni Arduino, the movie was made as a love-letter to the films of John Waters, and was made with American audiences in mind. It was originally distributed in America by a company called Ark Films, but apparently, most of the bootleg copies floating around are sourced from a tape given to Donald Farmer, another independent filmmaker. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any records of an original VHS and I don't see myself finding one any time soon.

Thankfully, the movie was officially released in 2019, courtesy of Home Movies Italy. The movie came paired with a handful of other shorts, as well as an introduction by director Arduino and also an incredibly rare making-of featurette!

If you want to get a legal copy of this movie, look for VHS Generation 2 on DVD. There aren't any English subs like there are on the bootlegs, but the quality of the print on the DVD and the extras alone make it worth so much more than any crummy bootleg could offer.