Woodyanders Review of Brain Twisters

Brain Twisters (1991)

A hideously lame'n'tame college-set horror slasher wash-out

[2/10 · 27 January 2009]

Driven Dr. Philip Rothman (a hopelessly insipid and less than sinister performance by Terry Lenderee) conducts mind control experiments on students which in turn causes them to become crazy and murderous. Sound good? Well, it sure ain't. For starters, writer/director Jerry Sangiuliano relates the meandering story at an excruciatingly sluggish pace and fails to build even a modicum of tension. Worse yet, the characters are all blah cardboard stereotypes: we've got the shameless slut (Donna Bostany, who at least looks hot) who sleeps with all her professors so she can earn passing grades, the no-nonsense police detective (flatly played by Joe Lombardo) who's determined to solve the case no matter what, and even the obligatory weirdo janitor (Charles Lopresto, who at least looks creepy) who's always lurking around every corner. Adding additional abject insult to already appalling injury are Larry Gelb's annoyingly shrill and redundant shivery synthesizer score, a numbing surplus of tedious talk, infrequent kill scenes, no nudity to speak of, extremely mild and largely bloodless violence, tacky 80's video game-style (far from) special effects, and a dissatisfying limp ending. This movie crucially lacks the necessary energy and sense of misguided enthusiasm to qualify as an enjoyably awful piece of schlock. Instead this flick is about as fun and exciting as watching two elderly turtles copulate. An immensely cruddy and unrewarding stiff.